Using WordPress to Build Web Apps

[FreeMan]

For any of you thinking of building a web app, you may want to consider WordPress for your development platform.

WordPress is normally associated with blogs and websites, but in the last year or so, there's been more talk in the WordPress community about using it as an application platform. Matt Mullenweg (creator of WordPress) mentioned it in their most recent 'State of the Word' that the next release (3.7) will be application focused.

I haven't created a WordPress web app myself, but I have come across some interesting examples such as Happy Tables, Clickbank Powered, and Hello Bar. While WordPress won't be suitable for all applications, it has a lot of things you would want out of the box (user management, log in authentication, managing data and views).

I'm not a developer so I'm sure I'll get flak from professional developers about this, but using WordPress seems appealing because it's possible create an MVP with some plugins (and no coding) to store your custom data (Types & Views for custom post types) and to display your custom forms/fields (Gravity Forms). And the pool of available plugins and developers who know WordPress is pretty massive too. So you don't have to start from scratch each time and should save some development time & cost.

Chris Lema has a number of blog posts about this topic. And if you Google "wordpress application framework", there's a bunch of articles on this (as well as some counter-arguments).

Has anyone used or has looked into using WordPress to develop a web app?

 

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[exige]

I've used WordPress extensively as an end-user, customized it a bit, and have thought about it as an app platform, but its (PHP etc) not what I really know for doing development. That said, this sounds like it could be a good opportunity for an info product.

- Create an app on top of WordPress and document the process, take lots of notes, what worked, what didn't work, 3rd party resources, etc. Or gather the data by interviewing those who have or other research.
- Create an e-book
- Create a membership site
- Give people who buy the e-book free N months access to the membership site and give them coaching etc.
- Create a series of video training for the membership site

Needs more validation but seems like perhaps an opportunity.

 

[FreeMan]

sounds like it could be a good opportunity for an info product

Good suggestion. I had thought of something along those lines as well.