While everyone is going crazy over AI, I’m building my alternative to WordPress VIP

It’s not that I’m not fascinated by AI as well, but I have substantial experience in professional development with WordPress-related projects.

Everyone knows about this CMS, which can even be considered a framework for creating “not just blogs.” But not everyone knows that the creators of this open-source project also have a paid version, which profits from managing infrastructure or, more simply, from hosting and support.

Even fewer people know that they also have a premium version—https://wpvip.com/, which among other things, offers unique code solutions that are not available in the free open-source core, along with hosting and scaling projects in the cloud.

I’ve never been a client of either the paid or premium subscriptions myself. However, in recent years, I’ve worked for large companies that create complex WordPress sites for themselves, which is essentially similar to the types of tasks solved for clients by the premium version of WordPress.

What exactly is this premium WordPress?

Let me try to explain why would some order an online store for a 1000$, while others spend thousands monthly on WordPress developers for their site, and even more on infrastructure.

There have been plenty of articles written about how “the cheap end up paying twice”, but that’s not entirely the point here. For 1000$, you can indeed get a workhorse (and for even less). This price becomes possible because you don’t need to develop the engine from scratch, or design from scratch, or reinvent the wheel – ready-made design systems are used, where only the colors, fonts, and sizes are slightly tweaked to give them unique looks, on top of a free and accessible engine with feature-rich modules for any taste.

However, this flexibility and affordability come with technical limitations – your code might require more powerful computers to run, extra functionality that you don’t want may be enabled by default (even if it’s not needed), and certain high-efficiency solutions simply aren’t available because they can’t support such flexibility.

If a project is assembled from ready-made modules by a marketer or designer, and the client perhaps accepts it based on appearance, neither the client nor the seller may fully understand how the technical part of the project works. For example, if you’ve ever accepted a site for your business, tell me how often have you conducted load testing during the acceptance? How about the convenience of deployment processes?

Again, let me clarify – I’m not criticizing this; it’s a normal occurrence that happens everywhere. Even I pick products in the store based on how their packaging looks. My wife, on the other hand, reads the ingredients and looks for farm-sourced products. After this analogy, I’m sure it’s clear where I’m going with this.

When buying based on appearance, people often don’t consider that a website is an application that runs on a computer. And thus to run it for many users at the same time, you either need a good computer or a good code.

Try running several video games at once, opening multiple browsers, or loading your computer’s resources in other ways. Does it lag?

Even a good computer has its limits, which is why it’s important that applications, including websites, are resource-efficient and fast.

When there are a lot of users – even with highly optimized sites – companies do spend money on powerful servers and constantly develop new features. Without code optimization, the expenses might sky rocket.

So with a premium WordPress, companies get both a fast frontend and backend on optimized servers, each with support. And this is only a part of what the premium package offers.

The cost of WordPress VIP starts at $25,000 per year.

Why this long introduction?

Because I’ve dealt with all these aspects as a technical lead in large companies, gained immense experience, and achieved really cool results. Some of the features I implement you won’t even find in WordPress VIP.

I know how to optimize the backend, how to make the frontend fast, how to integrate them seamlessly, how to prepare servers specifically optimized for WordPress web applications, and how to design the architecture so that routine frontend and backend development can be efficiently handed off to mid-level and junior developers. I also know how to make the admin panel comfortable for content managers and much more.

I’ve compiled my knowledge into code and processes in a project called WP BOX. It doesn’t include support and hosting though, it costs only $120 per year, yet its value can reach $18,000 if you aim to achieve these technical characteristics on your own.

Additionally, I believe WP BOX will be interesting in the following cases:

• If you’re a marketer or designer ready to dive a bit into code, with WP BOX your projects will reach a new level.
• If you’re a frontend developer, your projects might benefit from a premium-level fast backend.
• If you’re a backend developer, you can leverage numerous fast frontend templates with high performance metrics.
• If you’re a development team manager, the processes implemented in the project will enable faster iterations—within seconds, the project can be deployed and worked on, both by a new team member and during presentations.