After the news broke that WordPress and Tumblr would be selling users' data to train AI tools (404 Media) I decided to start looking for a new CMS to migrate my sites to. While I didn't use Automattic's hosted WordPress (WordPress.com) and instead the self-hosted, open source WordPress (WordPress.org), I've been generally unhappy with WP for a long time, and I certainly do not support their decision.

Without going into much detail, here's a list of the CMS software that I tried this week:

• ClassicPress - I've used it in the past. It's a fork of WP with the crap removed. The issue is, it's still based on WP, and I really just wanted a clean break.
• Automad - Flat file CMS
• Bludit - Anther flat file CMS
• CMS Made Simple
• Fork
• Known
• MODX
• vvvweb - CMS with a visual page builder and ecommerce.

After that exciting week I opted to go with Bludit ... for now. It was the easiest CMS to make both a blog and add static pages to. It had themes that will work pretty well out of the box for both my personal blog and my business blog.

But, I really like the idea of vvveb. I do plan on keeping an install of it around, and testing it more. It may be a great platform to someday use for business, and even offer to other businesses.

While playing with CMSes for a business project (I broke Drupal a lot) I settled into Grav with the Helium theme (which uses the Gantry framework.) I'm really digging the fact that it's a flat file CMS and I can write my posts in markdown right on my web server.