I’ve been thinking about this lately and wanted to get everyone’s opinion. If someone gave you the task of creating a brand new content management system from the ground up, specifically targeting today’s developers, which WordPress features would you completely ignore?
I’m talking about things that might have made sense years ago but now just feel like unnecessary baggage. Maybe the shortcode system that everyone seems to struggle with? Or those old widget areas that never quite work right? What about some of the newer stuff like the Site Editor that still feels unfinished?
I’m really curious to hear what features you think developers actually need versus what’s just old code that nobody wants to deal with anymore. What would make your ideal modern CMS?
The widget system needs to die. I’ve wasted hours trying to get widgets working across themes - it’s always a nightmare. The customizer feels clunky too. Made sense when themes were simple, but now it just blocks proper dev workflows. I’d also ditch the built-in user roles. Too rigid for modern apps. Most projects need custom capabilities anyway, so why not build something flexible from day one? And multisite? Kill it. Adds massive complexity for maybe 5% of users. A modern CMS should nail core content management instead of trying to be everything to everyone.
trackbacks and pingbacks are basically spam magnets at this point - should’ve been killed off years ago. the revision system’s bloated too, storing every tiny draft change and eating up database space for nothing. we’ve got git for version control anyway, so why duplicate it? and don’t get me started on those admin meta boxes - they’re a nightmare to customize properly.
I’d scrap the entire PHP template hierarchy. After working with headless CMSs and modern frameworks, WordPress’s theme structure with all those template files feels ancient. The functions.php file and hook system just creates messy code that’s a nightmare to maintain. I’d also dump the built-in comment system. Most sites either turn off comments or use Disqus anyway. The native commenting is more of a security risk than anything useful. The media library needs to go too, not just get updated. It’s clunky with modern image formats and responsive images. A decent CMS should handle asset optimization and delivery without needing a dozen plugins to make it work right.