I first played with Statamic a few years ago. However, I wasn't really committed to it and didn't spend enough time to really get a feel for it. I initially dismissed it and went back to whatever I was using at the time, which was probably WordPress. Ughh!
I eventually moved away from WordPress and redesigned/built my site with Jekyll, a static site generator written in Ruby. I've built several sites using Jekyll and it's always been a solid experience. Jekyll is predictable, reliable, and has powerful features. But for the purposes of blogging, it's always been a bottleneck for me. Every time I wanted to post something, I had to fire up its dev environment to write and preview my post to make sure it would render properly. Context switching is a productivity killer. Having to switch from one dev environment to another in order to publish was discouraging, to say the least. It got annoying, really quick.
Fast-forward a few years. After I saw Justin Jackson's new site built on Statamic, I was inspired to give Statamic another look. Being a Laravel developer also made me curious to check it out, naturally. But this time I was intentional about learning more, how it works, and how to do things "the Statamic way." And it paid off. I love Statamic, its powerful features, friendly community, and culture. I've been able to get help from friendly people in the Statamic community, which includes the very folks who make Statamic, Jack, Jason, and Jesse.
As I write these words from the comfort of the awesome UI in Control Panel, I'm really happy with my decision to redesign and rebuild my site with Statamic. I'm looking forward to continue working with it and learning about it more in depth. Statamic is delightful.
Things I like about Statamic
These are just a few of the thnigs I like about Statamic:
Flexibility
One of the things I like the most about Statamic, is that I'm free to design and create the site however I want, from scratch, using the tools I want to use. Then, if I'm creating a site for a client (or even for myself) I can hook up the parts of the site I want to be editable via Control Panel. I don't have to fight with the CMS to get something done. Statamic enables me and empowers me to get things done efficiently.
Powerfull Templating
The Antlers templating language is extremely powerful. Statamic also supports the Laravel Blade templating system. But when in Statamic, do Statamic things. Using the Antlers templating system gives me comfort in knowing I can accomplish virtually anything I want within the CMS.
Excellent Control Panel
The Control Panel allows you maintain the site and/or provide access to a client via a modern, convenient UI. The Updater feature allows you to easily upgrade when a new version of Statamic is available (or downgrade if you need to) It's amazingly easy to use, convenient, and reliable. As the site administrator, you have access to virtually every setting in Statamic, including Pages, Collections, Tags, Assets, Forms, Users, and more.
Modern Codebase
Statamic is written in Laravel, the powerful, and modern PHP framework by Taylor Otwell. Need I say more? A modern codebase for modern times. A a Laravel developer myself, this is just perfect.
Great Support
The community, and the creators of Statamic: Jack, Jesse, and Jason are always there to help. I've been able to have all my questions answered by the community and these fine gentlemen. It feels great to know there's great support out there.
Ok, this "quick" update is getting too long.
Later!