Why this instead of contributing to Wordpress?

[peq42]

Wouldn't it be cheaper, and better for everyone if cloudflare just, dedicated some of its resources and time to support wordpress? By finding bugs(On core and plugins/themes) and maybe donating some of its rivers of money?

[SpartanDavie]

First, I always agree that the priority should be to improve what is already there rather than making something new. And would 100% agree with you if Cloudflare (or anyone else) was making a PHP CMS. However, I think this is something fundamentally different to Wordpress and therefore think they made the right decision to create something new.

Have a look at what market Cloudflare is aimed at, they don't have the usual "Wordpress Hosting" like other cloud platforms have. They recently acquired Astro, known for having excellent SEO and uses TypeScript - not PHP. It feels like EmDash is for the millions already using TypeScript that would like to use WordPress but don't want to transition to PHP and/or the hosting options for it. EmDash is written in TypeScript, not PHP. Imagine someone experienced in HTML, CSS and TypeScript (maybe even using Astro), do you think they would want to use a TypeScript CMS that they can understand from day 1, build plugins etc or a PHP CMS?

I personally think this is for developers with a different skillset to those using Wordpress.

[vittoriocompagno]

This project targets a different niche, i.e. teams who want a smaller, Astro-native stack and a developer experience closer to current frontend norms. PHP has improved a lot, but many greenfield teams have already shifted toward JS/TS, SSR, and simpler deployment stories.
Healthy ecosystems have room for both mature platforms and newer experiments. Plus open source plugins (in the future, I hope!) and no drama

[smcstewart]

If you read the intro article, they say exactly why... the continuous security challenge and the ability to scale to zero. Wordpress is great, but Cloudflare posit that it's fundamental security architecture is flawed and won't be fixed.

[emircanerkul]

I believe creating new instead building up pile of **** better 😸 which prevent end up infinite bug fix loop and non stable plugin ecosystem and php not run edge.. isnt? You have to purchase kubernetes and have some cluster to achive that which is costly

[dan-willett]

Because without removing PHP from the equation, Wordpress will continue to be the joy of black hat hackers and criminals everywhere. This project is something that has needed to happen for years. A viable Javascript / Typescript based secure true alternative to Wordpress for the masses. And it is based on Astro which is one of the best frameworks around.
And with the help of AI, I foresee a path for fast conversion of existing Wordpress websites to EmDash. If this project goes the way I think it will, it will finally be the long overdue end of Wordpress.

[nickgraynews]

I just wanted to add another perspective: I don't want to host my websites on third-party web hosting providers. I want my websites to be hosted as close to the edge as possible, ideally by Cloudflare. I really like Cloudflare as a company. I use them to make all of my existing WordPress websites faster.

And now if there is a solution that is entirely based on Cloudflare, which solves a lot of the security incidents too (several of my sites have been hacked over the past few years!!) -- that's great and I am ready to explore this new option.

I'd also say a reason that I like EmDash is that I can skin and theme my websites easier. Working with my AI tools and Astro just feels a lot easier than updating WordPress themes and trying to get them to work.

[schiste]

WordPress is great, and the 20 years of code behind it is impressive but it also carries a lot of bloat from having to address every use case needed to reach their market share (which is equally impressive).

WordPress is clearly moving upmarket. Maintaining and running a WordPress site today comes with real complexity (plugin dependency chains, security surface area, hosting requirements). I'm not saying that as a bad thing, but we're far from the era when WordPress was easy because it was small.

With agentic workflows now handling content generation, transformation, and publishing, a modern CMS that's simple again makes a lot of sense. One that assumes AI is in the loop rather than bolting it on as an afterthought. I've been playing with headless WordPress, Payload, and now emdash and it does make a gigantic difference.

If I had one hope, it's that emdash builds with strong abstraction layers as a core philosophy. Clean and absolute separation between content modeling, rendering, and delivery so it becomes excellent at orchestrating content but leaves real freedom to build on top of it as a platform.

The core team coming from Astro should help make that philosophy more embedded, but still worth stating explicitly.
Related: I'm building what's essentially CI/CD for content as plugins in emdash (porting what I did for my use in payload), and the more abstract the layers are, the more deterministic and autonomous the pipelines can be. And honestly that's my hope with the initial "intent" shared about emdash.