ClassicPress

People sometimes ask me why every Luthemes theme is made for ClassicPress. The short answer is that I believe in it, enough that I serve as one of its Directors. Here’s the longer answer.

Where I started

My journey into web development began in 2000. Like a lot of people, I found WordPress because it made building and customizing a website easy, and over the years I learned PHP, CSS, HTML, and JavaScript by building themes for it.

As WordPress moved toward blocks and the block editor, I realized that the kind of website I enjoy building, and the kind of themes I enjoy making, fit a different path. That path was ClassicPress.

What ClassicPress is

ClassicPress is a free, open-source content management system, forked from WordPress without the block editor. Its current major version, ClassicPress 2, was forked from WordPress 6.2, so it feels instantly familiar if you’ve used WordPress before. You write with the classic editor, your dashboard looks the way you remember, and most plugins and themes made for WordPress 6.2 or earlier generally work.

Why I build on it

Stability. I want the sites I build, and the themes I share, to keep working year after year. ClassicPress focuses on being stable and lightweight rather than chasing constant change. That means a theme I make today won’t need to be rebuilt next year.

Themes the way I like to build them. Without blocks, a theme is what it always was: PHP templates, styles, and the Customizer. That’s where I do my best work. It’s why my themes are built on the Backdrop framework, and why each one ships with options you can change without writing code.

Lightweight by design. Less going on under the hood means faster pages and fewer things to break. I carry that into my themes too. Several of them include settings to turn off things many sites don’t need, like emoji scripts and embeds.

A community with a voice. ClassicPress is community-led and run by the ClassicPress Initiative, a nonprofit. It’s built by volunteers who care about the same things its users do. You don’t have to be a big company to be heard, and that’s a big part of why I chose to get involved.

Why I serve as a Director

Using ClassicPress wasn’t enough for me. I wanted to help it grow. As a Director, I help shape where ClassicPress is going and keep it reliable for the people who depend on it, whether that’s a small business, a blogger, or a developer building sites for clients.

Building themes is part of that. Every theme I release is one more option for someone choosing ClassicPress, and one more sign that the platform is alive and well.

Try it for yourself

If you’re curious, give ClassicPress a try at classicpress.net. Then pick a theme from the portfolio. Prismatic is a great place to start. And if you have questions, the ClassicPress forums are a friendly place to ask.