ProgrammerHumor - Wordpress to Elixir (Phoenix Liveview)
We Ditched WordPress for Elixir/Phoenix and the Results Are Mind-Blowing!
Average Traffic
Hey IndieHackers!
I finally bit the bullet and migrated ProgrammerHumor.io from WordPress to Elixir/Phoenix LiveView. After months of "should I?", "is it worth it?", and "but WordPress is battle-tested..." I took the plunge.
And wow. I'm kicking myself for not doing this sooner.
The Results (aka Why I Can't Stop Smiling)
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Speed: My site is EMBARRASSINGLY faster. Pages that took 2-3 seconds to load are now responding in milliseconds.
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Server Load: It's like my server is on vacation. CPU usage dropped off a cliff. I checked my monitoring dashboard and thought it was broken at first.
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Stability: Those fun random WordPress crashes that had me getting 3AM alerts? Gone. Completely gone. I've actually been sleeping through the night for the first time in months.
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The UX: LiveView is a game-changer. The seamless interactions without full page reloads make the site feel like an actual modern web app instead of, well, WordPress.
The Migration (aka Not The Nightmare I Expected)
I was dreading the migration. I had years of content, custom plugins, and enough technical debt to make me break out in hives.
But Phoenix's conventions actually made restructuring everything WAY cleaner than I expected. That WordPress spaghetti code I'd been band-aiding for years? Gone. Replaced with something that actually makes sense.
Don't get me wrong - it wasn't trivial. But it wasn't the soul-crushing ordeal I had built up in my head either.
For Any IndieHacker On The Fence
If you're sitting there thinking "but WordPress works fine..." - that's what I told myself too. For YEARS. "Fine" is the enemy of awesome.
I'm only a week in, but I'm already seeing:
- Faster development cycles
- Cleaner code
- Fewer bugs
- NO WORDPRESS PLUGIN HELL
- EASIER BACKUPS
- A site that doesn't make me wince when I look at the backend
I honestly can't imagine going back.
Questions For Fellow IndieHackers
Anyone else make a similar migration? How has it held up over time? Any gotchas I should watch out for?
Drop your experiences in the comments - I'm all ears!
Before
Average CPU load (mostly because of mysql): 60%
After:
