After Microsoft’s stunning shift towards open source, Linux and WordPress, it looks like its love is requited as the WordPress community has just made it possible to run the world’s most popular CMS on the .NET framework and the .NET Core.
The popular Phalanger project already made it possible to run a virtually unmodified clone of WordPress on Microsoft .NET. However, the solution had its issues and was not compatible with new WordPress releases. Now the successor to Phalager, Czech startup Peachpie has developed a platform that can compile PHP code to work on the .NET framework. It’s able to run WordPress as a fully managed application on .NET and .NET Core.
Benefits of running WordPress on Peachpie and the .NET
Develop in C# and use .NET libraries: plugin functionality can be implemented in a separate C# project and/or PHP plugins may use .NET libraries.
Sourceless distribution: ability to distribute WordPress as a compiled binary, with most of the source files excluded from the package (for those who prefer this style of work 🙂
Performance: Peachpie compiled code is fast and also optimized by the .NET ‘Jitter’ for an actual system. Additionally, the .NET performance profiler may be used to resolve bottlenecks.
Comparing PHP and Peachpie on Microsoft Azure
Measuring various metrics on a concurrent user load of 1000 using a simple test script:
Source: httpss://www.peachpie.io/2016/03/azure.html
The unstoppable WordPress is becoming a Web data standard
WordPress is no longer just a blogging tool but rather a scalable CMS and app development platform admired by small businesses and large enterprises alike. WordPress powers over 27% of all websites and takes over 58% of the Content Management System market share. Its widespread adoption, vast community size and the latest development with WP REST API are contributing to WordPress approaching the point of exponential growth. Nowadays everyone and everything connects to WordPress. In addition, we can choose a variety of platforms for development and deployment. It’s time we increasingly start thinking of WordPress as a web data standard. You may use WordPress for your entire front-end and back-end, just back-end or only a module interoperable with other components of your system. WordPress may be the central part of your online ecosystem, an interface for content editors or a glue linking all parts together.