Cwicly WordPress website builder suite announced that they will be shutting down at the end of the year and refunding all customers from 2024. The decision forced developers to halt current projects and begin the website migration process from clients to other WordPress site building platforms.
It’s an unexpected end to what was considered a groundbreaking product that was considered a promising set of tools for building high-performance websites on top of the full native Gutenberg site editor. But also some criticisms.
An email sent by Cwicly to its customers was reposted to the dynamic WordPress Facebook group.
The email reads in part:
“After much deliberation and soul-searching, I have made the difficult decision to discontinue development of the Cwicly plugin. This decision has been deeply influenced by recent events that have deeply affected me personally and the team.
Unfortunately, the relentless onslaught of destructive posts and comments from some WordPress influencers has created an atmosphere that has made it increasingly difficult for us to continue our vision for Cwicly.
Since launching Cwicly, we’ve not only had to build our product, but we’ve had the constant undermining of our choice to embrace the WordPress vision of Gutenberg. Additionally, personal attacks have been made on both me and team members and openly tolerated throughout the process.
The negativity and hostility directed towards Cwicly, especially compared to other page builders, has significantly affected our morale and motivation.”
Brenda Malone (LinkedIn), a freelance web developer and search marketing expert, commented that this could create a chill in new web development tools if the Cwicly event causes developers to lose faith in new companies and stick with current trusts.
She said:
“It’s setting a bad precedent: Who’s going to trust small software development shops again?
This is horrible for developers who will have to rebuild customer sites. What a mess, really.”
Cwicly and Gutenberg
Unlike other platforms, Cwicly was built to work with Gutenberg, adding easy-to-develop options that expanded the possibilities of what was possible using just Gutenberg’s full site editor.
One of the innovations that helped create buzz around Cwicly was the integration of Tailwind, an open source CSS framework that helps speed up site development. But the Tailwind integration was also a source of criticism because it was a partial implementation that was expected to be rolled out in stages with more features planned for the near future.
One quality that many loved about Cwicly is that it’s basically a blank slate that can be developed without the burden of having to deal with the extra code imposed by some page builders. This same advantage was also seen by others as a negative because some perceived it to present an additional obstacle to building a website quickly.
It could then be seen that for every step forward there was also the perception that there was another step back. Despite the developer-friendly innovations that help create buzz around Cwicly, there was also a sense that it wasn’t quite finished and, for whatever reason, didn’t catch on as quickly as other professional page builders like Bricks Builder and Breakdance.
David McCan, an early supporter of Cwicly who considered it “cutting edge” recently wrote an article discussing a peculiar reluctance of the developer community to commit to Cwicly.
he he wrote:
“With this long list of amazing features, why isn’t Cwicly more popular? Why aren’t more people using it? Why is it still something that many people look at, but haven’t engaged with? This paradox is what I I call it the Cwicly conundrum. People are interested in Cwicly and seeing him, but they haven’t necessarily fully embraced him.”
What WordPress developers are saying
Adam J. Humphreys (LinkedIn) of web development and SEO company Making 8 suggested possible next steps.
He commented to SEJ:
“I recommend users to switch to Bricks Builder as soon as possible to avoid further security escalations.
Bricks Builder comes with extra features for purists and a simple interface for new users. It’s something you can build a design career on. That’s why Bricks has gained so much momentum. The community surrounding the software is what makes the difference. Keeping the community engaged and integrated is what makes a platform strong.”
Reaction on Reddit
The reaction on Reddit was polarized, with some expressing some understanding, while others felt it was a bad move.
A Redditor he wrote:
“As a current paid member, I received an email from Louis a few minutes ago mentioning the discontinuation of Cwicly due to hostility from some WordPress influencers and constant criticism.
Now, this has put me, and I imagine many others, in a very precarious situation. I’m halfway through rebuilding our 5 websites that were going to launch this month. Obviously I won’t be doing this now, as I’ll have to do them again in a few months when Cwicly stops working altogether.”
Another Redditor answered:
“We’re walking away with your money because some random person said they didn’t like us. What a lame excuse to rip off shoppers…”
Others were more sympathetic, noting that Cwicly was refunding all fees paid by users in 2024. Others expressed disappointment that they purchased a license for Cwicly with the expectation that it would exist and are now being forced to redo websites built with Cwicly because once development stops, there will be no more updates to make it compatible with future PHP and WordPress core updates, including security updates. This means that any site still using Cwicly in the future may be prone to breaking as the WordPress core evolves to take advantage of new versions of PHP, not to mention the inability to upgrade to newer versions new WordPress due to unavoidable incompatibilities.
Cwicly sunset
The sunset of the Cwicly at the end of 2024 illustrates the challenges of innovating a product, especially in a market that has many active competitors with full-featured products. Any flaw will be detected and amplified by social networks, which in this case had a demoralizing effect.
Featured image by Shutterstock/photosince
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