The CMS I mentioned in my previous post is called a-blog cms, and it has a market share of only about 1% in Japan. Here is my interview from when I was still a freelancer. It's only available in Japanese, but if you're interested, give it a try. The picture is me at a seminar. Had I known that there'd be a picture, I would've worn something nicer and put on some makeup... although I have to say, that's usually how I look.
Last weekend we held our biggest annual seminar in Nagoya. During the pandemic, it was cancelled or held online, so this was the first in-person meeting in four years. After being hired by the company that develops the CMS about two and a half years ago, I've been overwhelmed by the variety and amount of tasks. However, it was refreshing to see a lot of my colleagues for the first time in a long time, to talk and learn together. Also, the new CMS features introduced by our CTO (Chief Technology Officer) were exciting. My motivation for work has been renewed to some extent. I've decided to manage the quality and quantity of my assignments on my own.
Your articles on a-blog where so interesting--particularly how it's different from Wordpress. I can see how using a Japanese-developed CMS can be much more useful for Japanese companies.
With Wordpress, Gutenberg has come a long way from where it was 5 years ago, but it's still kind of a pain for developers to customize and use :) It's getting easier for users though, so that's good.
@Ersatzjello Thank you for taking the time to read my articles. Although our CMS is useful, I didn't point out its drawbacks because the articles were meant to promote it. Our company is small, so if something happened to CEO or CTO, the damage would be tremendous, perhaps we wouldn't be able to maintain it. Nobody can substitute them. But I can also use WordPress, so if that really happens I'll just go back to freelancing.
This is so cool to learn about! I'm a web developer by trade as well so reading about this stuff is always interesting to me. I'd never heard of a-blog before. Working with Wordpress is annoying enough as an English user, so I imagine any alternative, especially a Japanese-developed one would be preferable.
@fuyuneko Thank you for your interest! If you're genuinely looking for a Japanese-developed alternative to WordPress, a-blog cms is an excellent choice, and I assure you it has many advantages. However, there are some downsides to consider:
On a positive note, an upcoming version will introduce significant changes, including a new official theme built with Vite and Tailwind CSS right out of the box.
If you're interested in trying it out, you can test it for 30 days free on our site by simply providing your name and email. However, I recommend waiting for the next version release in spring of next year for a better experience.
Cool! thank you for the info. I'm definitely a ways off of being able to fully use something like that in all Japanese, but it's been something I've always thought about in the back of my mind since so many Japanese websites I come across seem woefully out of date compared to current web standards. All the examples on your site look great in comparison!