I am a software engineer with 8 years of experience and I need to start developing webs for some projects:
\- An art shop
\- A beach bar (with online shopping)
\- A clothes brand (with online shopping)
\- A site for a NGO
I may work in other projects in the future if I can keep the web development as a side job.
As other non-technical people might need to manage the site for uploading new products, news, interacting with users, managing contents... While keeping it powerful and being able to implement an online shopping system, I decided that WordPress is probably the best option.
I would like to apply some software engineering techniques to the sites: version control, CI/CD, testing, website for testing, local development, docker (or similar) support...
I have found the bedrocks ecosystem, which feels like WordPress with proper software engineering techniques already built-in. I have found that they already offer a software called Radicle that includes all the tools of the ecosystem, but its usage is locked behind a paywall. I am not sure if this is the right tool and I wanted to know what other experienced WordPress developers think about it, as I am seriously thinking on buying it. The fact that this is closed source code is a big if for me, but I understand that this is part of their business model.
Would you be willing to pay the $240 for unlimited sites when using Radicle? What is your experience with the bedrocks ecosystem, especially when it comes to a solution like Radicle? Do you think that in the long-term is going to save me enough time to make it worth of its price?
I read in other posts that some people consider it an over-engineered solution, but maybe it is better to have an over-engineered solution over needing to reinvent the wheel in each site just to be able to use basic software development techniques.
What do you guys think?