This is my personal reminder for the next time someone (that person might be myself, too) suggests using a ready-built solution over creating from scratch.

The other day I had the task of finding a WordPress theme for a very low budget client project. Despite being small and rather easy to implement I had some features in mind very specifically.

Knowing about the big PITA modifying other people’s code to make it do something different than it was originally supposed to do, I tried to find a theme that met those needs upfront. After spending an hour and a half digging through hundreds of themes it dawned to me that I might have been half-way done with the project if I had done things from scratch. So I consulted my PM and suggested a change of plans. Instead of dreaded old WordPress I spun up an instance of [Kirby CMS](https://getkirby.com), as it allows much quicker front end development, deployments and backups while still offering a nice and intuitive backend for editors. The money not spend on a buggy WordPress theme is worth a License for Kirby anytime.

After adding the exact JS libraries needed for the project and a nice, clean CSS I ended up with 80% of the needed design and functionality in literally less than half a workday.

Of course, this was just a simple project, but the joy of having created something by yourself in such a short amount of time is something I crave to feel more often. Let alone the unbeatable advantages of knowing exactly how your code works, not being afraid of what to do when things break and the gains of having having as little bloat as possible. In the end there is a product that was built quicker, is easier to maintain and extend, performs better and was fun creating.