[julienmarie]

Special mention to Processwire. Worked with it a few years ago and really loved it at the time. https://processwire.com/

Craft is great but a bit slow in my tests. They have a really powerful e-commerce offer though and is really flexible.

[jlahijani]

+999 for ProcessWire. It's my CMS of choice for 10 years straight and is actually a pretty good platform for web applications as well (with some limitations compared to something like Rails or Laravel since configuration is stored in the database).

I made this 36-part video series comparing WordPress to ProcessWire which I recorded on-and-off between 2014-2018 and released it that year. Although that was a while ago, it's still mostly accurate since both systems are mature and haven't changed drastically in that time (this is before Gutenberg): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOrdUWNK38ibz8U_5Vq4z...

Also worth a read: https://processwire.com/about/wordpress-vs-processwire/

For the JS devs, ProcessWire has a similar approach to Payload CMS from what I've seen (although ProcessWire dates back to 2003 and open-sourced in ~2010/11).

Best CMS ever. :)

[possibleworlds]

+1 for ProcessWire. I am not doing freelance dev anymore but for the small set of sites I still maintain I love doing updates for the ProcessWire installs and dread it with every other project. Anyone shopping for Wordpress alternatives should definitely check it out. The only project I’ve tried recently that is as fun, flexible and productive is Astro.

[wvbdmp]

ProcessWire is great and it’s the perfect example for the OP’s main criterion “can be downloaded, dropped onto a server, and you’ll have a website”! One great thing about it is that that’s also how you update it. Download new version, replace a single directory on the server, and you’ll have the new version.

For a WordPress alternative, however, ProcessWire is perhaps not batteries-included enough. Like many of the systems in this thread, it caters more to developers who want full control over their site. For someone who just needs a blog with maybe a contact form and wants to choose a nice “template” and be done with it, ProcessWire isn’t a good fit. While it has “site profiles”, it’s lacking a lot of traction in that area, as well as a consumer-oriented marketplace that’s nice to browse (screenshots, curation etc.).

But for anyone who wants to build something more complex, it’s a great choice. Cozy little community, too.

[egeozcan]

Totally agree! Processwire is super simple for simple things and is super extensible if you need anything custom. There's nothing I couldn't do with it and PHP isn't even remotely my language of choice. It gets the job done with tremendous flexibility.

[dmje]

Thanks for mentioning ProcessWire. I've heard of it but never looked. Just spent a couple of hours fiddling and I have to say - really like the look of this. Thank you for bringing it to my attention!