2016 Year in Review
2016 was a wild year. We saw Brexit, a coup attempt in Turkey, terrorist attacks, and Trump's election win. One bright spot: Peyton Manning retiring on a high note. Brandon Kelly from Pixel & Tonic shared a recap of 2016 for Craft CMS, and here's my summary.
The State of Craft: End-of-2016 Edition
Craft CMS is now used on 22,000 unique domains, up from 12,000 last year. Google Trends shows that Craft passed ExpressionEngine for the first time this year. As a former EE user, that really stands out to me.
More community numbers:
- Craft Slack: 3,423 members
- Craft Stack Exchange: 3,590 members
- Craft Link List by John Morton: 500 subscribers
CMS
Craft 2.6 was the only big update this year, but it added eager loading support, which was a big deal. Pixel & Tonic released 46 updates to Craft 2 in total, which is almost one every week.
Work on Craft 3 picked up again after a quiet stretch. The team launched a Dev Preview, and the next step is a public beta in early 2017. Brandon Kelly says the beta will work much like the Dev Preview, since most of the effort has gone into updating and improving the codebase instead of adding new features.
Commerce
Craft Commerce 1.0 launched on December 1, 2015. In 2016, there were 30 updates, including versions 1.1 and 1.2, which added multi-currency support, shipping zones, and shipping categories. The Digital Products plugin also came out, so now you can sell digital goods such as e-books through Commerce.
In its first year, Commerce is already being used by companies like Barefoot Contessa, Polk Audio, and Field Notes.
Inside Pixel & Tonic
Pixel & Tonic moved three times in 2016, but they've now settled into an office in downtown Bend, Oregon, where they share space with Tim Sabat from CodePen. This year, Craft CMS revenue passed $1 million for the first time, not including Commerce sales.
Pixel & Tonic also added new design and communications partners: Bright Umbrella, Sharon Steed, and Leah Stephenson. Brandon Kelly points out that it's no accident they're all women.
What's next?
The public beta for Craft 3 is planned for early 2017. The plugin store and Commerce 2 should come out about six to nine months after that. Craft Showcase, a community site for sharing Craft projects, is also set to launch in the first half of the year.
Pixel & Tonic is also planning a new Craft CMS Summit for May 4, 2017, and their first in-person Craft conference later in the year.
Thanks to everyone who builds awesome stuff with Craft, to everyone who uses it to produce great content, to everyone who helps promote it, to everyone who writes in with suggestions and bug reports, and of course to everyone who sends us booze :) We never cease to be amazed and inspired by everything you do - your talent, your integrity, your generosity, and your persistence. You made 2016 great, despite everything, and we can’t wait to see what happens in 2017.
My take
2016 was a tough year for the world, but it was a good one for Craft. The user base almost doubled, Commerce grew faster than expected, and Craft 3 is coming together. With the beta, plugin store, and first in-person conference coming up, 2017 looks like it will be an exciting year.
Web Developer