Everyone is talking about EmDash. Serverless, sandboxed plugins, AI-first. Cool. I get it.
I work at a digital agency. We've been building on WordPress for years. Also Sanity, Contentful, Storyblok, Drupal, AEM. We've tried a lot. So when something new shows up, I don't get hyped that fast. I just want to know: can I use this for a real project?
We don't pick favorites
There's no "best CMS." Every project is different.
WordPress is a great tool, we build custom plugins, custom post types, REST API endpoints, tailored admin panels. It's not a blogging platform for us. It's a framework. So when people compare WordPress to newer tools by pointing at Gutenberg or starter themes... they're looking at one layer. That's not how we work with it.
Sanity is great when content modeling gets complex. Storyblok has a really nice visual editor that clients actually enjoy using. Contentful works when the client needs a clean API-first layer and doesn't want to deal with hosting. Drupal taught us a lot about structured content before headless was even a thing.
AEM is enterprise. Enterprise scale, enterprise money. It solves problems that other platforms don't even try to solve.
We picked each one for a reason.
What I like about EmDash
There are some ideas in EmDash that are genuinely interesting.
Serverless by default. No more dealing with PHP memory limits or server configs. That's nice.
Sandboxed plugins. Plugins run in isolation. No more "one plugin broke the whole site" at 2am. That alone is a big deal.
AI built into the core. Not a plugin wrapping an API. AI is part of the architecture. That opens up real possibilities for content generation and automation.
I like where this is going.
What makes me wait
But when I think about using #EmDash for a client project right now, there are a few things.
The ecosystem is basically empty. WordPress has thousands of plugins. Sanity and Contentful have mature integrations. EmDash is starting from zero. When you have a client deadline, that matters a lot.
It's developer-first. TypeScript, Astro, edge functions. And look, I love Astro. I still smile every time I see a project we built for UNDP in the Astro showcase. My team can work with all of that. But we also need to hand things over to marketing teams. They need to update pages and publish content without calling us every time. WordPress and Contentful have been refining that for years. EmDash hasn't.
It's tied to Cloudflare. WordPress runs on any hosting. Sanity and Contentful are SaaS. EmDash depends on the Cloudflare ecosystem. That's a dependency I'd think twice about for client work.
It takes longer to ship. We can go from kickoff to a working WordPress site with custom content types in days. With a new platform, there's always a learning curve. When a client has a launch date, that time gap is real.
It's not about good or bad
I'm not saying EmDash is bad. I think it's one of the most interesting things I've seen in the CMS space in a while. The architecture makes sense. The vision is clear.
But picking a CMS for client work is not just about architecture. It's about ecosystem, team readiness, how easy it is for the client, and whether this thing will still work in three years. Those things take time.
Where I'd try it
Internal projects. A proof of concept. Something where we control the timeline and the scope. That's how we've always adopted new tools. We learn them in low-risk contexts first.
If you care about developer experience, EmDash is worth exploring now. Not for your next client project. As a sandbox. Play with the serverless model, the plugin patterns, the AI workflows. The best time to learn a tool is before you need it on a deadline.
If the ecosystem grows, I can see EmDash sitting next to WordPress, Sanity, and Contentful in our toolkit. The ideas are solid. It just needs time.
One more thing
If you haven't tried Sanity, Contentful, Storyblok, or Drupal, go try them. Seriously. Yeah, 80% of content modeling feels the same across platforms. But that other 20% is where you learn things you wouldn't learn otherwise. Each one gives you a different perspective on how content should work.
AEM too, if you can afford the license. I'd say try it on something small, a personal project, just to see what's inside.
And here's something that would have sounded crazy two years ago: building your own CMS is actually possible now. With AI and a small team of solid developers who know how to use it, you can build exactly what you need. Your integrations. Your workflows. Ship features when you want, not when a vendor decides.
We're doing it. And once you have that freedom, it's hard to go back.
Maybe EmDash gets there. Maybe WordPress keeps evolving. Or maybe you just build your own thing. The point is we have more options than ever. And that's a good place to be.
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