Perch has a new home!

  • I just got approval on a proposal to use perch on a site i'm building, but haven't purchased it yet.

    I did get a nice response from Clive Walker via twitter, but it didn't totally assuage my fears.

    is this a sinking ship i should just run from? the silence from the devs is disconcerting at best :/

  • After the previous team updated the code to run with the latest versions of PHP (up to version 8 I believe) I was feeling quite confident regarding Perchs' future, and still do.


    What I think people need to understand is, besides the issues with e-commerce, Perch is still a really good (read great) CMS for basic websites.


    I do not feel that I have wasted any time coding for Perch because I know that V3, will work into the future, and the future is PHP V8.


    If I am wrong in any of my assertions, I will happily stand corrected but I feel that sowing seeds of doubt about the future of Perch is not a good idea since notwithstanding various issues (it would be nice to have them restated in a new thread), the CMS itself is very stable in my view.


    The only thing I can think of that I find quite annoying, is not being able to edit multiple pages opened in tabs, since while CTRL + S, works on a single page, when going to another already opened page, you have to click the save button as well. Of course it would have been nice it this was addressed by the prior owners but I will leave that for the new proprietors to comment on.

  • I hear your point compositor and agree that Perch is stable, for now thankfully. Any 'doubts' could easily be dispelled with communication. This seems to be a skill that the team does not have or has not hired in yet.

    As businesses, we want Perch to remain stable and thrive in the ever changing landscape. To achieve this the owners will need to sell licences to fund development. To sell licences they will need a good brand and reputation. And a community of enthusiastic evangelists will help greatly too.


    I do hope you are right in your assertions. There are a lot of passionate Perchers in this community. We wait and hope.

  • compositor Perch is not compatible with PHP 8.


    - They updated to PHP 7.4 mid 2020 after much grumbling

    - We've had just 5 updates in 3 years

    - Most add ons are unmaintained, at worst broken

    - Shop is a dead duck

    - The dwindling but stoic community supports the product - there is no support available anymore.


    This is a paid product with businesses built upon its foundations, so customers are bound to be unhappy and quite rightly are moving elsewhere. Which is sad, as you rightly point out – it was an excellent CMS with a really friendly community but goodwill only lasts so long and many of us are not happy.

  • I own a small business and am moving away from WordPress. Perch was suggested on a forum. Reading these posts, I'm feeling rather uncertain if it is the right way to proceed. Plan was I will be building sites for clients and building on Perch, so I just hope that it remains stable and some of the plugins are functional. That was a big selling point...

  • Quote

    Most add ons are unmaintained, at worst broken

    I don't know any official add-ons that are broken. I agree that some add-ons could be updated but broken, no.


    There is also a list of third party add-ons here https://github.com/clivewalker/perchology-links. These are add-ons that have been developed by Perch users/developers.


    The new owners will undoubtedly be deciding how to proceed but until we know more it's difficult to comment on that. I still think Perch is a great CMS though :)

  • Oh really? I thought Shop was OK for 7.2. My mistake.


    If George G is aware, please can you comment on this. Thanks

    Unfortunately PHP 7.1 is completely end of life so everyone should be on at least PHP 7.3 by this point. https://www.php.net/supported-versions.php


    George G can you share some solid / estimated timelines for us customers please, it's been over 3 months since the acquisition after over a year of almost non existent communication. Should we continue to invest in Perch or start migrating sites elsewhere? I wouldn't have a business left at this point if I treated my customers the way this community has been treat. There is a lot of love for the product be we do now need to start seeing some solid updates / progress.

  • What a farce Perch has become.


    The level of incompetence and complete lack of respect from both previous owners and the new ones astounds me.


    All I can assume at this point, is that Perch was acquired with the sole purpose of squeezing out the last few licenses from the user-base before shutting up shop. Any response (or lack of) to this that is along the lines of “something is coming soon”, or “we’ll update you as soon as we can” will only confirm those assumptions I’m afraid.


    The following questions need answering immediately:


    • What is happening?
    • Why aren’t you responding to questions in the forum?
    • What is the roadmap?
    • Why haven’t any updates whatsoever been released?
    • Why aren’t you part of the Slack community?


    Although I’m not developing any new projects on Perch (for obvious reasons), I’m now at the point – unless something significant happens very soon – that I’ll be actively contacting my Perch clients to advise that it’s time to move platforms as soon as possible. That is a lot of sites. I can only presume this will be the case for a lot of other devs too.


    The core principles and potential of Perch remains, but without the trust of your users, that means absolutely nothing. Even if Perch 4 is miraculously released today, there is so much additional damage control needed to start rebuilding any level of trust.


    What a joke.

  • compositor Perch is not compatible with PHP 8.

    That may be true for shop (which I don't use) but I just installed Perch with the latest version of UniServerZ, which uses PHP 8 by default (native authentication must be used).


    I haven't tried any other authentication methods, so stand by my comments, that for basic use, Perch works just fine, which is the reason why Drew went out of his way to make it compatible before "shutting up shop .

  • Is there any way ‘we’ can pick up the code and create a new open source version 5 for ourselves? a PerchBranch ?

    Or without the source code this would be difficult?

    Just asking away here. Must have a contingency plan. Accept for transitioning over to another cms off course.

  • I don't buy the asset stripping narrative. If Perch wasn't selling enough licences to support a lone developer there's no way a company would acquire it to hoover up existing license sales. Seems like a dealing with legacy code/handover/lack of preparation/communication style set of issues.


    But the lack of response creates a vacuum so it's understandable that many fear the worst.


    It really wouldn't take that much to reassure us. I feel like we have to keep taking Perch's pulse to check it's still alive. Some more communication doesn't seem like a lot to ask for. And Perch really has to reach out to the community members who are supporting their product.

  • I don't think it's as farfetched as you might think – if they managed to get it for a low-price (which lets face it, Perch wouldn't be worth much in its current state) then they may of been hoping to make their money back plus a bit on top through residual sales. Pretty easy money if you don't invest any time back into it, which quite clearly they haven't.

  • I don't think it's as farfetched as you might think – if they managed to get it for a low-price (which lets face it, Perch wouldn't be worth much in its current state) then they may of been hoping to make their money back plus a bit on top through residual sales. Pretty easy money if you don't invest any time back into it, which quite clearly they haven't.

    Anything's possible, but it doesn't really make sense for a company to invest money into something that would make a few hundred pounds a week for a few months. They do seem to have long term goals, but their lack of communication is very problematic.