When I started building Coderobotics.com, I had a clear goal — to create a scalable, secure, and flexible content management system (CMS) tailored for selling PHP and ASP.NET scripts. After evaluating multiple options, I chose the CodeIgniter PHP framework to build my own CMS from scratch.
In this blog, I’ll walk you through the thought process, development journey, and key takeaways from building a custom CMS using CodeIgniter.
Initially, like many others, I launched my site using WordPress. It's an amazing platform for non-developers and small-scale websites. However, as my business scaled and I needed tighter control over security, speed, and custom features, WordPress started to show limitations.
1. Frequent Security Vulnerabilities
WordPress is the most popular CMS in the world, which unfortunately makes it a major target for hackers. Common vulnerabilities I encountered:
2. Performance Bottlenecks
3. Limited Customization at the Core Level
While WordPress is customizable, modifying core logic or integrating a custom business model felt like “hacking around” instead of clean, structured development.
Switching to CodeIgniter gave me a fresh start with:
Before diving into development, I considered popular CMS platforms like WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal. While they offer tons of features out-of-the-box, I wanted more control — a lightweight framework that allowed me to build only what I needed, without unnecessary bloat.
CodeIgniter stood out because:
I started by outlining the core features I needed for Coderobotics.com:
1. Setting Up CodeIgniter
I used CodeIgniter 4 to leverage its modern PHP support and better structure. After installing via Composer, I configured base URLs, routing, database connections, and autoloading helpers.
2. Building the Admin Dashboard
The dashboard was the core of the CMS. I implemented:
3. Page and Content Management
I created a page module that allowed the admin to:
4. Blog Module
To drive SEO traffic and share tutorials, I built a simple blog module with:
5. Security and SEO
Security was non-negotiable. I followed these best practices:
Building my own CMS using CodeIgniter was one of the best technical decisions for Coderobotics.com. I now have full control over every aspect of my platform — from product presentation to backend performance. It gave me the flexibility to add custom features and scale as my marketplace grew.
If you’re considering building a CMS or web application tailored to your business needs, I highly recommend exploring CodeIgniter. It offers the perfect balance between simplicity and power.
This entry was posted by Sasi and tagged in How I Built My Own CMS with CodeIgniter for Coderobotics
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