The Relaunch of The Old West and Why I Chose Vanilla PHP

This article details the relaunch of 'The Old West' website, which aggregates Wikipedia articles about the American Old West. The author describes their previous tech stack (React, Next.js, Material UI) and the challenges faced with dependency updates, version incompatibilities, and supply chain risks. They explain their decision to rewrite the site using vanilla PHP with the LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MariaDB, PHP) for long-term stability, backward compatibility, and minimal maintenance. The article focuses on technology choices, software development practices, and the trade-offs between modern frameworks and simpler, more stable solutions.