OttoKit
OttoKit keeps widening its WordPress trigger surface one plugin at a time
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Craft CMS and Flodesk — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Craft 6's alphas keep converting the plugin API, one removal at a time
Craft is running two lines with very different energy. The 5.10 maintenance branch ships one-bug releases hours apart and nothing else. Craft 6 is in its seventeenth alpha, still migrating onto Laravel: alpha 17 removes Plugin::settingsHtml() in favour of a settingsForm() built on the Control Panel Form system, replaces the Pane.vue component with a craft-pane web component, and moves another management command onto Laravel's schema API.
Flodesk just moved its analytics out of the dashboard and into Claude and ChatGPT.
Flodesk ships one clearly-scoped feature at a time, roughly twice a month, and the recent run has been list hygiene and account security: a self-maintaining unengaged-subscriber segment, reversible archiving, subject-line A/B testing, calendar view, and multi-factor authentication. The newest release breaks that pattern — a connector that lets members query their own email, subscriber, form and sales data from inside Claude or ChatGPT, read-only, at no extra cost.
Craft is running two lines with very different energy. The 5.10 maintenance branch ships one-bug releases hours apart and nothing else. Craft 6 is in its seventeenth alpha, still migrating onto Laravel: alpha 17 removes Plugin::settingsHtml() in favour of a settingsForm() built on the Control Panel Form system, replaces the Pane.vue component with a craft-pane web component, and moves another management command onto Laravel's schema API.
The pattern established at alpha 14 has not changed shape, only advanced: every alpha retires another Yii-era extension point and re-lands it on the new stack, with craftcms/yii2-adapter carrying the compatibility burden. Alpha 17 adds an Inertia-native slideout system that renders any CpScreenResponse as an in-page panel, which is the control panel moving from a legacy JavaScript layer to a genuinely Inertia/Vue one rather than wrapping it. The long fix list — stale permission trees, autosave firing on unchanged values, provisional drafts created on page open, queue jobs stuck reserved — reads as the cost of that churn being paid down alpha by alpha.
Expect further alphas that remove specific Yii-era plugin APIs with adapter fallbacks, and the 5.10 line to keep shipping single-fix patches until a Craft 6 beta absorbs the team's attention.
Flodesk ships one clearly-scoped feature at a time, roughly twice a month, and the recent run has been list hygiene and account security: a self-maintaining unengaged-subscriber segment, reversible archiving, subject-line A/B testing, calendar view, and multi-factor authentication. The newest release breaks that pattern — a connector that lets members query their own email, subscriber, form and sales data from inside Claude or ChatGPT, read-only, at no extra cost.
Everything before this was about removing work inside the product; the connector removes the product from the interaction entirely for the questions people ask most. Flodesk states this is phase one, with audience segmentation and subscriber management to follow, which would turn a read-only connector into a place the account is actually operated. The security work — MFA extended to third-party API authorizations — reads in hindsight as the prerequisite that had to land first.
The stated roadmap points to write access next, starting with segmentation and subscriber management, which is where a read-only connector becomes an operating surface. What is unclear from the entries is whether campaign creation and sending follow, since that is where an external agent acting on a member's list gets genuinely consequential.
Other Mkt Auto products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either Craft CMS or Flodesk.
OttoKit keeps widening its WordPress trigger surface one plugin at a time
Two security releases ship the same day, and 6.2 finally clears alpha
Buttondown ships almost daily, and most of it is someone else's bug report closed.
Formidable widens MCP compatibility and locks down signature files
Mailtrap is assembling a full email operations platform, one category step at a time
MailerLite keeps widening the gap between its simple editor and its drag-and-drop one
See all Craft CMS alternatives → · See all Flodesk alternatives →
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Craft CMS and Flodesk are shipping at a similar cadence (velocity 6.3 vs 6.3, both within Sparkpulse's "active" band). See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Craft CMS and Flodesk are shipping at a similar cadence (velocity 6.3 vs 6.3, both within Sparkpulse's "active" band). For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Mkt Auto products to evaluate alongside.
Top Craft CMS alternatives in Mkt Auto are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Craft CMS alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/craft-cms for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
Top Flodesk alternatives in Mkt Auto are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Flodesk alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/flodesk for the full list with editorial commentary on each.