Rounding up the 2019 SilverStripe Community Survey

We recently carried out our annual Community Survey to gain insight into how the community are using SilverStripe and if we’re heading in the right direction. This is an important feedback cycle for our product development team as it can influence how we prioritise features.

We’d like to thank everyone who took part in this year’s survey. We heard from nearly 90 of you and have shared your feedback with the relevant teams at SilverStripe. We’d also like to congratulate the winners of the Community Survey prize pack—a limited edition SilverStripe t-shirt and custom fidget toy 3D printed by our CEO, Sam Minnée.

Summary of findings from the 2019 survey

About the community and their work

Each year, the lion’s share of survey respondents are Developers. This year we saw a larger proportion of Backend (43%) than Frontend Developers (22%) and a further 8% indicating a Full Stack role. Approximately 30% of respondents indicated they’re self-employed or work as a freelancer.

In terms of the number of team members working on SilverStripe projects, the largest proportion work in a team of 1-3 people (44%), followed by 3-6 people (27%), and more than six people (12%). The percentage of large teams has more than doubled since the 2017 survey (5% to 12%). A further 15% indicated they work independently.

80% of respondents indicated that the average SilverStripe project they work on is completed within three months and approximately two thirds of SilverStripe sites average fewer than 10k visitors per month.

Common challenges experienced

In terms of common challenges experienced by respondents, the main themes were time management, scope and budget management, and changing frontend environments.

Upgrading to 4.x

We asked respondents how many of their SilverStripe projects have planned or completed a SilverStripe 4 upgrade. 13% indicated they’ve upgraded all of their projects, 85% indicated they’ve planned or completed some upgrades, and 15% none.

The most frequently mentioned drivers of upgrading were security and supported versions followed by improved content blocks functionality.

SilverStripe community tools

We’re interested in how the community uses the various tools on offer. Github continues to be the most useful community tool, followed by our developer docs, and the community Slack channel.

The newly established forum.silverstripe.org is performing well with 61% finding it useful compared to its now retired predecessor on 36%. However, the forum still trails Stack Overflow as a useful place to ask questions.

How SilverStripe compares

Respondents were generally happy to recommend SilverStripe, demonstrated by a Net Promoter Score of 48, well above the industry average of 26.

You can view results here and if you’ve yet to complete the survey, we still welcome your input.