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Lumora Press

Posted Aug 31, 2026. Filed under Lumora Press. 0 comments

After years of relying on third-party software, I’ve officially swapped standard WordPress for my own custom-built platform on my Xena Central site! I built Lumora Press entirely from scratch out of personal need, but kept fellow fansite creators and hobbyists in mind every step of the way.

Lumora Press—a lightweight, self-hosted PHP blogging platform inspired by the elegance and simplicity of classic WordPress (think the 2012–2015 era!). It’s all about writing, publishing, and customizing with classic themes, widgets, and plugins. No block editors, no page builders, no AI bloat—just simple, fast blogging. Since it’s an independent codebase built entirely from scratch (not a fork), it runs super fast and stably on modern PHP and basic shared hosting.

On top of that classic WordPress goodness, I also added a few features to Lumora Press core that I’ve always wished WordPress had natively without needing a million plugins:

• Virtual Folders in the Media Manager: Organize hundreds of icons, wallpapers, and photos by subject with ease.

• Direct File Importing: Seamlessly import media straight from FTP.