I used to develop for WordPress a while ago, haven’t been in touch lately. Are there any new competitors now that are as good(or even better) than WP, or is it still the best in terms of simplicity and flexibility?
For the ecosystem ( Plugins, Themes ), I don't think there is a competitor, there is a multimillion market just for themes and plugins... look at themeforest.net
But if you want to use WordPress like a Framework, and not using the cms ... sure there is better tool like Laravel
CraftCMS has been getting a lot of traction recently. I haven't worked with it myself though.
Mario Giambanco
Director of User Experience Development
Ghost is the only one I've ever heard of, but you have to pay for it.
Other then the obvious alternatives in other languages, Drupal, Joomla, etc...