Have to say, I just wasted two hours trying to get this running...again.

The first time I went through the tutorial I had it up and running in less than five minutes (Windows 11, node 22). A while later I tried the same thing on two work laptops: a M1 and another Windows 11 machine.

It fails complaining that cross-env isn't found. Was not able to find a resolution after hours of trying.

Eventually realized that a dependency was unavailable and I had to provide a mirror for it. Really caught me off guard. Payload CMS is looking really clean and solid. I have it deployed successfully to an Azure App Service via BitBucket, leveraging Cosmos.

Thanks, this looks promising. Upgrades, if problematic as some have mentioned, are not really a concern for me. That's on the next poor fool. I just need to get something out the door to score a bonus.

Looking at the upgrade story it already looks like a nightmare that might make the OP pull their hair out.

Wordpress is a single upgrade button on the CMS, no terminal necessary or needed.