How To Choose the Right CMS: A Three-Part Series
Part 2: Which CMS Option Fits Your Needs?
Evaluate the Options
We aren’t going to lie to you — as an agency, we have a preferred CMS, but that doesn’t mean we limit ourselves. If one CMS would benefit a client more than our preferred option, the other CMS will inevitably win out. Never settle for a choice that isn’t best for your business goals simply because it’s already known. Here’s a Cliff Notes version for a few of the more popular CMS options you’ll likely be weighing.
1. Craft CMS
Confession: Craft CMS has been our go-to CMS for most projects. Craft may be overkill for small or blog-style websites, but it’s perfect for most medium to large business websites, and it can even handle small to medium e-commerce sites thanks to the first-party Craft Commerce plugin (more on that in Part 3 of this series). We are big fans of its clean dashboard, highly customizable content types, powerful caching mechanism, and the Twig templating engine. Developers love it for its clean, straightforward templating while content managers love the modern dashboard.
2. WordPress
As a rule, if it’s well-known by the public, people will have an opinion. In CMS land, the well-known, equally criticized and praised option is WordPress. Here are a few examples of when to embrace Wordpress and when it’s better to throw it the old stiff-arm.
Reach for Wordpress
When you need a simple way to post content. One such client (we’ll leave them unnamed) runs a large, custom .NET e-commerce website. Their custom platform did not include CMS capability, so any articles had to be created as static HTML on their website. But they wanted the ability to easily post and manage regular content, providing additional value for their customers and exposure to their products, while increasing visitor time on their site. WordPress was the obvious solution.
Wordpress will serve you well in hosting content for a small number of simple pages. But once it becomes apparent that a website will need multiple types of content or pages, turn and run to Craft.
A caution against WordPress
When considering a CMS for a large website with significant security needs, Wordpress shouldn’t be your first choice. Building custom page types will typically require third-party plugins, and the way Wordpress stores its content will cause a performance hit for any large website. Although caching should be utilized with any database-driven website, caching should be a means of augmenting a platform’s performance rather than correcting a platform’s inherent performance problems. Basically, WordPress can’t handle heavy complex content.
3. Drupal
These days, we almost never recommend Drupal, although we do maintain Drupal websites for several clients. When it comes to flexibility and customizability, Drupal is unmatched, but that power comes with a significant usability cost. Drupal tends to be complicated and confusing for both developers and users. While it is possible to build a powerful, clean, sophisticated site with Drupal, it’s rare to find a Drupal site that’s easy to navigate. And an important factor for most websites today: when it comes to media management, Drupal’s out-of-the-box image capabilities are seriously limited.
4. Squarespace
Squarespace may seem like an odd choice for this list, but hear us out. Squarespace can be an excellent option for starter or placeholder websites. It’s a simple, clean option if you’re looking for a temporary fix while building your permanent website, or if you’re a new business that doesn’t yet have the budget for a fully custom website.
Squarespace’s themes, styling options, and managed hosting mean you can set up a clean, modern website at a low cost.
But with that low cost comes limited customization. In the long term, and once you have the budget to do it, you’ll be better served by a website that’s been tailored to fit your brand and business needs. Which brings up to the ever-present elephant in the room…
What’s your budget?
Regardless of what you choose, there are two kinds of website platforms: those that cost money, and those that cost more money. WordPress and Drupal are attractive to many businesses because they are free, but you’re likely to get what you pay for. Drupal is a very powerful, very flexible platform, but it comes with a very complicated and dated administrative interface. WordPress offers a simple dashboard, which can quickly become cluttered and slow. Choosing one of these two options, you may save money upfront, but you risk spending far more over the lifetime of a website, paying out more employee or contractor hours just to manage content in the CMS. You might end up burning through all your “wish-list” dollars before you ever even get to that phase. Play the long game, and you won’t regret the investment. Promise.
The content management conversation isn’t over just yet. In Part 3 of this series, we’ll dive into the specifics of what an e-commerce business should be thinking through. Stay tuned for The E-Commerce CMS Breakdown.
Research and brainpower by Chris Roberts.
