What platform should I use for my website?

Choosing a platform that will best meet your needs

Photo by Nathan Dumlao

I’ve had so many people ask me:

“What platform should I use? Wordpress, Drupal, ExpressionEngine, Craft, Statamic, Kirby, Locomotive; there are so many! What should I choose? Everyone uses WordPress so it must be good enough for me to use.”

Whoa there! Just a minute! Let’s not jump to conclusions so quickly! We need to take a step back and understand why you need a platform. Popularity of a platform does not mean it’s the right one for you. The question we need to answer first is: What is the most important thing on a website? “Content!” And what do you need to do with it? “I need something to manage my content!”

Focus on Content, not on Platforms

The content on your site is why people will visit your site. Making sure you have the best possible content should be your number one priority in managing your site. And since content is the most important thing on a website, you need to focus on creating good content so that your website will get visits.

You want social engagement you say? Well, people aren’t going share just because you’ve got a cool looking site or because you are using the latest technology, but because you’ve got good content. The more content you have on a website the more people will want to visit your site. That sounds like a no-brainer, but traffic will always find your site if you have good content on it. It really doesn’t matter if you have videos, text or images; good content will always be found and shared on the internet. So focus on creating good content and there will always be plenty of visitors to go around.

So how will I curate all this great content I’ll be making?

Is there a particular software or platform that would help me manage all this great content I’m going to be creating? What factors should I take into consideration in choosing platform to manage and?

What kind of content do you have?

The most important question to ask yourself when selecting a platform is, “What kind of content do I have?” The type of content your organization has will dictate what platform and technology to use. So many organizations and individuals decide on a platform before they consider the content they will be producing and managing.

How often does your content need updates or changes? What is the frequency of your updates? If you content does not change much, you might consider a platform more simple and straight forward. If you content changes very frequently or even dynamically, you might consider a CMS or even an entirely custom application.

What kind of platform will work best for me?

What will best suit my needs? How would these platforms help me manage my content more effectively?

Selecting a Platforms for your Needs

Let’s go over the platform options that handle content so that we can choose the most efficient option for our content. These are some of the most common content needs.

• Static/ Non-Database — A static site is for content that does not change much, this can be done either by using a static site generator or just writing it by hand. These sites do not have a database and are based on the files alone. These sites take less resources to keep running than a dynamic sites do. Some examples are Jekyll, and Kirby, among others. *Also worth mentioning, these static sites are often more simple sites and sometimes an out of the box solution like Squarespace, Virb, or Weebly will work.
• Blogging — A blogging site designed for just that, blogging. Posting articles with images and videos. Social interaction with comments and sharing options are important to make these sites thrive. Blogging can be done with Ghost, Tumblr, Typepad, Blogger, and WordPress and other types. *Note: If you are not blogging, move right along, these sites are specifically designed for blogging.
• eCommerce — If you primary content are products you are selling, then choose a platform that will help you manage your products and sales. Some of the common eCommerce platforms people use are Shopify, Bigcommerce, Etsy, BigCartel, and Magneto.
• Forum — Forums and bulletins are great places to share information and ask questions. Some of the most common systems used are vBulletin, phpBB, and Xenforo.
• CMS — Content Management Systems were born out of necessity to update and manage customized content. If your content does not fall under one of other categories, the’s a good chance that your content needs can be met by a CMS. A key component of a CMS is that it makes no assumptions about your content, including the content that will be on your pages or posts, so that means it should be flexible enough to meet all your needs. A few of the popular systems are Craft, Expression Engine, Drupal, Webflow, Locomotive (using a NoSQL database), and Statamic (a hybrid non-database CMS).
• Custom Application — If the content needs are not met by using any of the above, the final resort should be to create a custom application. But using a modern web framework is really the only intelligent thing to use these days, so choose from a ton of php frameworks like CodeIgniter, Laravel, Phalcon and many more, or you can choose from Ruby on Rails or Node.js.

*To quell any debates: in truth, all of these systems/categories fall under and are content management systems under the pure definition of the term. But we are separating systems that fulfill specific roles.

How can I know if I made a bad choice?

If the platform you chose does not match or support the type content you have, you did not make a good choice and it is not the right platform for you. It may be a good platform for something else, but if it isn’t the most efficient and effective at managing your content, then it’s a bad choice and not the right solution for you.

More times than not, your content will fit into one of these categories. Doing something other than what the platform was intended for can require some serious re-engineering. It would be a waste of time and resources to modify a platform to suit your needs more adequately, if another out-of-the-box solution will work better for your content. It will also end up being harder for you as a user to use since the platform was not designed for what you are doing with it. Eg. Developing a custom blogging platform just to write blogs if WordPress or Tumblr will already suit your needs fine. Or modifying a blogging platform like WordPress to act like a CMS.

What problem I am trying to solve?

Keep this question in mind while choosing a platform. If the platform is causing you to work harder than necessary to manage you content, look for a different platform. Making sure that it is as easy as possible to manage content is a huge consideration when making a platform selection.

Community and Support

When you’re selecting a platform, another aspect to consider is the developer community surrounding it. The larger it is the easier it will be to find answers and solutions. A community will also create extensions to a platform that enhance it’s functionality. A community can also provide support for when you get in trouble (either paid or free) to you as a developer.

Technical considerations

There are technical pluses and minuses for each platform. For technical considerations, the speed in which content is retrieved/rendered/delivered is the number one technical consideration, next is reliability (or visa versa). Static systems are the fastest and will always be (but they are not the most flexible/reusable). The way in which information is recalled or queried from a database can also be fast or slow your site down. If your site is going to be high traffic, this is a huge consideration. If you have more questions, do some more research or consult with a developer.

Conclusion

I hope this has helped you remember what you’re really trying to do with a website and how to choose a platform that helps you manage all your content efficiently and effectively. Remember that content is alway king! Let it rule your site with grandeur!