These days, it is great to develop a website on a content management system to have more immediate control over your content. Though medium to large companies have budgets for time blocks with agency for the simple edits they don’t have time to do, gone are the days of having to contact your development agency or individual web designer for simple content edits (adding a paragraph, adding a sentence, editing a mis-spelling, etc.). When starting a new website there are many content management systems available for a great solid base. Below are our open source favorites.
WordPress
Our Plus
The wordpress editor is light weight and easy to use. This makes editing basic content in your blog and pages quick and easy.- The wordpress community is huge. This makes it easier than most content managements systems when you run into an issue. Odds are someone in the wordpress community has already run into them and has a solution.
- Since the community is so large, odds are there is a plugin developed for most things you would want to do on your site. Whether its adding a form or an image slider, there is probably a plugin for it.
- Due to the large community, there are many templates available for wordpress (some better than others when in regards to ease of use and looks.).
- Due to the large community, finding a developer that works with WordPress is a bit easier, which is important for those rare cases you do run into an issue.
Our Minus
- Template updates require knowledge of php, html and css. These should most always be handled by someone with knowledge on these languages in order to avoid issues.
- Themes and plugins sometimes conflict so making sure a plugin is compatible with your theme requires some digging, if you do not have an agency knowledgable in WordPress development.
- Occasional security issues if maintenance and or updates are neglected.
Joomla
Our Plus
Joomla has a great out of the box editor for basic updating.- It also has a large community, which makes it easier to find answers to a certain issue.
- There are various themes and templates available, making it almost impossible not to find one that fits your needs if custom website design is not in your budget.
Our Minus
- Not too easy to use from a basic user perspective as far a intuitiveness. Many options display at once and can sometimes be intimidating when trying to make edits.
- Modules are not always as easy to find if you are looking to do something specific. Custom development from scratch might be more than WordPress, which can sometimes prove to be costly.
Drupal
Our Plus
Developer friendly code.- Large developer community is a plus for those rare website issues that creep up.
- Many modules your developer can use to accomplish a variety of requirements.
Our Minus
- If you aren’t a developer, it may be little difficult to use. It is not as intuitive as WordPress in our opinion.
- Requires advanced knowledge to install and or modify. A developer is almost always needed for these steps if the server does not auto install.
- Its known to cause some large server loads out of the box.