Choosing A CMS: How To Make The Right Choice?

Finding a custom content management system is not a cakewalk. Although there is no definite answer but to determine the best for your business, you must understand what each CMS has to offer and what your business needs from a CMS solution.

What is a CMS?

CMS (Content Management System) is a software application that helps in creating and managing content seamlessly. There are two types of CMSs are available in the market,

Enterprise Content Management System (ECMS) allows businesses to create, manage, and distribute content efficiently as well as provide collaboration on them. On the other hand, the Web Content Management System (WCMS) offers a set of tools allowing users to create and maintain digital information on a website. WCMS is usually free or comes with affordable subscriptions. It is the type of CMS that doesn’t require much coding and is easily customizable.

Which CMS To Choose and When?

Today, many CMS are available in the market. But the question arises, which CMS you should opt for your business. Let’s get specific and look into the best CMS Solutions.

Related Article : Headless Vs Decoupled: Which CMS Architecture is Better Option for Your Business​

Best CMS for Enterprises  

1. Kentico – Explore the Best Way to Work with Content  

Kentico CMS is a standard ASP.NET application. With Kentico CMS development, you can easily manage the content of dynamic websites. It continuously updates its versions to deliver a robust user experience. Kentico 12 is the latest version that comes with MVC, enabling your site to run faster and making your users engaged. The benefits of Kentico CMS are:

• It is a fully functional CMS that provides powerful and flexible tools to the streamlines editing process
• It offers simplified personalization that allows you to create new widget variants based on country and device type
• It boasts a new drag-and-drop form builder, allowing you to design, build and publish forms with ease without any external help required

• Kentico 12 uses MVC technology that helps you optimize the website performance by giving complete control over HTM output

It comes with a selection of pricing and licensing options; all you need to select the right plan and enjoy real business value.

2. SiteCore – Create Seamless & Personalized Digital Experiences 

Sitecore is powered by .Net CMS, commerce, and digital marketing tools. It is continuously evolving, and each update offers innovative tools for its users. Moreover, it is considered as one of the powerful and flexible CMS platforms that help you improve web traffic, track marketing campaigns, and measure outcome precisely.

3. Episerver – Delivers Relevant Digital Experiences Fast to your Customers 

Episerver offers a perfect blend of commerce, content, and marketing on one platform, empowering its users to create engaging content across channels. Episerver is targeted towards rapidly growing businesses that want to expand their web presence. It is a flexible, scalable, and customizable CMS platform that delivers personalized customer experiences. Moreover, it gives the power of on-page editing experience by allowing content editors to create and modify content directly from the website.

Best CMS for E-Commerce 

1. Shopify – Fast, Reliable, and Responsive CMS

One of the most trusted e-commerce CMSs, Shopify helps you sell online seamlessly. It comes with beautiful themes that are responsive and customizable. It handles everything efficiently, from marketing to secure checkout and shipping. A fully featured CMS that has thousands of third-party features that help you extend the functionality depending on the business’s requirements.

2. Magento – Offering Tons of Options for Customization and Integrations

Magento is an intuitive visual-based page editor that allows shop owners to build and customize the offerings on the go. It offers unparalleled power and potential to enterprise e-commerce owners who deal with an enormous customer base and high sales volume. It is currently used by thousands of retailers including, Samsung and Nespresso.

Best CMS for Small Businesses

1. WordPress – An Open Source Solution that Requires No Coding Skills

WordPress for small businesses is a perfect choice as it is an economical and convenient development platform that enables you to add multiple features like an event calendar, video gallery, and Twitter feed for free. The code behind the CMS is easy-to-understand, making it SEO-friendly.

2. Joomla – Multilingual, Well-Supported by a Large Ecosystem

Start and grow your business effortlessly with Joomla. It has a rock-solid code base and has a vast global community that will help you launch your website faster. The CMS offers support to 70+ languages and has over 8000 extensions that extend your website and broaden its functionality.

3. Drupal – Out-of-the-Box Web Content Management CMS

It is an open source web CMS that provides deep capabilities and endless flexibility on the web platform. It is the best CMSs that capture 3.4% of the market share. With its smart in-built features, Drupal enables high-tech security and scalability for rich content and top user experience.

Now, when you are aware of the types of CMS available in the marketplace, the question arises whether you should invest in custom or proprietary CMS solutions or go for open source CMS.

In Which Option You Should Invest: Open Source Vs. Custom CMS?

Open source CMS includes WordPress, Drupal, or Joomla as the platform’s code is publically available and editable at the same time. These CMSs are frequently updated by a broader online community that helps you add new features with every release.

A custom CMS is a proprietary solution that is exclusively built for the company’s use. It gives you complete authority over the platform’s functionality, interface, and updates. With custom solutions, the entire system’s workflow, design, and usability can be altered depending on the business’s requirements.

Finding the right direction can be a tedious yet imperative task. Several factors can impact your decision like,

Budget: Open source alternatives are often available at low or minimum cost, but businesses may end up investing more while expanding or modifying systems. On the other hand, the upfront cost of custom CMS varies depending on the business requirements. But the enhanced control over the platform can help you save huge bucks over time.

Maintenance, Problems, & Critical Issues: Open source applications are tested by 1000s of developers that reduces maintenance overheads. However, in case of upgrades, bugs in existing code, plugin conflicts, and customization, you require a skilled developer to fix and maintain. For custom CMS, you need to pay an affordable maintenance fee. Since the application is built from scratch, the development team knows code inside-out, allowing you to get it fixed in a shorter time.

Making the right choice between custom and open source begins with finding the right CMS development company. They can guide you throughout the process and suggest you the best CMS assessing your current and future business goals.

Summary

In this blog, we’ve attempted to give you a quick idea about the top CMSs you can use and how they can transform your business. If you want to invest in CMS, it is wise to get quotes before for a fair idea about the budget required. We have also developed a reliable app cost calculator tool to know how much does a CMS cost for your business. All you need to give a few answers basis on the business requirements, and you can calculate cost within minutes. For more details, you can book a free consultation with our CMS experts!