It can be a nightmare trying to find the perfect content management platform for your website design or re-design project, but it’s worse being stuck with a wrong one. When it comes to content management software, a wrong choice is like a leaky bucket that will drain you of your time and resources. But, most importantly, it could easily jeopardize your most powerful marketing asset - your content, and ultimately result in a failure to meet the business goals it is meant to address.

While today there are dozens of content management systems (CMS) available for a development project, there are almost as many factors (if not more) you need to consider before picking a suitable one. Are you going to build a website from scratch or redesign an existing one? Are you looking for a scalable solution or perhaps you’re planning take your site to next level in terms of security or enterprise integrations? Or are you simply wanting a CMS to make quick changes to your site by yourself? Depending on these factors, along with set-up, maintenance costs, and of course ease-of-use, most CMS selection processes often get narrowed down to the following three choices:

  • Open Source CMS
  • Enterprise Platforms
  • Custom CMS

To help you choose the right CMS for your project, let’s look at these options.

Open Source CMS

An Open Source CMS essentially involves an open, editable code base and the biggest reason why people tend to use it more often is because of its price. A vast array of plugins and tools, opportunities for customization, and ease-of-use are other reasons for its popularity. In fact, nearly 60% of the world’s websites are powered by WordPress - the most-utilized open source platform. But, are these reasons enough for you to join the bandwagon? The following are some pros and cons of open source CMS that will help you decide.

Pros

  • Large community of developers create plugins, technical resources, themes and extension, frequently enhancing and updating base product.
  • Most cost-effective way to create a basic website.
  • Does not require advance programming skills to setup an out-of-the-box site.
  • WordPress is customizable and has a large selection of themes for any type of business.

Cons

  • Requires assistance from a developer to create more custom applications, optimizations, and customizations to the theme.
  • Because it’s open source, things can break unexpectedly with platform updates.
  • Plugins and platforms provide little to no support.
  • Security vulnerabilities.
  • Limitation on types of content managed.

Enterprise/Commercial Platform

Few processes can be taken off the rack and immediately put to work with minimal adjustment. An enterprise CMS solution is one such process. With an enterprise / commercial platform like Sitecore, you can enjoy certain distinct advantages such as greater reliability, well-defined SLAs, better support, massive scalability, and faster deployment to name a few. For these reasons, when it comes to building a website or mobile app that’s not your average Joe, an enterprise platform makes perfect sense.

Pros

  • Reliability, Support, Security, and SLAs.
  • Great set of possible use cases for platform and flexibility to build large applications.
  • Very well-documented processes and toolsets for enterprise-level architecture that’s perfect for large businesses.
  • Enterprise CMS platforms like are designed around business processes to help solve problems like marketing automation.

Cons

  • Cost.
  • Smaller pool of developers to maintain code in-house, resulting in expensive training.
  • Longer development processes and bigger learning curves.
  • Rigid development processes with creation.

Another major limitation of an enterprise solution can be inoperability with other platforms or existing infrastructure. While the problems of interoperability or vendor lock-in can be tackled, it may require complex coding, which will obviously increase time and budget requirements.  However, if you have the resources to buy and maintain an enterprise tool, it can often be a great investment.

Custom CMS

An enterprise or commercial CMS can be a great option for heavy-duty projects and enterprise applications, but one thing's for sure - no commercial platform can meet your business needs completely and exactly. There will virtually always be something missing or worse still, there may be features that interfere with the business goals you’re trying to achieve. This is where custom CMS platforms, like our very own wynd™ software can bridge the gap and bring the best of both the worlds: tailor-made benefits of an open source framework combined with the advanced, enterprise-grade features of a commercial CMS. 

Of course, that’s not to say we don’t support open source and commercial CMS platforms. We absolutely do!  In fact, we are agnostic when it comes to catering to our clients’ preferences - for example, we are certified Sitecore 8 developers and experts in WordPress.  Successful websites and one-size-fits-all solutions don’t go hand-in-hand so maintaining flexibility is key to success.

Benefits of Custom CMS

  • Customized assets and content to meet your business needs.
  • Excellent customer support.
  • Enterprise-grade service offering at the right price.
  • Great for a basic site with blog as well as for creating out-of-the-box experiences to make the largest impact, including:
  • Virtual events to showcase an industry
  • Training platforms
  • Online libraries for educational sites
  • Online TV network

To sum it all up, picking the right CMS is a vital element of your project and therefore, it’s best to make an in-depth evaluation of your requirements, budget, and preferences before making the final decision. We hope the points we’ve discussed above will help you set forth in the right direction. 

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