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What's the best CMS for you? I take an in-depth look at Craft CMS.

While it’s the most popular, Wordpress isn’t the only show in town. In the first of my new series on the range of CMS systems out there, we look at Craft CMS.

Working in website development I have to get to grips with a lot of different content management systems, or CMS for short. A CMS essentially lets you manage your website and take control of your content. I typically find that WordPress is the most popular CMS out there, but there’s another option that’s becoming increasingly popular; Craft CMS.

A lot of my clients are unaware that I can develop Craft CMS sites - mainly because they don’t really know what Craft CMS is. In this post, I’ve taken an in-depth look at it to provide you with a greater understanding of what it does well, and not so well, and why it may be a better fit for your requirements than WordPress.

What are the main features of Craft CMS?

There are plenty of things that Craft CMS does exceptionally well - so much so that you may choose it over WordPress because of some of these features.

Very fast & responsive

Everything about Craft CMS is fast and responsive. It barely takes any time to load up and get started, and all the actions you take are completed almost instantly.

Brilliantly intuitive content management tools

As you would hope from a content management system, Craft CMS has a range of tools that make it so easy to manage your content. Everything is customisable, far more so than WordPress. In fact, on the content management side of things, this is really where you see a big difference between the two. Craft CMS is easy to use and comes with a Control Panel where you can create, edit, and preview your content. It even lets you share these previews with a secret URL so you can get feedback before publishing.

Safe & secure

Craft CMS isn’t as widely used as WordPress - which actually works to its advantage here. WordPress sites can be easy to hack because there are so many out there. Not only that, but there are thousands of plugins that all represent chances for hackers to breach your website. With Craft CMS, the security is much better, and it’s a less vulnerable system. Plus, you pay a yearly fee to use Craft, and security updates are included in this. So, whenever a new update comes, you can install it with just one click to keep your site safe & secure.

What are the main drawbacks of Craft CMS?

There aren’t too many drawbacks, but there are a couple of things that WordPress perhaps does better.

Support

Due to the sheer popularity of WordPress, there are thousands of developers that use it. As a result, there’s a diverse community that can help with any common problems. So, when you need support, there’s a high chance you’ll find it for free.

With Craft CMS, it’s not got as broad a user base, so the community support isn’t as extensive.

Cost

WordPress is free to use - through most features have to be bought - while Craft CMS comes with a licence fee and an annual fee. So, it’s perhaps not ideal for small businesses with a very tight budget.

Who will benefit most from Craft CMS?

Craft CMS is a brilliant choice for small businesses that want a unique site. There are tonnes of websites that use WordPress, and you can really tell when they do! If your company is serious about developing an online presence, then you will definitely benefit from Craft CMS. It helps your site feel more organised and modern, with the obvious benefit of letting you deliver fantastic content. As such, it’s a great platform for digital marketing experts to work their magic on as well, which will further benefit your business.

One of the main problems people have with Craft is that it can be hard to find a good Craft CMS developer. But this won’t be an issue for you as I can handle the development side of things. If you have a very restricted budget and don’t need a site with lots of features, then WordPress might suit you more because it’s free. However, if you start finding yourself paying for additional features to improve your site, then it probably makes more sense to consider Craft CMS instead.

All in all, I find that Craft CMS is definitely a fantastic option because of how fast it is, how easy it is for web developers like me to use, and how customisable & secure it is. If you want to improve your business website with Craft CMS, then contact me today. As a Bristol freelance web developer, I can help you make use of this great CMS platform. Give me a call and I’ll get things moving for you.