Choosing the right content management system is an indispensable step in creating a website. Nowadays there are dozens of CMS out there, each having something special about it. Today, we want to have a look at some common CMSs to help you understand which one of them can be a better choice for your website, depending on what kind of website you are going to develop. It will be a convenient option to figure out straightaway what kind of CMS you want to be installed on your VPS server, so you can get a VPS with this CMS already installed and ready to use on it – like WordPress VPS or Magento VPS. Without further ado, let’s get started.
WordPress
WordPress is one of the oldest and the most popular CMS. It is free and open source, providing its user with an extremely user-friendly interface that is accessible even to beginners, so you can manage and edit your website without the help of a webmaster.
- Extensive plugin ecosystem: WordPress has one of the biggest plugin libraries, with about 58,000 plugins that allow you to customize WordPress in every way imaginable.
- Community support: WordPress has a large community of active users and developers that provide strong community support and create content that can be helpful in understanding the subtleties and functionalities of WordPress.
The potentially weak sides of WordPress include:
- Security vulnerabilities:. Given that WordPress is the most popular CMS, there are also the biggest number of cyber criminals that develop ways of hacking into the system.
- Performance optimization: In some scenarios, WordPress can be more resource-intensive than average when we deal with resource intensive websites. In this case, a more powerful hosting solution may be required.
Joomla
Joomla is another free and open source CMS that enjoys a great degree of popularity. Why might you want to choose Joomla?
- Flexibility: Joomla is extremely flexible so it may be adapted for the need of website of extremely different types – starting from blogs and further to large e-commerce websites. Its functionality allows even for building pretty complex websites.
- Built-in multilingual support: With Joomla you won’t have to struggle too much to create versions of your website in different languages since it has a native multilingual support.
- Developer friendliness: Joomla has much to offer to those who know how to code, allowing professional developers to effectively combine ready-made CMS functionalities with their own know-how.
However, Joomla is not without a couple of cons:
- Steeper learning curve: Joomla is overall not as simple and user friendly as WordPress.
- Limited selection of plugins: Although there are multiple plugins for various purposes in Joomla, their number cannot be compared to one of WordPress.
Drupal
Another free and open-source CMS with a special focus on customizability and developer friendliness.
- Customizability: Drupal may be a particularly good match for complex websites with numerous features.
- Security: The developers of Drupal placed a special emphasis on the security features of the CMS, which is why it’s often chosen by government and enterprise-level websites.
- Performance: Drupal is considered a CMS tailored for high-performance websites, being capable of handling high traffic volumes with ease.
Nevertheless, Drupao does have a couple of cons:
- Complexity: Drupal has a higher entry level when it comes to technical skills, so before using it you have to have a decent level of technical expertise.
- Smaller community: The community of Drupal is not so big compared to some more popular CMS, so there are fewer themes and modules.
Shopify
Shopify is not just a CMS, but is a specialized e-commerce platform, which offers numerous features for the organization of online stores as well as built-in payment processing and inventory management.
- Ease of use: Shopify is particularly easy to start working with so you can start building your e-commerce website even without particular technical expertise.
- Scalability: Shopify is designed to support e-commerce stores of different scales, so your website will be able to adapt to ever higher volumes of sales as it grows.
Shopify has a couple of drawbacks you have to be aware about:
- Cost: Shopify is not free unlike the platforms discussed above, and you will have to pay even more as you scale up.
- Limited customization: While shopify is specially tailored for the need of e-commerce stores, there are more limited customization options if compared to some other open source platforms.
What Platform to Choose?
As you can see, all platforms offer something that could be a good fit for constructing this or that kind of website, so you have to consider carefully your priorities in this regard. WordPress can be extremely easy to start and offers the most extensive plugin library and community support. Joomla and Drupal might be harder to master, but offer a great deal of customization and features that professional developers can benefit from. Shopify is perfect for building e-commerce stores that need additional capital investments.
We hope that now you have a better idea of what CMS will be a better choice for your project, good luck!
