Have you ever heard of creating a website using the popular and Best CMS Platforms? Nowadays, as opposed to the advent of the web, there are plenty of CMS Platforms out there in the market. They have developed and grown to meet your demands—Be it content, project, web design, web development, or anything else. Even you have to pass your time to jump into a proper decision as to which one is best for your work or website.
CMS is a kind of software application that allows you to build, create, edit and publish content and sites. Using a popular CMS platform, you can design and build a website even without having to write any code. Sounds too incredible? Never! It is possible. You don’t need to be a coding expert. Do you know how WordPress has gained about 64.9% market share of CMS based websites and it amounts to be 41.9% of all website.?
What Is a CMS Platform?
Eager to know about CMS Platform? A CMS Platform is a particular kind of software application that lets its users to develop, manage and publish websites using its built-in custom features without entering any code. Though you can use other tools and extensions to make it more advanced in functionality and usability.
Some decades ago, designing and building websites was too much dependent on web developers because of the non-availability of website building platforms aka Best CMS Platforms. Its introduction of it is a major breakthrough in the web world. You don’t have to learn HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Just use an open-source CMS Platform or purchase one of the popular and best CMS-based platforms to start your online journey by creating a CMS website.
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How to Choose the Best CMS Platforms for Your Website?
Unable to take a proper decision on How to choose the Best CMS Platforms for your site? Indeed choosing a CMS-based platform is a task that you should take care of, as your future site will be developed and stay on it. There are many CMS providers out there in the market but you have to find out and choose the best one that is most suitable for your work. All of these platforms are not equal in price, features, interface, customization, and usability although they offer similar services to their users.
A good CMS Platform has the following features:
Easy to Use and Manage: With a good Content Management System based platform, you can easily add pages, posts, categories, and tags. It provides you a WYSIWYG( what you see is what you get) editor and so you can manage everything with a live preview on board from the editing dashboard. You can modify and update not only content but also website features if needed. You don’t need to hire a web developer, rather you can do everything with ease.
Design Options: The best CMS Platforms that you are going to choose from must have multiple design options to choose from. Be it homepage, web layout, sidebar, header, or footer—It should have many design templates. Choosing a proper template adds a more visual feel and outlook to your site. Visitors love to see and stay more on a website that provides an aesthetic sense of visibility.
Data Portability and Management: Data portability is a-must have a feature that you should take care of. It allows you to export or import data from one system into another one. It is too much helpful for website migration. If you want to migrate your site to any host of your choice, then your CMS Platform must be able to support data portability.
Compatibility with Add-ons: Compatibility with add-ons and extensions implies that what you choose as the best CMS Platforms must be able to work with other add-ons such as themes, plugins, and web applications connected via APIs. Every website needs to install some essential plugins and a theme to add more advanced features to the site. If your chosen platform does not support it, it will be a problematic issue that may compel you to hire a developer to make themes and plugins. That’s why to choose the best CMS-based platform that supports integrity and compatibility.
Built-in SEO: Nowadays, most website building platforms give some built-in SEO features like highlighting SEO title, metadata, XML sitemap, and providing rich snippets in search results.
Support and Contact: Contact and support are other factors in choosing the best CMS Platforms. It is not only a way to help but also help to find out a solution. Some platforms makers have active support via, chat, email, or direct call while others have an active forums where you can post your issue and find a solution from them. FAQs and knowledge-based articles too are helpful to solve problems.
WordPress.org
WordPress.org is the most popular and one of the best CMS Platforms used by bloggers and other site owners all over the world. Originally, it evolve to build sites and most of the users were bloggers. But nowadays, webmasters use it to build various types of sites such as an online stores, eCommerce, reviews, membership sites, etc. It is combined with a block editor that is super easy to use, and provides a lot of features to add and manage content.
Know that there are both the WordPress.com and WodPress.org and each one is a CMS Platform, though there exists a lot of differences. When we are talking about WordPress, we actually refer to the latter, namely, WordPress.org which is self-hosted, too user-friendly, and more popular than the former.. Like to know more about them? Read our article WordPress.com vs WordPress.org to know which is best for hosting websites.
Pros:
- Being the most popular and best CMS Platform it provides you much flexibility. You can use it to build any kind of website using its built-in features and customizer. You don’t need to write any code. It also gives you a drop-drag menu builder. Using it, you can create a custom navigation menu. Even if you want to customize it, then you can add a drop-down menu.
- Adding content is super easy. You can add new pages, posts, categor,ies and tags. Using the block editor, you can upload an image in the media and assign it an Alt tag mostly used for images. It has a lot of editing features like block patterns, social media symbols, widgets, etc. The WYSIWYG interface makes it more user-friendly.
- You can install themes and plugins—-Both free and paid. There are thousands of Free themes and plugins available in the WordPress directory. You can choose and install anyone of your choice. Besides, you can get premium themes and plugins from the marketplace if you like to make your website more functional.
- Also, you can add APIs, and other tools and connect these with your site from the admin bar.
- It is also enriched in Search Engine Optimization(SEO). You can install and activate SEO-Plugins to enhance your website performance. It shows you SEO title, metadata, SEO-friendly URL, Focus keyword, and link suggestions.
- Also, WordPress supports data portability management.
Cons:
- No doubt, WordPress is one of the best CMS Platforms yet it’s not above limitations. Since it is self-hosted you need to have a registered domain and an independent web hosting provider. These are the two must-haves that you need to purchase in order to use this site building platform.
- Another major drawback is security. You have to maintain security using certain tools or applications. Also, you are responsible for site backups.
Pricing for WordPress
WordPress does not cost you anything. It is an open-source application software. To host a site on this platform, you should have a custom domain registered with any domain name registrar and a web hosting service. If you haven’t a domain, then you can register a new domain name that costs about $10 to $15 per year.
Want to have a free domain? Bluehost is a great web host and gives you a free domain. Its basic plan starts at $2.75/M with the free domain name and free SSL Certificate.
Are you a beginner and don’t know about site hosting? Here at Blowwager, we have a tutorial on How to create a WordPress site from scratch even without entering any code.
Bluehost is the WordPress recommended #1 hosting service providing free domain for the first year, unmetered SSD, unmetered bandwidth, free SSL, CDN from Cloudflare, best customer support, and a lot of standard hosting features needed for modern web hosting platforms.
Disclosure: Some of the links are affiliate links which means that if you buy any product using one of these links included in this blog, the company may compensate me at an additional cost to you. Also, learn that I recommend those products which I stand behind and have found to be good.
Also, you can try other web hosting companies if don’t like Bluehost. Go through our dedicated article on the best WordPress hosting
Joomla is an open-source application and one of the best CMS Platforms. It covers about 3.5% market share all over the world. It is best for developers and those who have good experience in coding. It is characterized by object-oriented software design based on the MVC framework. It makes users able to create their own extensions. They can install these extensions via the back-end in the Joomla directory. Currently, there are about 6000 extensions in various categories.
Pros:
- Joomla is open source application, having a lot of flexibility in custom post-type management.
- More advanced in security management than WordPress. It provides better administration and user management.
- Supports multilinguality, hence you don’t need any plugin or extension to add more language.
- It is good for e-commerce.
- Behind this CMS Platform, there is a large community of users. If you are stuck with any problem, you may get help.
Cons:
- Basically, Joomla is best for developers and those who have good skills in web development. If you cannot solve any issue, you have to hire a developer. In this respect, it is not as user-friendly as WordPress is.
- Sometimes users encounter compatibility issue, namely, adding too many extensions cause problem, and to solve such kind of issue needs developers though you may get help from the forum.
Drupal is an open-source CMS Platform. Some renowned sites and university websites are built on this platform. It is not as beginner-friendly as WordPress. You need to hire a developer to build a site on it. It is good for sites handling huge traffic.
Pros:
- Drupal is very flexible with a modular layout.
- It has a large base of extension modules which amount to about 46000.
- You haven’t to think about data security, as it gives the highest priority to it.
- Supports multi-domains.
Cons:
- Configuration is very complex in Drupal. You can’t set up configuration without web development experience.
- FTP is needed to install additional modules.
- It is not best for those who haven’t experience in web development.
Magento is a powerful open source CMS platform and the best for eCommerce sites. This platform was released in 2008 acquired by eBay and then sold to Adobe.
Pros:
- Use on any self-hosted PHP web hosting.
- It is highly customizable and scalable.
- You need to hire a developer if you have no experience in PHP.
- Magento includes SEO tools such as XML, Sitemap, meta description, customizable URL, etc.
- A lot of payment gateway integration options.
Cons:
- Best for developers who have good experience in web development.
- No customer support is available like other CMS like WordPress, Joomla, or Drupal.
- You have to maintain hosting and security.
- You will not get support unless you opt for the enterprise package but it is too expensive.
WordPress.com is another CMS platform to build and host websites. However, many people get confused and don’t know the difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com
With WordPress.org you need to host an independent site with a custom domain but WordPress.com is its commercial version. If you want to host a website, it gives you both the hosting and site builder integrated with the package but you need to purchase a plan.
Pros:
- WordPress.com is one of the best CMS Platforms. Because it is easy to use and manage. You can add content with the live editor.
- It also provides you, site builder. With their free plan, you can create sites with their WordPress.com subdomain free of charge.
- You can use the free themes of your choice. There are many free themes available therein free of cost. You can customize your site with any theme by uploading it.
- WordPress.com has built-in analytics to show stats on the same dashboard. You don’t need to have separate Google analytics.
Cons:
- With the free plan, you have limited options for business or monetization. They may show ads on your site and your site will have a wordpress.com subdomain.
- You can’t use a custom domain unless you upgrade to a paid plan offered by it.
- You will not have options to install plugins unless you upgrade to a business plan but it is costly.
- You can’t have full control over your WordPress site as you have in the self-hosted WordPress.org site.
Woocommerce is the most popular platform for ecommerce. It needs to be installed onto your site, as Woocommerce is a plugin but you need a hosting service provider and a custom domain.
According to W3Tech, Woocommerce accounts for 5.8% market share in the world.
Pros:
- If you want to build a Woocommerce site for online shopping like eCommerce, you need to install the software. It is free and open source. However, you need a web hosting service and a custom domain.
- You can install the theme to make your site unique in appearance and feel. There are many themes available for Woocommerce.
- To add extra functionality to your site, you can install plugins. It is very effective to make your site do what you want.
- You sell physical and digital products with ease. Also, you can run an affiliate program to increase sales.
- It supports payment integration. You can add PayPal, Stripe, etc to facilitate the smooth online transactions.This is a great choice for transactions. It also supports other payment methods too through extensions.
Cons:
- Woocommerce gives you a lot of options to customize your sites and it may be confusing for you if you can’t choose the proper tools and add-ons.
- To add integrated payment methods, you need to install security plugins. There are many themes too but you have to choose those themes which are specially designed for Woocommerce.
Wix is a CMS Platform that is great for websites but it is not as best as WordPress is. Using it, you can build websites with drop-drag features. Wix gives you a free website with Wix branded domain. You can use a custom domain with a paid plan.
Pros:
- With Wix, you can build a website with a predesigned template for website layout.
- It has multiple templates and you can use any one of it.
- It also provides a drop-drag builder. The drop-drag interface lets you add the menu, submenu, page, category, and post to the horizontal menubar.
- There are many apps in the Wix marketplace. Based on your choice, you can use and install the apps which are required for your site.
Cons:
- A major drawback of Wix is that you can’t change a template that you have once used for your site. That’s why to choose a proper template in order to use it to build your website layout.
- You have to use a Wix branded domain unless you upgrade to a paid plan. In order to use a custom domain, you need to upgrade to a paid plan.
- Similarly, you can use PayPal and Authorized.net as payment gateways in eCommerce plan.
- Data portability is not easy to manage.
BigCommerce is one of the best CMS Platforms which you can use to build a website along with hosting. You need not maintain backups and security. They will do the rest.
Pros:
- It allows you to start a site with a trial phase for certain days before upgrading to a paid plan.
- When you are at the trial phase, your website will have an extension having a subdomain like .com at the end. I think you should upgrade to a paid plan to have a custom domain and better growth of your site.
- It supports multiple payment gateways such as PayPal, Amazon Pay, Apple Pay, etc. If needed you can use a debit card and credit card too.
- It provides you with active support right from your dashboard. You can have email, live chat, call, community support, etc.
Cons:
You will not have sufficient themes and integrations. It does not give you as much control over your site as WooCommerce. With the increase in sales, you have to pay more.
Squarespace is a great CMS Platform that you can use to host and build a website. You can create various kind of sites to start your online journey.
Pros:
- At Squarespace, you can choose any template of your choice out of multiple ones to build a website.
- You can build a website with ease. No need to hire a web designer. It is a DIY approach, so, building a site is easy.
- Even you can build a site for an online stores or products.
- If needed, you can migrate the site from third-party site to Squarespace but you need to do it in CSV format.
- You can get assistance 24*7 if needed.
- Squarespace gives four kinds of plans such as personal plan costs $ 12/month, business plan $ 18/month, commerce(basic) $ 26/month, and commerce(advanced) $ 40/month.
Cons:
- You will not have any download option of Squarespace because it does not provide it.
- Discount available only for long-term plan selection.
Shopify is an all-rounder and one of the best CMS Platforms for ecommerce site. It provides hosting and web apps. It takes care of security, update, and backup.
Pros:
- Shopify is a great CMS Platform you don’t need to purchase a separate hosting. It includes a site builder plus web hosting integrated into the same plan.
- To start a robust online store at Shopify, you don’t have to purchase themes and extensions from third parties, rather it provides you with all that you need.
- It gives good customer support 24*7 through email, chat, and phone calls. Also, you can get a lot of instructions and video tutorials on how to manage your sites.
Cons:
It is costly to add many apps to your site. Because each third-party app costs high. So, in comparison with WordPress, Shopify has fewer apps.
Ghost is one of the best CMS Platforms that started as a blogging platform. It is a headless CMS that implies that the content you wrote on a site built on Ghost can be published on any device or app regardless of a specific way.
Pros:
The Ghost editor is endowed with a Markdown feature and it lets you give your text specific characters or patterns. The Ghost editor has some features similar to the WordPress block editor. It uses cards that are similar to blocks in WordPress. Ghost has built-in SEO features that will work for your website too and you don’t have to install any SEO plugin as you do in WordPress.
Cons:
Ghost is best for Blogging, however, it is not as powerful as WordPress. Maintaining a site with a lot of features is complicated though now it offers paid subscription.
Blogger is CMS Platform introduced by Google in 1999. It is best for those who want to blog as a hobby. It is a free service for blogging yet you can use your own domain name. Read the pros and cons of blogger.
Pros:
- You can set up your blog with Blogger in a few steps. Just what you need to have is to own a Google account. Sign in to Blogger through your account, choose a template, and start writing and publish your blog post.
- You can add contact forms through gadgets for good purposes.
- Hosting is managed by Google, you don’t have to pay, update or install anything.
- In Blogger, you can add as many posts as you like but you can set up to 20 static pages. It gives you a total of 15 GB of space including Google Drive.
Cons:
- Blogger is a simple blogging site and it does not suit another purpose. Hence, it is limited in scope.
- You can’t use eCommerce features in it.
- The themes you can use at Blogger are mostly basic, you can’t modify them without a developer.
- You can’t export your posts and pages, rather you have to manually copy and paste from Blogger to any third-party site or CMS.
Bitrix24 is one of the best CMS Platforms that you can use to build and manage websites including hosting, web apps, project management, and a plethora of subjects on Content Management systems. It is also great to build CRM(Customer Relationship Management) to enhance business.
Pros:
- This CMS Platform gives you a lot of features such as web hosting, website builder, web app, business software, and API development.
- Even you can propose project development and maintain good customer relationships through CRM.
- It has multiple plans like start+ which starts at $ 19/month, CRM+ $55/month and project+ costs about $55/month.
Cons: Bitrix24 gives you a lot of features and you will be confused to choose from if you don’t know which are to be chosen for your site or project. You have to plan properly to start your site with specific tools.
Prestashop is an open-source eCommerce platform. You can install Prestashop on any web host that support it.
Pros:
- At Prestashop, you can get help and tips from the large Prestashop community.
- You can grow your site. The initial shared hosting does not cost too much.
- If required, you can add new Prestashop modules.
Cons:
At Prestashop, there are a lot of themes and at an earlier stage, it may be tricky as to which are to be chosen for your site.
Umbraco is a popular open-source CMS Platform. It is best for accessibility, security, and editing content. Umbraco powered more than 70,000 websites worldwide.
Pros:
- Umbraco is one of the best CMS Platforms that can be used for various types of users. It has more than 200,000 active users. Building and designing a website is easy at it. Even you can download and install it. It has about 731,438 active installs.
- It gives you site building along with hosting in the Umbraco cloud.
- It gives 14-day free trial.
- Umbraco takes care of security and update.
Cons:
Umbraco is too costly. The basic plan starts at $ 39/month. It provides various services and you may feel tricky at the beginning.
Kentico is a headless CMS Platform that started its journey in 2004. It has more than 300,000 websites, web apps, online stores, users, and employees worldwide. It develops projects and connects your site to its cloud-based solutions via API. Kentico covers different subjects like Commerce, customer data platforms, analytics, automation, etc. It gives you 30 day’s free trial.
Grav is an open source and self-hosted CMS Platform written in PHP programming language. It provides almost every kind of website. Not only websites but also themes and plugins are available here. It focused on simplicity, focus, and speed. Contents are created via markdown, templates are designed by twig and you can install them easily. You can download the software and it supports multilinguality. Grav has tones of features, you don’t have to take care of security, backup, and update. It is also SEO-friendly and enriched with a lot of content features with all required tools. You can do everything from a single platform.
