Are you getting confused about which CMS to choose for your new website?

A very happy new year 2020! I am sure the celebration was fun. And I am also sure that the targets, the meetings, the daily chores are already haunting you. Let me try and make one part of all the fears ease out and help you take one of the decisions with more knowledge and the right one.
I wish that you will get more business, expand the reach, and tap into a new customer base this year. However, to do the same you should have an interactive, audience engaging and most importantly an informative website with fluent UI, UX, Content and effective CTA positioning.

If you are still reading this article, I am sure you are either in the need of making a new website or doing a revamp. Let me start with some questions that have crossed your mind recently in making a decision in this regard.

• Freelancers or Web Development Agencies?
• What would be the Budget to consider?
• Which technologies to choose?

In this article, I am only going to focus on the technology bit. And in the next, I will throw light on the other questions as well.

When it comes to website development, the first thing you need to choose is a Content Management System (CMS) that will best match your business case and functional requirements.

A CMS is a software tool that allows you to create, modify, and publish content and it is a backbone of a website.
The objective of a CMS is to provide an intuitive user interface for developing and modifying web page content. A CMS will also provide a website publishing tool that facilitates one or more users to publish updates live on the Web.

There are several web-based open source CMS available. However, there are only a few very popular and you can easily bottom down to making a choice between the following: 

• WordPress is an open-source software you can use to create a beautiful website, blog, or app.        
• Drupal focuses on providing standard features including reliable performance, strong security, and reliable customizability. 

So, which CMS should you choose?
Before I answer this question, please ask yourself, what your organization is? & what your priority is?

Let me tell you that if you are in small and medium scale business such as Jewellery shop, tourism business, car detailing and etc where you are expecting a website with 10 – 15 pages such as:

• Home
• About
• Products/Services
• Blog
• Contact Us

Given the requirement is basic, your focus is largely on the look and feel, and that the budget is not high, I would recommend going with WordPress. Besides, it is the most popular CMS platform to date and powers over 27% of all websites which is 59% CMS market share.

Moreover, WordPress as a CMS suits more to those business owners and bloggers who do not have an IT team or IT leaders to manage, edit and maintain the website and have to do the same by themselves.

WordPress has a good advantage for small scale websites in terms of a) a large number and variety of add-ons, b) support, and c) customizable to the extent that small websites need. 

Let us now check when you should choose Drupal as your preferred CMS. My answer is crisp – when you think that your requirement is a complex business case with several user roles and functionalities.

Security : With the rising threat of hacking and malware, one of the prime concerns is security. Among all the CMS, Drupal is the best when it comes to security metrics.

Functionality : Custom Drupal websites are blessed with the ability to develop a wide array of complex functionalities. It races ahead of all other open-source CMS in terms of functionality development. Drupal's API and module-driven architecture help website developers to implement new functionality to serve their custom requirements.

Flexibility : Drupal is more flexible than most CMS in the world as it is built both as a framework and as a CMS and, therefore, you will find Drupal developers stick to Drupal for long. Everything in terms of functionality is freely available as modules and with the help of a developer, you can customize each and everything in Drupal. Drupal has the ability to handle a large amount of content and users and scores of data and users simultaneously.

Search Engine Friendly : Getting listed in the Search Engines is one of the major objectives as "Out of Sight - Out of Mind". Drupal is built by the combination of clean codes and has powerful modules. These are the factors make Drupal SEO friendly.

Moreover, please ask yourself if your requirements match the followings:

• The website has a large number of pages
• The website has a large volume of content
• The website has complex navigation
• Websites with user registration
• Websites with content restriction
• Membership or subscription is a major functionality
• Website is basically a Forum or a Community
• The website which should have a private “Client Area” or customer login section

If your answer is 55% YES, my suggestion is to choose Drupal.
Thereby being both on the development and business side of technology, I have developed this strong understanding of nothing fits everything. I will always recommend that you make your decision based on your needs. And you need to have the right board of advisors to guide you in the right direction.

Choose WordPress if you think that your requirement is much simpler.
Select Drupal when your requirement is complex, security is something you don’t wish to compromise and is looking towards a functionally enriched website.

Now once you make up your mind which CMS to select, the next big thing would be -  which website development company to select? And the key points you will consider before assigning your project. On this note, I will publish my next blog soon.