CMS (Content Management System) which one to chose (Part 1)

Hi digital peers. Today I talk about Websites and especially I’d like to do a deep dive on the different CMS and my experience with them. On this topic there are tons of materials and information available, but again, often is “biased” by the service that cooperates with the system owners or by the agencies who can only program that platform and are “force” to promote it as better.

To my personal experience, there is not better or worse. All systems have goods and bads and serve different purposes, it really depends what it’s needed and how the website internal the organisation will be used.

I always think that managing a website is like taking care of a garden that keeps growing, balancing the risk of getting dried (too few contents) or over watered (too many pop-ups) and making sure insects or animal don’t penetrate it (cyber attacks) especially if the website has many different parts and languages as well as interactions.

So, whether you’re still working on making your website better or you’ve just finished a big update, it’s a never ending job.

As I said, today I want to focus on the CMS and share my experience with some of them, which I hope it’s valuable for others who might find themselves in the position of having to change it and don’t know which one works better for their needs.

Disclaimer: this list was previously started from our web agency that supported us very professionally in the decision of the system. Still I added my comments and personal insights.

Flexibility:

1. Administrator Access:
   All systems provide access to various areas and elements of the website for administrators.
   
   In WordPress it’s easier to grand and change access to different kind of users since you can customize the type of access if you want to give but it’s more difficult to select users by sections (like users who only edit pages translated in one language).
   
   In Enterprise System (like Drupal) the access should be more regulated. You have to know in advanced in which area your areas are going to edit and what they are going to do. If at some point you decide you want users to access one part of the website and only do changes, it might be a problem. In the other hand you always have under control who does what and don’t risk any major disruptions.
   
2. Customization:
   WordPress is terrible for future integration and / or scaling. The number of plug-ins that you might need and the revisions you have to perform to make sure that everything works will drive you crazy. For this reason, if you have clear defined what the website will do and what elements you need, especially if they are pretty simple, like assembling of text/images/videos and updating the blog or news page, wordpress is the way to go.
   But if you start with one structure, then on the way want to add 5 languages, then you want to integrate an automated platforms and create a download library, include a log-in a area, create a new template custom-made and apply it in all the language translated automatically, add a Chatbot, and so on…Wordpress will drive you crazy.
   
   For enterprise solutions like Drupal or Typo3 or any other scalable CMS systems the customisation capabilities are obviously what their strength is and where they support further developments without crashing. Even if here is also not all great. It really depends on how the “base” is constructed and what building blocks you decided at the very beginning of the set-up. Since every addition is based on a new program parts, often made from different people, it might be impossible to debug a problem or even sometimes old version don’t support new functionalities. So, true this is better with structure CMS, but still if you have to perform major change, it might be a better option to relaunch the website.
   
3. Multi-language vs. Multi-Structures
   This is a crucial point of websites made for companies, especially with a complex sales structure and / or large portfolio. The main question is to decide what is more important for your company: create a base default content that will translated (with small adaptions) to various languages, Independent from the country, entity, business unit or whatever other categorization present in the organisation.
   
   For WordPress for example the management of multiple structure is a nightmare, if you want to differentiate one section and separate it through a different navigation, menu and URL is going to be a challenge. Same thing in Drupal where the default language is going to give you the core structure of the whole website and every page exist based on a template and “page start”.
   
   In other systems, like TYPO 3 or PIMCORE each page is “stand alone” and you can build it independently or create microsite with complete different contents and layout definition. For multi-domain sites with independent page structures these systems are the best one for you. But pay attention, the learning curve is much higher, they are not intuitive nor easy to handle. The users, especially if now web experts, are going to need higher amount of time to master this system. The programming is also in my experience much higher.

This summary provides an overview of the features and considerations for each CMS based on the questions raised.