Two decades ago, building a website was an arduous project that would take months of planning. Without any coding or programming skills, you had to hire a team of web developers. But with WordPress entering the Content Management System (CMS) industry in 2003, they became the game changer and it instantly became the world’s greatest DIY CMS platform.
But while WordPress may have made building websites easier and faster the question is – Must you stick with using WordPress?
While WordPress CMS offers great features and it is flexible but this shouldn’t limit your options. With the fast-paced innovations happening in web development, there are dozens of other alternative CMS that offer much more than WordPress can ever do.
The following are marketing CMS platforms that every business can consider when building their website in addition on
Take a look:
- Custom Backend CMS
- Concrete5
- Joomla
- Drupal
- WIX
- Squarespace
- HubSpot CMS Hub
To help you make an informed choice, it’s only fair to explore all these CMS alternatives in detail. This post will delve into the pros and cons of each platform to equip you with the necessary details to make a smart choice. Finally, we will compare HubSpot CMS Hub against the other platforms too.
Custom Backend CMS
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Before you consider Off-the-shelf CMS, why not consider a custom-built website developed from scratch by a developer?
Pros
- Custom-built functionality for infinite customization
- Better security
- One-of-a-kind design
- More usability and less bloat
Cons
- Higher up-front cost
- Require intense maintenance and updates
- There’s no guarantee on proprietary rights to the content
- Complicated web interface which is difficult to use unless you have coding skills or you wrote the code yourself
Concrete5 CMS Overview
This is an Open-Source CMS allowing you to login and manage content on your website without any coding skills.
Pros
- Offers amazing organizational abilities and easy editing through dragging and dropping content blocks in a template
- Easy to use with no experience in code
- A large variety of templates to choose from and customize
- Built-in SEO tools
- Multiple site permissions
Cons
- Smaller user community
- Lack of consistent upgrades
Overview of Joomla CMS
Joomla is one of the most popular content management platforms after WordPress. The open-source CMS offers free tools for website building and management.
Pros
- A large open-source community
- An impressive number of extensions including for eCommerce
- Content and structure flexibility
Cons
- Limited marketplace for additional modules and add-ons
- More complex than WordPress. It is not plug-and-play and you need some experience setting up websites
Drupal CM Overview
Drupal is a popular open-source Content Management System (CMS) with companies such as Harvard, Ubuntu, MIT, Sony Music using it. It is free, but they add fees for hosting and development.
Pros
- Has all basic features for site-building and administration
- Advanced administrator controls.
- over 7,000 plug-ins allowing building capacity of a site
- Freedom to design own dynamic Drupal designs.
- Great building tools and templates
- Flexible and robust site builder for all content types
- A dedicated community of Drupal users
- Strong security features
Cons
- More complex than other CMSs with A tough learning curve and an interface that’s not user friendly
- Performance issues such as slow loading and bad module compatibility
WIX Site Builder Overview
WIX is now one of the most recognizable website builders. With over 100 million people across 190 countries using this tool, you cannot ignore it. It leverages artificial intelligence (AI) to create the website you have in mind in a few simple steps. Once you fill a few questions, the site builder generates a site mockup for your review.
Pros
- Even without any coding skills, Wix’s powerful template editor allows you to build a website.
- An inexpensive way to build a site
- intuitive and useful interface
- No long-term plans, unlike some website builders that tie you to 24-36 month contracts.
- Guarantees site security without compromising site speeds
- Reliable customer support
Cons
- The entry-level plan comes with Wix-based ads from your site which don’t help your brand
- unlimited bandwidth or storage aren’t available
- not built with SEO in mind which is a problem for marketers
- lack of customization creativity with all WIX based sites looking similar
Overview of Squarespace Site Builder
Squarespace is one of the best site builders on the market with award-winning website templates. It is an ideal tool for creating professional websites fast and easily.
Pros
- Quality features than any builder
- Multiple plans (Personal, Business, Online Store Basic and Online Store Advanced) based on 1-year contracts with the domain name included.
- Multiple sophisticated themes optimized for phones and tablets
- Live chat support
- Their blogging tool is amazing
- It’s now possible to edit content live.
- The Squarespace Circle user group is a community where you can learn
Cons
- Usability issues which will take time to get used to
- Low-speed rating on Google Page Speed Tool
- Single sub-navigation which is a problem for deep menu hierarchy
Overview of WordPress CMS
WordPress needs no introduction to website development. It is the most popular website builder allowing people with no background in web design to build and maintain beautiful websites. Since 2003, millions of websites have been built on WordPress.
Pros
- The most user-friendly CMS
- Thousands of free and paid plug-ins available
- Built-in SEO tools and features
- Responsive website themes and templates making it a mobile-friendly platform
- Ideal platform for eCommerce businesses
- Increased security features
Cons
- Problems installing updates
- Vulnerability to hackers due to plug-ins and themes
- Some themes can slow down your website
- You need some WordPress knowledge to customize your website smoothly
HubSpot CMS Hub
If you are up-to-date with the digital marketing industry, you must have come across HubSpot. This next-generation website platform for website owners who wish to merge their business operations and marketing efforts in one place.
Whether you are an aspiring business owner seeking to build a website or an online marketer, this fully-integrated, user-friendly platform is a godsend. The CMS brings everything a marketer needs in one place, and this gives it an edge over other platforms.
The hub features a WYSIWYG editor that allows website owners to customize their platforms easily. The editor has all the features you need to personalize your new website without any coding skills.
You have a choice of two plans:
- Professional: HubSpot Pro is ideal for small businesses allowing them to build remarkable websites, grow traffic, convert leads, and secure their websites. It’s packed with an array of features to help you do all this and more.
- HubSpot Enterprise: This plan is designed for mid-level businesses and comes with advanced features for easy scaling.
Advantages of HubSpot CMS Hub
- Multiple templates that are easy to use and customize
- Allows easy management and updating of content with the drag and drop editor
- Analytics tracking to discover what’s working and what’s not working
- versatile CMS platform to complete multiple tasks including generating leads, customer insights, increasing upsells and referrals and more
- Built-SEO benefits with SEO recommendations along-side content tools
- Opportunity for a delightful experience for your customers by using an all-in-one inbound marketing software.
- Better customer engagement with the chats, forms, and bots
- Improve your sales and ROI by leveraging a powerful suite of HubSpot tools. This give deeper insights into prospects, helps close more deals faster and is one of the best automation tools available.
- Security tools out-of-the-box and 24/7 security monitoring and threat detection
- Easy app integrations into HubSpot’s platform
Downside HubSpot CMS Hub
If you are a middle-level business, you have to go with the HubSpot Enterprise plan and the pricing might look high. However, this package offers everything you need for your website management, marketing, CRM, SEO all in one place.
You’ll discover it’s more cost-effective than purchasing multiple premium software and running all at the same time.
And the Best Marketing CMS Platform Goes to…
Looking at all these content management systems and even the option of a custom website, it is clear HubSpot CMS Hub has an edge. For a start, it combines CMS and CRM in one place which is a dream for every marketer.
This hub brings it all together by providing you with tools to build a beautiful website, edit and create great content and market your business. You can now track a customer’s journey on your site from the moment they touch down on a landing page. With the powerful suite of tools available at Hubspot CMS Hub, you can personalize customers’ journeys, optimize your site for search engines, and so much more all from one dashboard.
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