Starting a website is easier than ever in 2019. You have a lot of platforms to choose from, and many enable you to create almost any type of site you want. However, choosing which Content Management System (CMS) to use has never been more challenging, due to the sheer number of options available.
In this section, we’ll help you make that choice. We’ll provide a breakdown of everything you need from the best CMS, and introduce you to a few of our personal favorites.
OUR #1 PICK :: WORDPRESS
We’re willing to bet that you’ve probably heard about WordPress. This CMS boasts the largest market share among its competitors by far, and it’s easy to see why.
Although WordPress was conceived as a blogging platform, it’s grown far beyond that point. The platform is easy to use, and you can customize it to your heart’s content using plugins and themes (of which you have thousands to choose from).
When it comes to content management, WordPress also provides a top-notch experience. Publishing new posts and pages is simple, and you have access to a powerful editor that enables you to format your content. Moreover, the platform also supports user registration, gets regular updates, and features a large and helpful community.
Key Features:
#2 :: JOOMLA
When people debate which is the best CMS software, Joomla is one of the names that comes up most often alongside WordPress. The general consensus is that while Joomla may not be as beginner-friendly as WordPress, it can be more flexible in some aspects.
For example, Joomla is a great option if you need to manage a lot of ‘custom post types’. That is to say, it’s ideal if you want to run a website that isn’t largely based on text content. The platform also offers a lot more options when it comes to user management. This makes it a fantastic option for membership-based sites, for example.
On top of that, Joomla also includes multilingual support out of the box. That means you don’t need to use plugins or extensions to add more languages to your site. Finally, Joomla also enables you to use multiple templates or themes at once, for different types of content.
Key Features:
In paper, Joomla sounds amazing, and it is a strong pick. However, it’s not as beginner-friendly as WordPress, so it may take you longer to learn how to run a website using this CMS.
It also doesn’t offer as many extensions or templates as some of its competitors. That’s not necessarily a dealbreaker, but it does mean that there are some features you may need to implement manually, making this a good fit for those who have modest development experience.
#3 :: DRUPAL
Drupal is another name that carries a lot of weight in discussions about the best open source CMS. While it lags behind WordPress and Joomla in market share, that doesn’t make it any less notable.
In practice, Drupal shines in a lot of the same areas Joomla does. For example, it offers a very flexible system for dealing with custom post types. It also gives you a high degree of control over your users and their permissions, and it can even handle multilingual sites out of the box.
However, there are other areas where Drupal is in a class of its own. Its taxonomy system, for example, is much more powerful than its competitors. In addition, Drupal is considered to be a more secure platform than both WordPress and Joomla.
Key Features:
You can build almost any type of website you want using the ‘big three’ CMS platforms, which include WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal. However, Drupal is renown for its scalability and security, which often makes it a better option for enterprise and business sites.
It does, however, feature a steep learning curve. In most cases, we wouldn’t recommend that you use Drupal unless you have web development experience. However, if you are comfortable with development, this is one of the best CMS options available today.
Whether you’re building a new website for your company, looking to make enhancements to an existing website or tackling an add-on project, like a collaboration platform, starting a website project can be difficult. From deciding whether to handle the project internally or hire an agency, to managing quotes from outside vendors, there’s a lot to keep track of. Because website project estimates can range from as little as $4,000 to as much as $100,000, it is hard for decision makers to know if they are getting a good deal or completely ripped off.
Over the years, we’ve built dozens of websites for clients across a variety of industries using open source CMS platforms. Based on that experience, we put together an outline of things you should keep in mind and red flags to look out for when determining how much a website costs.
In our experience, the place where most website projects go wrong is at the very beginning, when an agency is setting client expectations. Too often, web development agencies say yes to everything in the early stage of a project. While this seems great to the client, it is often setting the entire project up for failure.
Instead, look for a development agency that can take your wish list and help you prioritize the needs to bring your site to launch. This includes the difficult job of de-prioritizing items needed for the initial launch of your site and identifying which needs can be moved to a parking lot to be worked on at a later date.
If a web development company says “yes” to your needs without doing the due diligence, they might not have even looked at your website yet. Before a real discovery or site audit takes place, all they are providing you with is a guess. We need to understand the variables of a project before we set a price, otherwise we’re not fully prepared to take on a new client. Understanding the requirements is essential for the start of the pricing process.
Setting and sticking to a budget may be the most difficult part of a website project. It takes discipline and active communication to keep a project on track. It’s easy for a project to spiral out of control, no matter what the initial size or scope. A great agency will be able to tell you what you can achieve with a certain budget before the project starts. By conducting a general audit to prioritize needs, they’ll be able to develop an actionable plan for your project.
Prioritizing client asks is easier said than done. Most people begin a project with an idea for a website that will cost much more than they’ve budgeted for. As a web development agency, it’s our job to help you understand how things are priced and how many hours it will take to get certain items accomplished.
If an agency provides you with a flat price for a project before prioritizing your needs and setting up an action plan, you’re not being set up for success. Look for a partner that explains what is included in each price, including the amount of hours it will take to get the project accomplished.
At Apache, we include a designer and developer in our initial calls to better understand our client’s technical requirements and their existing development environment. Working with our project management and development teams, we put together a timeline estimate based on real need, and the hours it would take our team to complete the client’s requests.
After an preliminary discovery phase, our project management and development teams work together to create a proposal document with outlined item tasks and a price breakdown for each piece of work based on what we offer. Before beginning work, we provide our clients with an execution statement, which is a project plan in an SOW form. From there, we discuss each line item with our client and determine pricing in accordance with an official project plan.
Contact us if you would like an estimate on your new website or hosting package!