Content is everything when it comes to telling your brand’s story – and as the name suggests, content management systems (CMS) are the best way to get your content seen by the world. But that doesn’t mean that just any CMS will be right for you.
Choosing the wrong CMS
For your website isn’t the end of the world – after all, most make it easy to export your website – but constantly switching platforms until you find one you like can be a pain and a waste of your time.
From ultra-flexible self-hosted software to all-in-one website solutions, there are a lot of CMS platforms on the market lebanon telegram data and choosing the right one can be overwhelming. That’s why I tested dozens of CMS platforms for you and found the best ones.
All of these CMS platforms offer great blogging features, tons of modern templates, more flexibility than a standard website builder, and great SEO tools to help you build your brand.
Are You Short on Time? Check Out the Best Content Management Systems of 2024
- WordPress.org– A super flexible CMS with great blogging features and tons of plugins.
- Joomla!– An advanced CMS that is great for web developers and designers.
- Squarespace– An all-in-one, code-free CMS perfect for beginners.
What We Look For in the Best Content Management Systems
Regardless of what type of website you want to create, your CMS platform should offer certain core features. Here are the things I find most important for you and your website:
- Great customization options. A good CMS should make it easy to create a unique website with flexible templates that allow you to customize almost every aspect of your website.
- Ease of use. Every CMS on my list has easy-to-navigate dashboards, and you don’t have to write code to create a fully-functional, polished website, so you can spend less time deciphering HTML tags and more time working on your business.
- Apps and extensions. Apps that enhance your website’s e-commerce capabilities and security, as well as track your SEO performance, can give your website an edge. It’s nearly impossible to provide every feature for every type of website, so the ability to install extensions is a must-have for CMS software.
- Advanced software features. Every CMS on my list lets you add custom code to your site (or hire someone to do it) so you can create a website that’s completely customized to your needs. It should also offer the ability to add custom code if you need specific functionality or design elements.
- Accessible support channels. If something goes wrong on your site outside of standard business hours, you need to know that you can find help to fix the problem via live chat, email, phone, or an extensive knowledge base.
WordPress.org – Best Open Source CMS
WordPress.org is an open source CMS software loved by hundreds of thousands of users worldwide. Not surprisingly, over 40% of websites on the internet are based on WordPress.org because this software gives you complete control over your website without having to write code. From simple blogs to complex e-commerce solutions, you can do anything with WordPress.org.
WordPress has a lot of flexibility, which can be daunting for first-time website builders – especially since you’ll need to set up your own domain name, hosting, backups, and security. But if you’re open to learning, you can definitely take advantage of WordPress.org’s unlimited site-building options.
The service’s built-in block editor SEO
Features, and security features are all great, and everything can be extended with thousands of free and paid plugins. You don’t need to know how to code to use these plugins, making WordPress.org one of the most comprehensive CMS platforms out there.
Features
- Free to use. WordPress.org is a free CMS run by a team of volunteers, so all of its core features are free. While there are paid themes and plugins for WordPress, you don’t need them to get the most out of the CMS.
- Great blogging features. WordPress.org has a new text editor that is intuitive, mobile-friendly, and block-based. WordPress.org also has built-in SEO features that let you tag and categorize your content and pages to make them easier for search engines to index.
- Hosting and domain flexibility. Since WordPress.org is a self-hosted CMS, you can choose the hosting and/or domain company you want. This adds some complexity to your WordPress.org setup, but it also means you get the most bang for your buck.
- Advanced software features. If you want to extend the capabilities of WordPress.org, you can take advantage of the many developer features and tutorial videos that will help you create your own themes and plugins.
| Turkish UI (User Interface) | Yes |
| Hosting | Self-hosting |
| Apps and add-ons | 59,000+ free and paid plugins |
| Customer support | Support forum, support documentation, local meetups, workshops |
2. Joomla! – Great for Developers and Experienced Content Creators
If you have experience building websites, Joomla! is a great open source CMS to consider. This CMS only has two built-in site themes, so you ’ll need to purchase a template from a third party or create your own to create a fully customized website .
Joomla! is free, but because it’s self-hosted, you’ll need to handle hosting and domain name registration yourself. If you’re on a tight budget, choosing your own hosting and domain name registrar can help reduce your costs.
Joomla! offers a comprehensive set of coding guidelines, extensive developer documentation, and a great set of advanced programming tools for creating PHP applications, including a standalone Joomla! web application framework !
If you want to create a website using Joomla!I recommend ScalaHosting
Features
- Open source CMS software. With Joomla!’s developer documentation, coding standards and web application framework, developers can easily contribute to Joomla! and develop extensions as they need.
- Great content tools! Joomla! offers comprehensive support for metadata, keywords and URL optimization. It also features content versioning to prevent you from losing your hard work if you make an update.
- 70+ language and translation packs. You can create a website that automatically switches to the language detected in the user’s browser and offers content in multiple languages. This will help you make your website accessible to as many people as possible.
- Content editing and publishing tools. Use the built-in text editor to create articles without knowing any code. You can also set when to share your articles, manage uploaded media, organize your articles by category, and help users find content with specific tags.
| Turkish UI (User Interface) | Yes |
| Hosting | Self-contained |
| Apps and extensions | Thousands of free and paid third-party extensions |
| Customer support | Comprehensive documentation, free video tutorials, and a large community support forum |
Create Your Own Website with Joomla!
Squarespace isn’t just a website builder, it’s also a great all-in-one CMS. While it doesn’t have a free package like some other CMS platforms, Squarespace’s pricing is pretty reasonable as it takes care of hosting and domain registration for your website. This makes Squarespace a great option for new users or those who want to get their website up and running without any hassle.
Squarespace’s blog publishing features are great . You can change the font on each post, set the post for review by other users before it’s published, and even send blog posts to your email subscribers when you publish them.
You don’t need to know code to use Squarespace.
However, Squarespace has one major drawback – it’s not as flexible in terms of design as WordPress or Joomla!. However, it still offers a sufficient number of options to help you build your website.
Features
- Advanced SEO tools. Conduct keyword research for your website and use a built-in SEO best practices checklist to get your content found online. Easily integrate Squarespace with Google Search Console to understand what keywords your visitors are using.
- Built-in email marketing tools. Squarespace Email Campaigns lets you do your email marketing without having to constantly switch browser tabs. With automated emails, basic analytics, and easy contact list management, this feature streamlines your email marketing as well as your website management.
- Hundreds of built-in integrations. Easily connect Squarespace to your social media accounts, payment processors, and even affiliate platforms. You can also download free and paid extensions that connect to other third-party services.
- Member-only content. Monetize your blog posts, videos, and other content with Squarespace’s Member Areas feature. You can also connect this feature to Squarespace’s email marketing feature to automatically update your member list
| Turkish UI (User Interface) | No |
| Hosting | Included in your Squarespace plan |
| Apps and extensions | Hundreds of built-in integrations plus dozens of free and paid extensions |
| Customer support | Live chat, email, support forum, video tutorials, webinars, knowledge base |
Drupal is perhaps the most advanced CMS on the market, but I wouldn’t recommend it if you’re building a website for the first time or don’t have the budget to hire a developer. While it has a super comprehensive documentation library, it can be overwhelming for new users.
However Drupal is great for data-heavy websites
This CMS was designed with businesses in mind, and its web application framework can handle large amounts of data at high speeds. Photographers, film studios, producers, and other visual media artists can benefit from this platform because they don’t have to worry about slow loading speeds.
Drupal also offers over 48,000 free extensions (or modules) to extend its
functionality. You can use these extensions to add Google Analytics to your website, manage backups, create sitemaps, and more. While features like these are typically included with many CMS platforms, having them as optional downloads means you have a lot more flexibility.
Features
- Open source CMS. Drupal has hundreds of volunteers who create and fix bugs for the core application, extensions, and themes. If you have developed something for your website that could be useful to the community, you can take advantage of the comprehensive contributor guide.
- Lightweight and fast. You’ll need to install modules for things that most CMS platforms include as standard, meaning the core CMS can load quickly. You can add extensions as you need them, avoiding the bloat that often comes with all-in-one solutions.
- Comprehensive documentation. If you have some programming experience but have never used Drupal before, you can use the user guide, development guide, and community-curated wiki to help you get started.
- Thousands of templates. You’ll have a huge selection of templates to use with this CMS. Drupal has a huge library of over 3,000 free (and community-submitted) templates these incremental improvements will take our amazon business many of which come with installation guides, documentation, and even contact information for the developers in case you run into any errors.
| Turkish UI (User Interface) | Yes |
| Hosting | Self-contained |
| Apps and extensions | More than 48,000 free modules you can use to extend Drupal’s functionality |
| Customer support | User guide, development and contribution documentation, support forum, wiki, verified partner marketplace, community events |
5. WordPress.com – Comprehensive and Hassle-Free
Think of this CMS as a smaller, beginner-friendly version of WordPress.org. WordPress.com lets you pay for hosting, domains, backups, security, and e-commerce tools all in one package. While you have to handle all of that yourself with the self-hosted version, WordPress.com is much less of a hassle.
