Choosing a content management system (CMS) is essential to optimize the design, maintenance and performance of your website. But where do you start when choosing a CMS? In this blog, we will help you on your way and we’ll show you the three most important criteria that play a role in the decision making process.
What types of CMSs can you choose from?
There are different types of CMSs. There are open source systems and closed source systems, but also digital experience platforms that include a CMS and headless CMSs that allow you to create your own experience stack. Which type of CMS offers the best solution for you, depends on your specific goals regarding your website.
What criteria are important for your website goals?
Is your website part of your core business and is functionality very important? Or does your website serve as a business card and is a slick look your main focus? Does your website need a shop with a payment system? Or do you mainly want to share a lot of content?
These questions are just a few examples of what you need to think about when choosing a CMS. The most important question to ask is: "What goal do I want to achieve with my website?". We have formulated three criteria that will help you further in choosing your CMS.
Criterion 1: ease of use
How easy should the CMS be to use? For example, is it important that it works intuitively, so that marketers and communications staff can easily work with the CMS? Or is it enough if developers can work with it?
Criterion 2: architecture
Would you like to be unburdened and want your CRM, Marketing and Sales Automation, Analytics and Service to connect seamlessly with your CMS? Then it makes sense to choose an Experience Platform like HubSpot. This allows you to make use of all HubSpot Hubs to optimally set up the user experience on your website.
Do you prefer the freedom to choose between all kinds of different tools from different providers? Then you can opt for a headless CMS to build your own stack. Would you like to work with HubSpot, but still want to use your own tools? That’s also possible! With the Integration Hub and custom integrations, you can link CMS Hub to your desired tools.
You can also choose between closed source and open source solutions. Open source solutions are often a lot more favorable in terms of pricing, but you are responsible for the security and functioning of your website yourself. So you are almost always dependent on developers to keep your website running smoothly. A big advantage with an open source CMS is that there are lots of functionalities available in the form of plug-ins. This is because the source code is free for anyone to use and therefore anyone can develop a functionality.
With a closed source system, the source code is not free to use and you pay to use the CMS (HubSpot, on the other hand, as a closed source system, does have a free basic CMS option!). A big advantage of a closed source system is unburdening. You often have good support you can fall back on without having to hire a developer yourself and you are not responsible for the security and functioning of your website. For example, is there a bug on your website? You can then easily contact your CMS provider to solve it.
Criterion 3: budget
When choosing a CMS, you must of course also consider the available budget. There are free options, but there are also systems with high monthly costs. It is important to decide how much you want to spend per month and what level of support you want.
For instance, do you want your hosting to be arranged separately or included with the CMS you buy? Do you want good support or do you prefer to call in a developer yourself when necessary? Based on this, you can choose a CMS or a specific package from a CMS provider. With HubSpot's CMS Hub, for example, you have a variety of packages, starting with the free version and going up to an enterprise package.
Need help choosing a CMS?
Is HubSpot's CMS on your list with options? Read more information about the CMS Hub on our website or schedule a meeting with us. We are happy to tell you more about the user-friendly CMS Hub.
