Advantages & Disadvantages of Using a Content Management System

In this post, we’ll define what is CMS (Content Management System) and the advantages & disadvantages of using Content Management System. Let’s get started.

What is Content Management System (CMS)?

CMS stands for content management system. It is the fastest tool to develop a website, it gives the user a GUI (Graphical User Interface) to manage the website. To build a website, users do not need to have knowledge of databases or programming.

There are many popular CMS systems like WordPress, Joomla, Webflow, Drupal and Magento to name a few. Most CMS platforms have built in themes. You can purchase premium themes through many sources as well such as >Envato Market and Template Monster. Themes take away the burden of designing the website. All you need to do now is install the theme and start editing pages.

CMS system is great for small businesses and enterprises to manage content. Many CMS systems come with drag and drop page builders that make life even easier. All that a user needs now is just a theme or UI design. Although CMS systems are perfect solutions for many businesses, they do not meet requirements of all businesses.

Advantages of Using CMS in Website Development

1. Quick Development

CMS is a fastest tool to develop a web application including mobile friendliness. Using CMS, we can improve the speed of developing the websites.

2. Less Backend Coding

Content Management System provides a several plugins for developing the web applications. So that user has no need to do code at all.

3. Provide built-in Page Builder

A main goal of using CMS is time saving. CMS provide built-in visual page creator to create, manage or modify the content of the site. User has no need to manage site content with in-line editing or also can create reusable dynamic blocks and the ability to save the block-section and page layout as template to reuse in multiple sites.

4. Easy for non-technical Person

Anyone can use Content Management System for the basic functions like writing and publishing content, and adding media.

5. Security

CMS have best security features to secure the website’s content and database from hackers. Author of the site can control the access to his site using permission base system.

6. SEO Friendly

CMS websites are SEO friendly because the implementation of SEO techniques is much simpler than HTML. There are some plugins available that directly support SEO on the website.

7. Improve Customer Services

CMS provide better customer services such as contact forms and live chat for any urgent enquiries and clear the issues regarding websites.

Disadvantages of Using CMS in Website Development

1. Dependance on plugins and widgets

Users must be dependent on plugins and widgets for most of their functionalities.

2. Hidden cost of plugins and widgets

Many plugins and widgets are expensive and can cost hundreds of dollars

3. Site load speed

Page speed of a web page designed using a CMS is considerably slow compared to many other custom development options.

4. Maintenance

CMS systems need to be maintained on a regular basis. Some of the sites we have built like Allegheny County Controller needs to be maintained on a weekly basis because of traffic and the site being a high-profile target.

5. Not highly scalable

Most systems can sustain a limited number of users, once content and traffic increases you will need to customize the CMS system or switch to something more robust.

6. Limitation in functional requirements

If you have a larger project that has multiple processes, workflows, and stakeholders a CMS system will fail to keep up with your functional requirements.

7. Back end functionalities are limited

Since back end functionalities are not available one cannot expose API endpoints. Because of which the data and the platform cannot be used in mobile applications.

Now that you know some of the advantages and disadvantages of a CMS system. So the Ideal choice will be dependent on your business requirements.

Rentech Digital also provide CMS Development Services to every size of businesses.

Please let us know about what you think about this article. And do share your feedback with us in the comments below.