What to choose: website builder or CMS?
CMS’s and website builders are the most popular ways of creating your own website. Both options have pros and cons and choosing the best solutions for your business depends on your goals and budget. The terms CMS and website builder are often confused, but they have completely different approaches, a number of features, and pricing. The main difference between them is that a website builder provides readymade templates and layouts with built-in features, so you don’t need coding skills and you can create a website by yourself. On the contrary, CMS has more freedom and flexibility to implement any style but in this case, you will more likely need to hire a professional developer. In this guide, we will look at CMS vs website builders, help you to pick the right tool for your business, and answer how much does it cost to build a website.
Website builder
Creating a website has never been so easy as before. Using a website builder (e.g. Wix, Site123, Shopify, Squarespace, etc.) will allow you to make a website for free (almost), you just need to register and put together the pre-built components. Hosting, an opportunity to register the domain name (but you don’t own it), security, maintenance, a number of templates, backups, support are provided. The main drawback is the lack of features, scalability and the site can’t be fully customized. Also, if you decide to move to another platform it will be costly, difficult, or impossible. Sites made on the same platform often look very similar and not reliable. These systems are designed for those people who need to get results without a large time and investments. An ideal development for beginners and those who value their time.
The steps are the following: choosing a subscription, a template, a domain, creating content. It’s a good option if you need a simple website with a bit of content, a great option for personal blogs, small businesses, online stores, school websites. If you want to launch an eCommerce website with multiple retailers and a lot of content, then a CMS is the best choice.
Prices depend on the platform, features, type of the website, and the level of traffic. The average price is $15–40 per month.
CMS
A Content Management System (CMS) is a software that allows you to create and manage content, which is usually stored in an SQL database.
Most CMSs specialize in one type of content and site. Some of them are used only for creating business cards, or landing pages, or stores. You have to choose a system based on your business goals. However, you can extend their functionality because every CMS has extra features, extensions, and plugins. Also, it can be easily customized and you can move your site from one host to another without any difficulties. But it requires coding skills with HTML, CSS, JavaScript.
If you need a website with a lot of content then a CMS is more efficient than a website builder. CMS can be used for large businesses and with any audience size. You can choose one of the standard templates or create your own. Let’s analyze the stages of building a website with CMS now: purchasing a domain name, choosing hosting, installing CMS, selecting a template, creating web pages. The most popular CMSs are Dropbox, HubSpot, Filecamp, Confluence, etc.
However, CMSs are not so intuitive as website builders, and for some services, you have to pay extra. The main drawback is that you will need a lot of time to get to know their features. It is unlikely that you will be able to create a site on a CMS without a web developer.
But if you want to use CMS, you’re not necessarily discarding the simplicity of use, for example, WordPress is considered as one of the easiest CMS where you can build almost any type of website. CMS is a more expensive way of creating a website if you want an individual and recognizable design, clear and logical structure, and SEO.
Pricing depends on the features (hosting, domain name, plugins, premium templates), CMS’s themselves are mostly free. The cost of a domain name is from $10/year, for hosting around $50/year, a set of plugins ($50-$150). Starting price $40 per month and up to $1000.
Both CMS and website builders are good options for business but you need to clearly define your goals, audience, and strategy. Evercode Lab can offer you the best CRM systems for your website as well as a full-time development team to take your business to the next level.
Originally posted on the Evercode Lab page here
