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Choices, choices — which CMS is the best one for you?

INSIGHTS | May 4th 2022

For years our CMS of choice has been Umbraco — find out why we believe it's the best one for you..

Article by Kevin Triggle

When picking a CMS (Content Management System) for your website it can be hard to pick one that stands out. Surely they’re all the same thing right?

Wrong! We use Umbraco over other CMS systems including WordPress but why? Yes, we're a Gold Umbraco Partner but it's more than that for us. Umbraco takes the lead for a few reasons and here's why.

 

Ease of use

Out of the box Umbraco gives you a blank canvas to start editing your site which developers love and does make it extremely flexible, but can feel a bit daunting. This is why at Digital Wonderlab we immediately pair it with an award winning content editing suite. This allows you to simply pick from a set of components and build your pages without needing to know any code.

The content areas are built-in and provide access to a huge range of UI (User Interface) options such as galleries, video banners, reusable sections, announcements as well as the standard rich text editors.

They can also be pre-styled based on your own custom design and branding set up by us. This removes the chance of human error creating inconsistencies with the layout.

In comparison, WordPress doesn’t allow this type of freedom and is labour intensive - having to find plugins within the community and download them. Which nicely leads us into our second reason why we love Umbraco…

 

Plugins

One of the biggest problems we see when a client approaches us with a WordPress site is that it has become extremely reliant on community plugins. It’s common for these plugin developers to lose interest and stop providing updates, or simply disappearing altogether, leaving you to try and quickly find a replacement.

Our developers love Umbraco because although there is a community plugin store, the CMS is built in a way which makes it easy for developers to build integrations and features directly into your site. All the code then lives within your site and has no reliance on a 3rd party plugin developer from far away that you've never met!

 

Security

Umbraco is super secure! 🔒

Built on Microsoft's .NET Framework, Umbraco is sat on a rock solid foundation. It's open source which means the code is available for anyone to view and is subjected to tests by external security experts twice a year.

Typically, Umbraco developers are less likely to rely on 3rd party plugins which also comes with its own security benefits such as less unknown code creeping into the project which has the potential to contain vulnerabilities as well as a much more thorough understanding of the overall website, its existing dependencies and how additional functionality will need to interact with it in a safe and secure way.

We host all of our websites on Microsoft Azure giving you peace of mind your site is safe within Microsoft's solid and infinitely scalable infrastructure.

 

Bloat free

Admin-bloat – it’s something we all hate and one of the biggest reasons our clients love Umbraco. The simplicity of the admin system makes content management a delight. We can tailor the system to have exactly what you need in front of you, and nothing else.

WordPress, however, undoubtedly suffers from admin-bloat with each plugin sneaking in yet another menu item and notification to clutter up the interface.

So what

It can seem like a daunting decision to make when faced, especially when the pressure is on, for a fast delivery and tough targets to meet.

Whether you're looking for a multi-language e-commerce platform, a searchable set of online resources, complex forms and document publishing workflows or just a simple brochure website, Umbraco can do it all in a way that's tailored to you. Join over 700,000 active installs all over the world to make your website the best it can be.

 

What next?

We're a Gold Partner of Umbraco which means our skill sets are the best of the best and we make it our mission to help. With all of our clients we go through an open and honest discovery process looking at all of the options available. It’s free to call us for a friendly non-committal chat and we can go through all your requirements and help to make an informed decision.

So what are you waiting for? Get in touch today and start your digital transformation.

About the author

Kevin Triggle

Heads up our Creative bunch, Kevin not only make things look pretty (damn good!) but does so in a way that people love to use too! Our clients enjoy his rapid response to all things design related.

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