Content management system (CMS) is one of the much-discussed topics over the web these days. With the large number of frameworks and platforms available to power websites and apps, we are in short of choices as to which would fit our needs. But, most of the time, we all pick one of them that actually serves the end-user needs and fits into our allocated resources at any given time. The parameters and functionalities of a CMS platform varies from that of a web hosting service and blogging platform. But, this doesn’t mean that there are no similarities among these.

In this article, we will provide you a guide on CMS and what kind of CMS platform fits for different needs. With this guide, you will know further about which of these would be suitable for your needs and hence make a better choice going forward. Of course, all your choices so far have been the best, but we assure you with our list, you would get a better idea to take an approach when there are a lot of confusing choices always.

When you are working on a project comprising of a website that would also have a blog, we would recommend WordPress as the best choice for the overall wellness of that particular project. It comes with a complete package of features and functionalities, including hosting, reporting, analytics and web design. We recommend Weebly for blogs, a good choice for hosting would be A2 hosting and we recommend Magento for e-commerce. If you do not want a lot of advanced features for creating a blog, then Weebly is an ideal choice rather than Magento.

Magento will blow life into your designs, making your websites appear ready for business with all functionalities set to use once installed and you would find all the modern and sophisticated factors embedded into it. Security is custom included in these CMS-powered sites. Some of the functionalities of CMS websites that make it the most preferred by majority designers and developers include:

• The content arrangement pattern
• Content optimization strategy
• In-built blog set up functionalities
• Secure online payment systems
• Online business transaction facilities, including order placement, order tracking, shipment, delivery, payment, etc.

Benefits of implement CMS platforms for your online business include:

• Enhanced search rankings
• Consistent communication approach with consumers
• Employee or staff contribution can be added as and when required
• Improvised security systems

As we move ahead in this article, we will take you through some of the CMS platforms that would be the best choice for all kinds of small-medium businesses. But, before we move ahead with those ideas, firstly it is important to understand what is the purpose of using CMS for your site?

With the help of CMS, adding and managing content to your site is easy. Regardless of the size and type of business, CMS contributes a huge part to it, managing the backend part, making content upload and management easier. Not only does this apply to the content of your website, but also it applies to other visual elements of your website.

CMS is an easy-to-handle tool for users with any degree of IT knowledge. Regardless of whether you have better knowledge or no knowledge about the functionalities and behind-the-scenes’ operations of CMS, even then, you will get used to the awesomeness of your site.

On the basis of your requirements, let us see what are some of the various kinds of CMS platforms that will help us to design a perfect solution to fit in our client’s expectations:

CMS or blogging

When it comes to the scale, CMS platform varies from blogging platform. The CMS features were initially very well applicable across blogging platforms. But with time, this trend changed and now, we see CMS offering a much more vigorous and professionally aesthetic appearance to websites, while offering a variety of controls at the admin side. With CMS, you also have the provision to get new plug-ins every time, adding awesome functionality and changing the appearance of your site again and again.

CMS offers the following:

• Email marketing
• User management at different access levels
• Updating or adding shopping carts
• Website branding

So now it is quite clear why both different from one another. With CMS, we can have the blog hosted or powered by CMS on its own without help from any external factors, giving your website a domain name – name of the blog host.

Only point you need to keep in mind is that with CMS, you will have to manage the other sides of your website development – such as the payment of web hosting and domain services – should be taken care of by you. In some of the CMS platforms, you would find web hosting services – but even then hosting is chargeable.

Open source or closed source

The two different kinds of CMS platforms include open source and closed source.

Open source:

• Affordable
• A community of developers are involved with the management and development
• No license is required to access or modify code
• Code is available for free
• Easy to create and integrate new functions and features to websites
• A huge community support is available
• New updates are added regularly

Closed source:

• This is maintained privately
• Expensive
• Less security breach as the code is not license free
• Source code is highly guarded
• No rework is needed as it is closed source and not available to the public
• Pay to access

In some ways, open source CMS is the perfect choice as it is free of cost and has a huge community support. So, whenever you have a confusion or get stuck at a point, you can always look forward to the huge community support and get your website perfectly organized. But, with closed source, you need not be careful about the security of your site as it is protected by tight licensing.

Now, you have a clear picture of which is better – open source or closed source – depending on your needs – on the basis of your requirements, if you have developers with strong knowledge – choose closed, else you can go with open source.

Let us read further about the CMS type that would be better for e-commerce, blogs, hosting service or overall needs.