The Onset of Content Management Systems and its Impact on Traditional Web Development

A Content Management System is a tool or software that is designed for creating and managing content on the web. In the present age, it is almost essential for a business to have a web presence for it to be successful but hiring web developers to make websites can be very costly and time-consuming. This is where template-based websites can come in handy. Businesses can create and customize a website using online website builders like Joomla, Drupal, WordPress, etc. These website builders make it easier for users to publish content online easily without the need for coding. They also offer different plugins that make it easier to add functionality like eCommerce and contact forms. These benefits are the reason why almost 64 million websites online use a CMS.

WordPress is an open-source Content Management System (CMS) that is free to use and is paired with a MySQL or MariaDB database. WordPress also has Themes and Plugins that make it much easier to improve the design or add functionality like eCommerce or contact forms to the website. WordPress is so easy to use that around 37 per cent of all the websites on the internet use WordPress.

2. Wix

Wix is a very easy to use website builder tool that lets the user drag and drop components according to their needs. This makes it much easier to customize a website without any coding or file transfer protocol (FTP) knowledge.

3. Google Sites

Google Sites is a free tool offered by Google for the creation of web pages. These sites are mainly for personal use like portfolio websites or product display websites. This website can also be built as a collaboration with other users by giving edit access to them. These websites are also compatible with other services offered by google like Sheets, Slides, etc.

Although custom website builders solve a lot of problems in web development and make it much easier to build websites, it is still tricky to use and has a learning curve to master it. This creates opportunities for developers to learn WordPress or other online website builders and help clients build their desired website or improve an already existing website. Companies might want to use CMS to make their websites cheaper, faster, and easier to modify but might not have the knowledge to build it themselves or to use themes and plugins to optimize and customize the website to their needs. Some companies and businesses create and develop themes or plugins for many CMS platforms.

Most small-scale businesses might prefer to build their website with WordPress due to budgetary reasons. It is much costlier and more time-consuming to build a website from scratch but custom-built websites tend to be more profitable over time. This is because custom-built websites are made to suit the business’s needs. This makes custom-built websites more scalable and customizable when the company improves or expands. Therefore, custom-built websites can give a higher return on investment when compared to a website built with a CMS.

· A custom-built website is more adaptable as the business grows. Developers can make changes and add any kind of functionality that a company might require at any point in time.

· A custom-built website can rank higher in search engines than websites built with templates using a CMS. This might be important for the growth of a company as using a custom-built website might bring more traction to their website.

· Custom-built websites can be optimized to be lightweight and thereby load faster than WordPress websites which might give the user a better experience using a custom-built website.

· There is an unlimited amount of customization possible with custom-built websites.

· Some CMS plugins are very expensive but can be built from scratch in a custom-built website.

· The backend and database can be customized to the company’s needs very easily.

. There are a lot of options when it comes to hosting. Although hosting is easier with CMS, they almost always have only one option and also might be costlier in the long run.

. Backend integration is easier and more customizable. Adding features like recommendations, user posts, social apps, etc is much easier and more efficient.

· Building a website using a template is way faster than developing a website from scratch. Adding functionality to the website has also been made very easy by plugins.

· A custom-built website is very costly to build as making a customized website takes more time to build and requires professional expertise which can be very expensive therefore building a website using a template might be better when on a short budget.

· For custom coded websites, developers need to know git to collaborate with others whereas collaborating is made much easier with services like google sites.

Example of a contact form in React.js and WordPress.

The above code is a simple contact form written in React.js. It uses an external mailing service called Emailjs. Many services like this make the code easier but most of them are limited to the number of mails or are paid services. Mails can also be sent with Nodemailer which is completely free but requires a lot more coding and expertise in the backend to add this functionality. This also requires a lot of lines of code which can be very time-consuming to write and can be very costly to hire web developers to add this functionality.

wpforms is a plugin for WordPress which makes it easier to add a contact form to a website. This lets users build different types of contact forms using a drag and drop mechanism which makes it way easier and faster for businesses to add to their website. Although there is a free version of this plugin, businesses might need to upgrade to the paid version once their website starts getting traction.

WordPress and other online website builders like Wix and Squarespace excel in building eCommerce stores, blog pages and portfolio type websites. Although this is what most businesses need, some sites are more complex and need developers to make the website from scratch to add certain functionality and to make the website more efficient. Sites like YouTube which is a video sharing platform that needs functionality such as video processing, video recommendations, downloading videos, keeping track of likes and comments, etc can be very hard or even impossible to implement using WordPress or other online website builders. Therefore, coding developers will still be needed to build more complex websites like Instagram, Twitch, etc. WordPress also gives more opportunities to developers without coding knowledge to develop websites for clients.

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