How to choose the right open source CMS?
Choosing the right Content Management System is perhaps the most important choice you have to make as a business when taking a step into the online world. It is important to think about which CMS best suits your needs, requirements and goals, is future-proof and can offer you the right online performance. In addition, it is also important if the CMS is open source. Why all this is so important and how a CMS can help you, you can read all about it here!
Content Management System
A Content Management System, or CMS, is an online platform that allows you to easily upload, edit and distribute all kinds of different content. This content can be text, images, videos, PDFs and any other content and data you want to put online.
Good to know is that the rule one size fits all certainly does not apply to Content Management Systems, although of course that would make the choice very easy! The reason that there is no one CMS that perfectly fits the needs of all companies in the world is because, logically, everyone does not have the same needs, goals and target audience.
And that is exactly why this blog was written. With it, we try to get you started in choosing the, for you, right CMS.
Open source
As we said, open source is very important when looking at different CMSes, but what exactly is open source? Open source means that the source code of the CMS is freely accessible and this brings with it many advantages.
Aside from the fact that the software is free to use and edit by anyone, you are also not dependent on any party or individual for edits and updates. Every day, thousands of people work on developing and improving the system. As a result, you can go to several companies to set up your online product and there are many 'contributors' who actively maintain the CMS.
Because there are so many people working on a CMS, your system is a lot less vulnerable than others. In addition to a team that keeps a close eye on all the code and fixes security issues as quickly as possible, updates are also displayed faster and continuously developed.
Updates and plugins that are created can greatly improve the performance of your website. This way, you improve important performance points such as speed, security and the findability of your website and at the same time you can expand the functionality of your website. This allows you to increasingly fine-tune your online product to your online goals.
Making the code freely accessible, i.e. open source, therefore ensures that the online performance, quality and security of your website, app or digital signage are up to date and you can easily expand functionalities.
Online performance
Online performance is very important and consists of three pillars: security, speed and findability. Finding an open source CMS that scores well on all three pillars can be very difficult, which is why it is good to know how a CMS can improve your online performance.
Security
Security is becoming more important every day. Legislation is getting stricter on security and privacy. Consumers are also feeling less and less safe online after incidents such as the Cambridge Analytica scandal, for example. A CMS that can guarantee security for you as an organisation and your online visitors is therefore crucial.
In principle, every CMS includes some security measures, such as encryption, documentation, an active permanent team checking all code input and a security protocol. Nevertheless, some Content Management Systems are more susceptible to hacking attacks than others. Indeed, hackers tend to target popular CMSes such as WordPress and Drupal. Indeed, about half of all available websites are created in WordPress, you can imagine that malicious actors would be only too happy to collect the huge amount of data.
Not only hacking attacks put WordPress in a weaker position in terms of security, but the fact that anyone can put plugins online without their code being checked also makes it more dangerous to just add or extend necessary functionalities to your website. Therefore, make sure that the plugins you want to add are up-to-date, have good reviews and have already been downloaded regularly, in order to make sure that your data does not end up in the hands of malicious people.
Make sure that the plugins you want to add are up to date, have good reviews and have been downloaded regularly.
Keeping the CMS and plugins up-to-date is crucial for its security. It is therefore important to keep an eye on the quality of updates and test them beforehand, to be more sure that the update will go off without serious consequences.
Finally, it is also nice if the people on your team can only modify what they are allowed to modify, to avoid weird changes in the CMS. Choose a CMS that lets you give a certain accessibility to the different people on your team.
Want to know more about how a CMS and yourself can make your online product more secure? You can read all about it in our blog about MODX and security.
Speed
In a previous blog, we also wrote about the importance of speed of your online product and how a CMS, such as MODX, can help with this. Speed is incredibly important, users already drop out when loading takes longer than 3 seconds1. Although speed often also depends on the file size of your content (many large images and videos, for example, take a huge amount of time to load), the CMS can also help with this.
There are some CMSes with which you have very little code from the ground up. You can think of a CMS like MODX as a framework that contains only the most important basic functionalities. You therefore only need to add those features or plugins that help you achieve your goals. This way, your website will not be overloaded with unnecessary code, which in turn ensures that your website loads faster.
Caching your content can also increase loading speed. Caching is storing content from the pages your users have viewed. By storing them, the content does not have to be loaded again when a visitor revisits the page. Not all CMSes have the default function to cache content, important to pay attention to this as well.
Findability
Finally, of course, it is extremely important to be found online, otherwise you can whistle for your money ;). Besides being able to write great content yourself, CMSs can also give you a hand with this.
For example, many Content Management Systems offer plugins that help you apply certain SEO criteria. This could be, for example, tracking the number of keywords in your texts, titles, headers and meta discription, but simplifying redirects is also an important functionality in this. After all, when you can add redirects, you do not cause SEO value of an old page to be lost when it gets a new url.
Future proof
Expandable
Every organisation starts with something small before they become big, including online. Some CMSes are more suitable for smaller websites, such as blog websites or simple one pagers. Other CMSes can handle small websites as well as complex, multilingual and heavy websites. There is nothing wrong with either, but keep in mind that you too, as an organisation, might grow in the future. And therefore may need a more solid content and data platform. It is not useful to think about this later, but to consider this right at the start. In other words, think about the question "where do you want to work towards with your online organisation?"
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Adaptability
In addition to expanding your website, customisation is also very important. Your brand needs to stay up-to-date, trends are constantly changing and the needs of your target audience are also changing. Therefore, look at the adaptability of the CMS. Can you easily make changes to the design, template or theme yourself or do you need real developers for this? How often will you want to change the design, how much are these changes worth to you and what can you contribute? These are all important questions to keep your online product future-proof.
In addition, it is great if the systems you already use can easily be integrated into the CMS, so you don't have to adapt to them. This way, you can get to know the CMS faster while continuing to use the systems for ERP, CRM, chat and marketing automation that you are comfortable working with.
This way, you can get to know the CMS faster while continuing to use the systems for ERP, CRM, chat and marketing automation that you are comfortable working with.
Support
In addition to the CMS itself, it is of course nice to know that you can get support somewhere, ask questions or get advice about your online product. Fortunately, (almost) all CMSes offer good support. Some through extensive documentation, others through forums, support chats or a dedicated community.
Often you can find answers to your questions more easily when the CMS is more popular. Thus, for questions about your WordPress website, you will be able to find an answer somewhere on the internet in no time. It also depends a lot on how active the community is. At Sterc, for example, we have the advantage of being in direct contact with many integrators of the system and even with the MODX organisation in the US. So having short, direct lines of communication is also a big advantage, so it is important to look into this so that you get support quickly and easily.
As you have read, there is quite a lot involved in picking the right open source CMS for your organisation and goals. Want to get help setting your online goals or think MODX CMS is a suitable CMS to achieve your goals? Feel free to contact us!