WordPress has become the most popular Content Management System (CMS) in the world, powering more than 27% of the internet’s websites (the next most popular CMS, Joomla, powers 1%). So why is WordPress so popular and what are its biggest benefits over other platforms? In this article, we’ll discuss the pros and cons of WordPress vs. its competition to help you make an informed decision when choosing your CMS platform.
Security and Stability
One of WordPress’ biggest strengths over its competitors is security and stability. Being open source, it has been audited by a much wider audience than other CMS software; and because it has such a large following, there are many more developers working to further strengthen its defenses and keep bugs from getting in. This means that you’re far less likely to have your site hacked if you run on WP rather than on something like Drupal or Joomla. If your website were ever attacked (which, hopefully, it never will be), you would also find it easier to fix if using WP compared to other platforms because there’s a larger community of experts out there who know how to fix these issues with their code or have access to someone who does.
Flexibility
When it comes to creating a website for your business, you have lots of options. You can create a website from scratch or use one of many different content management systems (CMS). A CMS provides you with an easy way to add and edit content that appears on your site, as well as allows you to manage how users interact with each other when they are on your site. If you need help figuring out which CMS might be best for your business, consider these factors: How much control do I want over my website? The more control you want over your site, the harder it will be to find an option outside of building a custom-made solution yourself.
Plugins
The best part about WordPress is that it’s super flexible. It has a large community of users and developers, and there are thousands of plugins that you can download to add extra functionality to your site (which also makes it easy to customize for your customers). The big players like Google, Microsoft, MailChimp, and Adobe all have official plugins you can use. As with most open-source projects, when someone comes up with a new idea for something they’d like to see in their CMS—they’ve built an entire plugin around it. That level of engagement means tons of cool options for your business website(s).
User Interface
The user interface is easy to use and gets out of your way as soon as you get started with a task. Using some competitor content management systems (CMS) I’ve experienced confusion at first use, because there was too much stuff on screen, or a lot of things were hidden away in drop-down menus that weren’t obvious to me right away. I haven’t felt that way with WordPress yet. Everything I need seems to be right in front of me, and where it makes sense to have some options available via menus they are always visible and never more than two clicks away. It all just works; everything you need feels natural once you start using it.
Ease of use
For those just getting into publishing, WordPress has a whole lot to offer in terms of ease of use. It’s free, flexible and simple to use—as long as you have a basic grasp of how to use a computer, you’ll be up and running in no time at all! For more advanced users, there are plenty of plug-ins and templates available for every purpose under the sun. If you want an eCommerce solution for your site or need something that’s mobile friendly, it’s likely there’s an easy-to-install plugin that can do it for you.
Cost and Costs Involved in Maintenance
Most platforms don’t offer automatic upgrades, which means you have to do it yourself, and every platform also has a different upgrade process. A study by Content Marketing Institute found that nearly one-third of small businesses don’t know what CMS they are using—so if you get behind on your updates, that could lead to some serious problems down the road. Out of those who did respond, 36 percent cited security as their main concern about upgrading their CMS; if you use something like WordPress or Joomla! (both popular) or Drupal (more tech-savvy), then security should be less of an issue for you because these solutions have been around for years and have had plenty of time to work out any bugs with their software and earn customers’ trust.
