One of the questions we get asked a lot is...
"Why are you using the Concrete CMS platform and not Wordpress for developing your websites?"
This is a valid question, so I will try to answer it to the best of my ability in this article.
Wordpress started as a blogging platform and has been around for quite a while. There is a huge eco-system of developers and users around the globe and there are thousands of ‘plugins’ that you can download and implement on your Wordpress site to add certain functionality. Although this makes it easy to expand your website, there are too many plugins that are not maintained or updated on a regular basis, causing all kinds of (security) issues if not managed properly. There are also thousands of (sometimes free) templates for Wordpress that people can download and modify. This makes it possible for people with limited web programming skills to create websites for themselves or clients. Again, these ‘cookie-cutter’ templates will do the job for some companies, but they come with potential security vulnerabilities if not handled correctly.
Concrete CMS (previously Concrete5), on the other hand, was developed from the ground up to be a professional grade Content Management System (software that runs most modern websites and allows non-technical users to maintain and update a website). It is more geared towards professional web developers that have the technical skills to build a custom website from scratch without the limitations of having to stay within a certain framework of the template. At the same time, the site will be extremely easy to update thanks to an intuitive ‘in-context’ editing tool.
Design Flexibility
Because we build every website from scratch, we can retain full control over the design and we know each line of code that goes into the project. The same goes for the experience on mobile devices (responsive design). By actually custom developing the responsive site, we have full control over the look and feel on small screens instead of relying on a Wordpress plugin that works most of the time but not all of the time.
Search Visibility
Another advantage is the attention to detail in Concrete 5 when it comes to making the content visible to search engines e.g. Google Search. Because of the simple content hierarchy and structure that is built into Concrete 5, Google will be able to index and prioritize the content on a C5 site much easier than on sites build with other Content Management Systems. We are often (pleasantly) surprised how well our sites rank organically even after a short period of time after going live.
Security
Online security is a huge problem for anything web related. The lack of a huge, free for all, developer ecosystem for Concrete 5 is an important advantage. All plugins are quality controlled by the C5 development team, and before a developer can post software on the C5 website, it goes through a rigorous security test. Once your website is completed, very rarely is there a need to upgrade the CMS or plugins after the fact. Wordpress installations need to be constantly (sometimes daily) monitored and updated in order to prevent security issues. Need proof? The US military recently chose Concrete CMS as its standard web and intranet development tool.
Just like anything else, there are always pros and cons to everything.
We like Concrete CMS because we know it extremely well and it works for our clients! To see what Concrete CMS can do for you please have a look through what a local Red Deer web designer can do for our business and feel welcome to contact us for more information about starting, or migrating, a website to this versatile content management system.
Posted: March 5, 2019
