This is a guest post by Erkki Pung from the Sviiter digital agency.
A website builder or CMS (content management system) is a tool for website admins to add or change a website's content.
There are many content editing tools available on the web, and all that variety could look similar in many cases. However, when you take a closer look, you'll see how they fit into some segment for functionality or target market.
Some bigger web agencies have even developed their own CMSs, but we suggest using those for very specific needs only — when your client has their own development team or plans to outsource all development and editing. In our opinion, it decreases the client's possibility of growing, and the client is also stuck with services and possibilities from one development agency. In Sviiter, we have been focusing on two CMSs that we'd like to introduce to you.
It is OK to be mainstream?
WordPress is the most commonly used CMS worldwide. Originally made for blogging, it has become the most popular CMS worldwide. It is open-sourced and has millions of third-party developers.
In its early days, WordPress competed with Joomla and Drupal, but the number of users has definitely risen towards Wordpress for now. It holds major popularity, has an easy user interface, and millions of third-party developers with whom WordPress has gained a lot of plugins (747 761 277 total at the time of writing this blog post). Those plugins increase WordPress functionality and flexibility to implement several extra features such as payment solutions, product listings, and catalogs, integration with third-party apps, language translation modules, etc.
In other cases, WordPress is user-friendly, which is not exactly what produces happiness hormones. However, with correct usage, it is definitely a productive and useful tool.
There are only two negative sides that we could think of.
- Firstly, page edit view, where users can't see the real outcome of the page layout.
- Secondly, users need to manage many updates. Updates are the most annoying part of the process. In addition to updating WordPress, users have to update the plugins they use as well to keep the website running.
WordPress CMS itself is correctly documented, and there are a lot of forums about it on the internet. It can be downloaded freely but needs a hosting service. We suggest Zone or Veebimajutus for our Estonian customers. Usually, we leave that choice to our customers because there is a large variety of hosting companies, and the most useful for customers could be their domestic service providers).
Be careful — you might like it
The second CMS that we use is Voog. It is made in Estonia and has been developing since 2014. Its major plus is simplicity and handiness for the end user. The possibility of editing text and media directly on a webpage makes the content editing process more personal and entertaining. Voog is also an all-in-one service, which includes hosting in its service packages and adding or buying domain names. Paid service even includes buying some domains for free.
At this time, Voog runs under RMK (Estonian State Forest Management Centre), Starman (Estonian telecommunication company), and many other bigger sites. So, everything is possible, depending on the client's needs.
Using Voog, users don't have to deal with constant updates like in the case of WordPress described before. There are also no plugins needed; all extra functionality is created by using the fully open Voog API or third-party APIs. Although Voog documentation is smaller than WordPress's, they have a fast and user-friendly support team.
Wrapping up
Sviiter has the knowledge to build websites on both platforms. The team always suggests which one best suits the client's project.
If you want a new custom-made website or refresh an old one, send Erkki an email with your project description and let him help you figure out the best solution!
