The year is 2021 and it is now easier than ever to start a website. You now have a wide range of robust CMS platforms to create unique and user-friendly websites. Most of them enable you to develop almost any type of website you want. However, this abundance of choices has made it challenging to choose the right content management system (CMS) for your website.

The term CMS is nothing new. A CMS platform is what lets you manage the content or information on a webpage. However, it can also do a lot of other things than just “managing content”. Most CMS solutions now follow an all-in-one approach. This means that you can rely on them to design and customize your website development as you would prefer.

Whether you need an attractive ecommerce website, a portal for maintaining a web presence, a blog or anything else to improve your online presence, there are CMS solutions for your specific website development needs. The decision to select the ideal CMS tool for a website entirely depends on your unique business requirements.

Now, let us get down to business and discuss the top 5 CMS platforms available in the market. Let’s dig deeper and check out in detail what they are offering in their latest versions.

Top CMS platforms

1.       WordPress

WordPress is an open-source, online website development and management solution based on PHP that tops the list of the best CMS platforms. In simple words, it is one of the most powerful and one of the easiest blogging and website management system. No wonder, it holds a market share of 60.6% altogether.

WordPress CMS development is your ideal choice if you are looking for a website for product showcasing, blogging, or for ecommerce with good support, high quality, and security.

Advantages of using WordPress:

• Automatic user interface
• Great community
• Manageable integration of plugins and extensions
• Simple installation and setup

Disadvantages of using WordPress:

• Security gaps in plugins
• Frequent security updates
• Additional extensions required in CMS functions
• Restricted stability in high traffic

2.       Magento

Magento is an open-source ecommerce website development platform that offers online merchants a flexible shopping cart system. It is often considered as a forerunner among the top CMS platforms in the ecommerce industry. Magento offers exceptional marketing, SEO, and catalog-management tools. It is exclusively made for ecommerce stores and has a 6% market share among other ecommerce CMS solutions.

Advantages of Magento

• SEO friendly
• Offers great security
• Multiple customizations

Disadvantages of Magento

• Need for hosting
• Expensive plans
• Complex and unintuitive customization

3.       Drupal

Drupal ranks 3rd in our list of the top CMS platforms. It is another ready to use CMS solution for website development in the PHP programming language. The platform supports collaborative authoring, content management, podcasts, newsletters, file uploads/ downloads, image galleries, peer-to-peer networking, etc.

Advantages of using Drupal

• Wide selection of extension modules
• Small software core
• Supports multi-domain management
• Predefined Drupal configurations

Disadvantages of Drupal

• Requires extra installations
• Module installation through FTP
• Poor backend compatibility
• Complicated configuration

4.       Joomla

Joomla is a CMS platform that is designed to be easy to install and set up even if you are not an expert or an advanced user. The platform provides a single-click installation option and is therefore extremely easy to use. You can get your new site up and running in just a few minutes.

Since the Joomla CMS solution for website development is easy to use for designers and web developers, your team can quickly design and launch your website. Joomla also makes it extremely easy to manage the website further along.

Advantages of using Joomla

• User-friendly template production
• Easier installations & configuration
• Wide selection of designs and extensions

Disadvantages of Joomla

• Unequal right management
• Manual implementation of extensions
• Pricey superior extensions

5.       Umbraco

Umbraco is considered a friendly CMS platform in the market to provide freedom to its users to develop and customize content on a website as per their requirements. The platform is based on Microsoft’s ASP.Net framework.

When compared to other PHP-based CMS platforms, the .Net solution is more secure. You should rely on the Umbraco CMS solution if you are on the lookout for a platform that is unsusceptible to malware attacks and does not have frequent updates like Drupal or WordPress.

Advantages of Umbraco

• SEO and user friendly
• Stability and security
•  Easy to run multiple sites
• A large community of developers

Disadvantages of Umbraco

• No built-in support for LESS, SASS
• Fewer plugins for extended features
• Sometimes there is a publishing error
• Difficult to use

Conclusion

Choosing a CMS solution for your website is as personal and as crucial as picking an operating system (OS). All the top CMS platforms have their pros and cons, so you cannot make a decision lightly. Chart out your unique business plans and goals and look out for an option that will let you achieve that. You may need to consider multiple criteria and come to an informed decision. If you are still confused about how to make that decision, check out this amazing blog on selecting the right CMS for your business. 

Relying on a popular CMS solution for your website development is not enough. There is a chance that you may not know the correct usage of the platform or that your team is not fully capable to handle the functionalities. The ideal way to go about is to rely on a competent web development company or team to exploit the entire range of features of CMS development. A professional company with experienced developers and designers can help you create amazing websites with the right CMS solution for you.