If you too are wondering about what CMS platform you should use for your website, let us tell you that you will have a myriad of options to choose from. The question is, are you choosing the right one?
A Content Management System helps you in creating, managing, and modifying the content of a website. For this, you won’t need to know anything about coding. In simple terms, a CMS helps anyone to build their own website or a blog.
There are a lot of CMS options available. Thus, you will not find it difficult to choose one. A CMS is a tool for the non-techies to take care of the website. However, you have to be aware of certain factors so that you can choose the right CMS.
Normally, the web pages are built in JavaScript, HTML, and CSS programming languages. Thus, if you have to build a website without any CMS, then you have to learn how to code. The CMS platforms solve this problem, which means, no coding needed.
The 10 most-used CMS in the top 1 million websites
SL NO. | Content Management System | Used in Websites | Marketshare |
| 1 | WordPress | 27+ million live websites | 60.4% |
| 2 | Wix | 3.8+ million live websites | 1.9% |
| 3 | SquareSpace | 2.2+ million live websites | 2.7% |
| 4 | Joomla | 1.5+ million live websites | 5.2% |
| 5 | Shopify | 1.4+ million live websites | 2.7% |
| 6 | Progress Sitefinity | 1.4+ million live websites | 28.8% |
| 7 | Go Daddy Website Builder | 1.2+million live websites | 0.4% |
| 8 | Weebly | 935+ thousand live websites | 0.6% |
| 9 | Drupal | 562+ thousand live websites | 3.4% |
| 10 | Blogger | 459+ thousand live websites | 1.3% |
How to choose the best CMS platform for your site?
Here are a few tips that will help you in choosing the right CMS platform.
- Ease of use – You should choose such a CMS that makes things easy for you to create and edit content. This means a CMS with a drag and drop interface for easily adding elements on the page.
- Design options – The CMS software should offer numerous design templates to choose from. It should also help you in customizing those designs according to your requirements.
- Data porting – A CMS platform must have the tools to export the data and then move it elsewhere. For instance, if later on, you decide to choose a different platform or a different hosting organization, the data portability option will make things easier to shift without any hassle.
- Addons and extensions – It is true that all the websites are not the same. Thus, a CMS platform cannot fulfill all the requirements of every website. Addons and extensions fix the problem. These are software that you install separately to add new features on your website when needed.
- Help and Support – Yes, it is true that the CMS platforms make it easy to build a website, yet you might have a few queries. Thus, you have to find out about the help and support system of the CMS tools. Some of the CMS platforms offer different FAQs while some others have a strong support community.
- The cost – There are a few CMS platforms that are completely free, while some others will charge you monthly. Even with the CMS platforms, you have to pay for third-party extensions, designs, and other web hosting services.
What are the most-used CMS platforms in the world?
The following are the most-used CMS platforms in the world.
- WordPress
- Wix
- Squarespace
- Joomla
- Shopify
- Progress Sitefinity
- GoDaddy Website Builder
- Weebly
- Drupal
- Blogger
Now, if you observe the above table, you shall find that the Webflow is not there in the top 10 most-used CMS in the world. Thus, the question that comes up here is, if Webflow is not in the top 10 most-used CMS, then why is Webflow gaining popularity as a CMS?
Webflow has been gaining more popularity than WordPress or any other content management system. If you observe the trend of the last five years, the popularity of Webflow has gradually increased surpassing WordPress.
In the following section, we shall describe why Webflow is a very preferred and trending CMS tool at present.
What makes Webflow a preferred Website building platform?
Webflow is the one platform that seems to stand out amidst a plethora of website design tools and content management systems. It is a cloud-based website builder that will rely on the SaaS platform. It will come with a lot of tools and options that make it an all-in-one platform.
There are a lot of developers that refer to Webflow as the “Photoshop” for the websites because it comes with a drag-and-drop style editor. It will allow the designers to create a website without requiring a single line of code. It also helps you in making your own content management system for hosting and publishing any sort of content. This is one of the primary reasons why the Webflow website building is trending now.
How does Webflow work?
The core services of Webflow are similar to an illustrator or a photoshop, but it is right within your favorite web browser. There is a large toolbar that helps users in dropping photos and headers, edit the white space, and develop custom-built animations on the website.
Webflow has a feature known as Dynamic Data Management. This adds fundamental logic to all the other things on the platform. There is a Data Manager that allows you to build this fundamental logic using categories.
Webflow also makes the use of the “Box Model” approach for creating websites. The users will have the option to add, move, and edit individual elements. Webflow will also place these elements in the box and then allow the users for adjusting them as if they were some physical elements.
What makes Webflow design and development unique is, the CSS and HTML coding is executed automatically. The users don’t need to do anything. Yes, you can, of course, manipulate the code to create a customized site, if you know to code.
Webflow templates
Webflow offers website designers with a wide array of options while starting a website. You can start with a blank canvas or you can also start with a website builder. There are more than 40 templates available for free. The premium templates will cost around $149 because the expert website developers create them.
Webflow Wireframes
Webflow offers three wireframes that will look like the standard templates. However, the wireframes will offer flexibility because they don’t have any graphical elements. The three wireframes of Webflow are Business, Startup, and Portfolio.
What are the benefits of using Webflow?
Here are the following reasons why Webflow is so much preferred.
Webflow offers a fast and clean code
In most of the cases of WordPress or other website design tools, the website becomes somewhat slow. You have to go out of your way to make sure that they are as clean as possible. There are disoriented theme files and multiple plugins that cause the bloating of the code behind WordPress.
On the other hand, those who create websites with Webflow, they have reported that Webflow offers faster loading times compared to WordPress sites. Since Webflow offers a clean code, it also makes a significant difference, especially when you are using meta images for Facebook and Twitter. Webflow allows you to be in complete control over the content.
Customized CMS
The WordPress users will be locked into the default page template styles. The only way to change the field is to use a re-coding template file and then get a new template coded or add a new plugin.
You will not face this problem with Webflow. For the users with Webflow, you can include any new CMS you want and then customize it accordingly.
Easy Editing
Webflow offers you an easy editing facility. What if you want to change the way the website footer is displayed? You have to go through CSS and PHP for editing it, hoping that your theme offers you permission for changing it the way you want it. If not, then you have to buy a new theme. These are some of the options that you are stuck with.
You have a better option with Webflow. It will take a few drag-and-drop adjustments or direct copying over elements obtained from other unrestricted Webflow projects.
Complete control
This is one of the most important aspects of Webflow that the users enjoy. You can decide to change anything that you want, tweak the website, and do everything very quickly.
Extensive support group
There is no doubt that every CMS and website building tool comes with a large community of support. However, there is no dedicated support team that will be able to help you if you cannot carry out a certain task.
On the other hand, Webflow offers top-notch support. They will respond to the most mundane questions and help you quickly. The forums offer creative tricks and tips to figure out how to get around common issues while building a website.
What are the reasons for choosing Webflow as a content management system?
Along with being a powerful website builder, it is also a great content management system. The Webflow CMS is focused on flexibility and agility. You will be able to create the content that you need without being limited by the templates, blog-centric structures, and the complex coding languages. What Webflow offers are the schemas that you can use for designing your website.
While working with content, you will be able to use almost anything that you can think of, including the images, colors, numbers, and texts. Since you will have a customer-centric data available, you will be able to change the content. Thus, the pages will be customized based on the visitor.
What are Webflow hosting options?
Just like any other site builders, Webflow includes hosting services along with the packages. However, instead of including what is essentially a shared hosting plan, Webflow hosts the sites on an “infinitely scalable server fleet”.
Since Webflow comes with more than 100 Global Data Centers, the hosting technologies of Webflow are ready to handle any amount of traffic that your website generates. The Webflow fleet will include more than 100 data centers along with a content delivery network (CDNs) that is powered by Fastly and Amazon CloudFront.
The site will load in milliseconds. Webflow ensures that every user will have enterprise-grade reliability that offers the following;
- 99% uptime
- The site pages will load in milliseconds
- It offers support even for the largest levels of website traffic because of the AWS-based foundation.
You will also have the SSL certificates, infrastructure along with HTTP/2 compliant and collaboration tools so that you will have the team members working on the site with you.
Webflow editor
When you are using Webflow, adding content is just as easy as filling out a form. When you are ready for publishing the changes, you can do it with a single click. Since Webflow separates the content from the underlying support features, you will be able to edit anything without worrying about breaking any section of your site.
It is easy to collaborate with your colleagues on anything you create because you will know exactly who changed something, what was changed, and when was it changed.
Search Engine Optimization tools
When it is about SEO of a website, Webflow offers this facility without the addition of any plugins. You can set your Meta title and description in the editor and you will immediately get previews of what the website will look like when it is live.
Since the Webflow Editor is a part of the site builder’s content management system and offers multiple highly efficient publishing tools. This is the beauty of this CMS because there are no plugins needed. Webflow comes with an inbuilt functionality.
E-commerce site customization
At present, Webflow offers multiple templates for e-commerce stores. This allows you to create custom product grids, optimize landing pages, custom product pages, customized shopping carts, and other checkout pages. Webflow e-commerce platform will help you in:
- Managing the inventory and complete orders
- Enrich product listings through CMS
- Customize the receipts and update emails
- Creating blogs and landing pages in the CMS
- Allowing customers for securely checking out
Webflow has made it easy for the users to create and manage multiple intuitive e-commerce sites through different templates in the platform. Of course, the users will have complete control over the online stores.
Webflow has got a lot to offer the individual website owners and also the e-commerce site owners as well. It is not only an intuitive website builder but also a great CMS platform offering reliable hosting service.
