Content management software (CMS) is the new, enhanced way to create, manage, and publish content on a website. Also, a content management software can allow you to integrate other apps and directories into your website.
And by doing these other users such as programmers, web designers can also use templates to give your website a desirable look.
This post is dedicated to 10 best content management software you must consider in 2020.
Why is Content Management Software Important?
Back in the day website owners have to learn programming languages such as CSS or JAVA just to write web content.
However, if you want to create a website without content management software, you can still do it. You can start by learning programming languages. Or you can also hire a programmer. And, after spending maybe a month or more than that, you’ll end up with a website which could be dreadful. Mostly like the sites you used to see in the ’90s on the Internet explorer.
And you have to call your programmer every time you want to change something on your website. Or you can keep learning the programming to do it by yourself.
On the other hand, you can install a content management system in just the next hour to create your new website. And don’t worry if you never made a website before. There are tons of free tutorials available that can teach you everything from scratch.
Even a nontechie user can make a website by investing some 1-2 hours on it. Also, you can upload, edit, and delete your web content anytime just by few clicks.
Moreover, a content management software comes with lots of app integrations such as Elementor. It allows you to change the entire look of your website in a few clicks.
How to Choose the Best Content Management System (CMS) Platform?
No matter how serious you’re things still happen. And choosing a bad CMS can make them worse. In short, spend some time doing the research before investing time and money on a content management system. Techstorify also here to give you some tips to do it perfectly.
1. Make a List of Your Business Goals
Planning is the initial step in starting a business. Do it in a traditional way. Just pick up a pen and a notebook and write down goals.
You can start out by questioning yourself about your business. For example, what is your targeted audience? What are the marketing strategies you’ll apply? or how you’re going to design your website? What kind of product you’re going to sell? Is your website multilingual or monolingual?
And by answering these questions you can filter out the bunch of CMS that don’t have the features, you required.
2. Choose a CMS with User-friendly UI
Later, you can focus on choosing a CMS which comes with a user-friendly UI. Alongside the owner, a CMS will be used by a bunch of other users. e.g. writers, designers, SEO experts, etc.
They shouldn’t go through a complex process just to do a simple task. So make sure it’s responsive and easy to use.
3. SEO-Friendly
Neglecting SEO while starting an online business can take your business to the downgrade. An SEO-optimized Content management system can save you from this frustration.
You can choose a CMS which includes SEO optimizations such as XML site map, title tag, alt text, etc. Also, you can check if a CMS allows third-party integrations of useful SEO plug-ins such as Yoast.
4. Technical Support Matters
So you choose a CMS according to your business goals which are SEO friendly and have an easy-to-use UI. Still, like I said things happen, especially in the initial stage of business.
And you can make sure that you’re ready about it or not. A 24/7 technical support and a CMS with a helpful community can lessen your burden. So make sure to add this point in your checklist.
5. Security
You have been noticing a lot of increments in cyber crimes from all over the world. Then this is another crucial step while choosing Content management software.
Make sure a CMS provides appropriate security to the content and directories you’re going to upload on the internet. Also, please check a CMS supports the integration of third-party security plugins or not? In that way, you can add another security layer to your invaluable website.
5. Additional Features
All the points you’ve read above are extremely crucial before choosing a content management system. Apart from the above factors, you can consider a few other factors to make more from a deal.
You can choose a CMS which supports multi-channel and scalable to your business. Things these days change at a very fast pace. So choose a CMS that can grow and update according to your business needs.
Also, it should support advanced coding languages. We’re not going to rely on programming but sometimes to make some hair-splitting changes you’ve to add some coding lines on your website.
Moreover, you can look after other customizations such as Google Analytics to do certain actions. For example, to track and measure the website’s visitors and their actions.
And, after checking out all these features you can consider your budget. Maybe you have to do compromise a little in one of these aspects but at least you’ll end up with a better content management system for your website.
Meanwhile, to help you choose the right CMS, we also compiled a list of 10 best Content Management Software tools that you can consider to buy in 2020.
Best Content Management Software Tools
1. WordPress— Overall Best Content Management System
WordPress is started in 2003 by Mike Little and Matt Mullenweg. It is built on PHP and MySQL under the license of GPLv2. According to WordPress’s about page, 38% of websites from all over the web are based on WordPress which is more than the one-third.
WordPress is a popular content management platform for 60+ million people. The list consists of many famous designers, bloggers, scientists, and skilled entrepreneurs. It’s a content management software that has all the tools to create, edit, publish, and manage content on the web.
It’s a free and open-source CMS that comes with over 55,000 plug-ins to add to your website. As a result, you can make as many customizations as you want to give a particular look to your website.
Moreover, it comes with two versions- WordPress.com and WordPress.org.
You can make a website for free with wordpress.com which is not an ideal choice, especially for business. But people who just want to try out things a little can choose this option.
Meanwhile, WordPress.org is the best option if you want to start a website for your business. However, you’ve to buy a hosting plan by side which you can also purchase from WordPress.
WordPress is SEO-friendly, secure, has integration support of 55,000+ plug-ins. Also, it’s a beginner-friendly CMS with lots of flexibility. So an advanced user can also customize the site by his coding knowledge.
2. Squarespace — Best CMS For Create Beautiful Visuals
Squarespace is another content management software that is extremely popular in people who love websites with a catchy and sleek design. Also, it’s known for its beautiful templates that help you to create a website without a single word of coding.
Users like photographers, editors, graphic designers, and artists who need a visually better portfolio can consider Squarespace.
However, you can use other businesses such as online stores and market your professional services, etc. Still, some of the users don’t recommend it as a great content management system to create and manage a blog.
Moreover, if you want to open an online store, you can consider commerce plans in Squarespace too. In short, you don’t have to install a third-party plug-in to create an e-commerce platform. Simultaneously, Squarespace comes with 4 price plans:-
- Personal ($12 per month)
- Business ($18 per month)
- Basic Commerce ($26 per month)
- Advanced commerce ($40 per month).
Meanwhile, you can also try a 14 days trial.
In conclusion, if you see the award-winning design of Squarespace it is the best content management software. But for the visual concerned artists over the text-based content.
3. WIX— Best Beginner Friendly Content Management Software
Wix has launched in 2006, and right now they got 180 million users from the 190 countries all over the world. It’s also known for its clean UI and unique design templates that allow you to create catchy websites without coding.
Wix comes with a drag and drops website builder that makes it extremely beginner-friendly. It is a content management software that has almost all the necessary tools to create a stunning website.
And to create, edit, and publish the content on it. And you don’t have to write a single line of code to do it. Also, it is not necessary to have a development and design skills to create a website with Wix.
Wix has a built-in SEO and it’s a mobile-friendly CMS that you can concern. In addition, it has design templates, animation video backgrounds, and many scroll effects. For example, parallax, reveal, zoom-in, or fade-in scrolling. Likewise, contact management and Social media tools, SSL certified, and in-built analytics make it one of the best content management platforms to consider.
Moreover, you can also create a website for free. However, your website name will get a Wix subdomain in the end. And, you can also remove it and upgrade your website by purchasing the paid plans which are as below:-
- Combo ($13 per month)
- Unlimited ($17 per month)
- Pro ($22 per month)
- VIP ($39 per month)
Also, Wix provides you 14 days money-back guarantee, so if you don’t like it, just change it.
4. Drupal – Open Source CMS with Advanced Features
Drupal is an open-source CMS software that launched in 2001 by Dries Buytaert. And, it is a completely free content management tool that is popular in various industries. For example, education, health, sports, e-commerce, etc.
It has over 1.3 million members and the 117,000 active contributors of it have built over 44,000 free modules.
There is a fact about drupal that the White house use drupal for their official website from 2009 to 2017. Apart from this, this CMS also has 2,800 free themes to extend the customization of your website.
Drupal has a basic version which is known as Drupal core. It has basic CMS features, so is useful to create forums, blogs, and simple content-based websites. However, Drupal is not to be considered as user-friendly software.
But if you want to get control of every part of your website’s backend, then you can’t ignore Drupal. Moreover, it has some amazing features that you won’t see in even WordPress. For example, multilingual support, security, market automation, and content authoring.
Drupal also provides a module for the major products such as Google Analytics, salesforce Mailchimp or HubSpot.
In conclusion, if you want something more advanced to create a powerful website you can try Drupal. However, it has a steep learning curve. So definitely go for the above Content management software if you want to create a basic blog site.
5. Shopify — Best Content Management System For Ecommerce
If you’re into e-commerce and want to create an e-commerce store, you can check Shopify. It’s the best content management platform for an e-commerce website. However, some of the users consider WordPress, even for an e-commerce store. But in WordPress, you have to go through lots of integration apps and for some of the users, it’ll become a little complex.
On the other hand, Shopify is an all-in-one website builder. You can easily create, manage, and edit your content in it. And apart from that, a built-in payment system allows you to process the payment while selling your products online.
Moreover, this content management software is more focused on selling your products, how to market yourself via social media and build a great brand. And, it helps you to do that via Social media and other online marketplaces. Alongside Shopify POS helps you to process-in person sales.
Shopify is easy to use and allows you to create an e-commerce website without coding. Also, you can set various aspects of your products to do better management.
For example, adjust the price, add weights, change the product’s order, etc. Meanwhile, you can create a blog, some landing pages to add more professionalism to your e-commerce store.
Here are the three pricing tiers that Shopify follows:
- Basic ($29 per month)
- Shopify ($79 per month)
- Advanced ($299 per month)
Also, you can try it for free by a 14-days trial.
6. BigCommerce — Best CMS For Large Ecommerce Stores
Like Shopify, BigCommerce is also a Content management software built to design e-commerce websites. However, you can consider Bigcommerce, if your e-commerce is getting more sales. And, now you want to upscale your e-commerce business.
BigCommerce comes with a premium-looking and responsive themes to create a store the way you want. Moreover, you can add and manage a couple of products in a flexible way. Further, you can also add a payment or checkout method accordingly to easily make a sale.
Meanwhile, it is a content management tool that is completely SEO optimized. And it can help you to increase your website ranking on Google. Also, the pre-made 80+ responsive templates allow you to achieve a particular store look without messing up with coding. However, if you want to customize them, you can do it using HTML and CSS.
Similar to Shopify, BigCommerce is Mobile-friendly and works well with international paying methods. Also, you can sell your products on major websites such as Amazon, eBay, etc. Apart from the e-commerce store this content management tool allows you to add other essential pages on it such as a blog, and landing pages.
BigCommerce plans and pricing comes in four tiers as below:
- Standard ($29.95 per month)
- Plus ($79.95 per month)
- Pro ($299.95 per month)
- Enterprise (Custom, Contact the sales Enquiry)
Also, you can sign up for a 15-days free trial. And after the trial ends BigCommerce gives you 2 months free after choosing a plan.
7. Joomla! — Content Management Software is known as WordPress Alternative
Joomla is a web page builder that I see in almost every hosting service provider. Obviously, after WordPress but that doesn’t mean it’s less than the WordPress. It’s a free and open-source platform like WordPress.
You’ll see it’s not much popular as WordPress. Still, it has the capability to create a highly customizable website. It comes with lots of responsive themes and templates to use. Also, you can use multiple themes at the very same time.
Apart from the user management tools of Joomla are just amazing. As a result, if you want to create a membership website, Joomla could be the best content management software for you. The multilingual support from this CMS also makes it better than WordPress.
However, Joomla is not as user-friendly as WordPress. You can’t add any integration into Joomla like WordPress. To do that you have to follow a particular procedure, manually. Yes, you can consider it as a disadvantage for a beginner.
Still, if you wish to add advanced customizations into WordPress, you can try Joomla. However, make sure to have better developer skills or spend a little more time to learn them.
8. Magento — Best CMS For Advanced Ecommerce Websites
Magento is another great CMS for e-commerce websites. It’s the platform you can use to build e-commerce websites but with better functionalities.
Magento is a little bit different than Shopify and BigCommerce. It’s built with open-source technology like WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal. It has a community of over 250,000 users who’re advanced developers. It’s a content management software that is highly customizable yet it’s not a beginner-friendly CMS.
There are many B2B organizations and enterprises with a mid-large scale that can’t run business with half of the customization controls. Even some big brands like Coca-Cola, Nike, Ford is based on or the part of Magento.
Also, with Magento, you can create a PWA (progressive web app) for your e-commerce business. The easy to use and drag and drop page builder helps you to give a desirable look to your online store.
Simultaneously, you’ll get amazing features like an integrated B2B and business intelligence. These features can allow you to add a couple of purchasing options. And, business metrics to create targeted product campaign to get more sales.
Moreover, Magento has good support to guide you as a store owner. Meanwhile, if you want to know the price, it is not available on their website. You can contact them for consultation and request a free demo to start your e-commerce business with Magento.
Pricing for Magento is not available online. You’ll need to contact the sales team to get a quote and request a free demo.
However, you can expect two options as below:-
- Magento Community Edition: This is the free edition by Magento and comes with certain customizations. Just download it and install it to set up your e-commerce store.
- Magento Enterprise Edition – Well, this is the edition that comes with all the amazing features without any limit. However, the price could vary from customer to customer. Still, it’ll come with a price tag of $18,000 to $22,000.
9. Adobe Experience Manager Sites — Best AI-Powered CMS
If we talk about the Adobe Experience Manager Sites, it is completely different from the other CMS on the list. It’s a hybrid multi cross-channel content management software.
This CMS is best for Web content management, use a cloud-native foundation, and artificial intelligence. As a result, it delivers content with much better speed and on a great scale.
It comes with an auto text summarization feature with Adobe Sensei’s natural language processing technology.
It automatically fits and summarizes the text over the smaller screen. So you can reuse it on multi-channel without doing it over and over.
Moreover, the responsive templates and intuitive drag and drop design environment help you to create content for the fast pace and across all channels.
Simultaneously, Adobe Exchange comes with translation management connectors to speed translation. This feature is useful for a website with multiple target languages.
For those of you looking to create a highly responsive customer experience, consider using Adobe Content Manager Sites.
This content management software comes with a high level of customization. You are allowed to edit essential page properties such as titles, tags, language, metadata, and page thumbnails.
Also features like content fragments, style systems, and in-context editing makes it one of the best content management software you can consider in 2020.
You can contact the sales inquiry by filling a form then request them for a demo. However, it allegedly the most costlier CMS of the list.
10. HubSpot CMS – Best CMS for Marketing Requirements
HubSpot is a famous company for its marketing automation providers. And the HubSpot CMS does the same. It’s a content marketing software that is solely based to fulfil your marketing requirements.
HubSpot is clean and user-friendly content management software. It allows you to create, edit, and manage the content, accordingly.
Also, it comes with a bunch of pre-built themes with drag and drop builder. So you can easily create a beautiful layout without hiring a professional programmer.
Moreover, this CMS support multiple languages and some amazing SEO options. These SEO options will tell you what you’re doing wrong and what you can do to improve your SEO rankings.
Further, you can HubSpot CMS allow you to track metrics such as website visitors. And a 24/7 phone support to know the root of your problem and fix it consequently.
HubSpot comes with two pricing tiers as below:
- Professional ($30 per month)
- Enterprise ($900 per month)
We have covered HubSpot alternatives as well.
Conclusion
So that was the list of best Content management software you can consider in 2020. As you can see there are CMS for e-commerce business, hobby bloggers, developers, or people with specific professions.
Also, all have different prices and plans, some are free and open-source, some have a subscription-based price.
Every CMS has its pros and cons. It’s just a matter of how and for what you’re going to use it. And, I hope this article did little help you to figure this out.
Let’s know us in the comments what CMS you’re going to choose? Also, don’t forget to share this post with your entrepreneur friend.
