Open-source or Closed-source: Choose The Right CMS For Your Business
Talking About Open-source or Closed-source: Choose The Right CMS For Your Business, CMS or Content Management Systems became an indispensable tool for business in the digital era and there are valid reasons for their popularity. Right from small business, e-commerce to nonprofits – CMS can fit anywhere! Open-source & Closed-source CMS, both are popular & they have their own pros & cons. You have to understand your requirements, plan your budget and then select the CMS suitable for your business.
A reliable and right CMS can impact the online presence of your business.
But How?
WordPress development CMS provides responsive templates, optimizes online contents (blogs & web pages), tracks leads & customer base, organize business operations, increases productivity and a lot more! Also, you get in-built themes, SEO plugins and you can add tools such as appointment calendar to your webpage without any hassle!
Well, that sounds interesting for any business but there are plenty of programs available in the market and here the confusion arises – ‘Which CMS should I choose: Open-source or Closed-source?’
To clear your confusion, in the next paragraph I have explained the pros & cons of both the CMS in a structured way so that you can take the right decision once you finish reading the blog.
- Pros & cons of Open-source CMS
- Pros & cons of Closed-source CMS
- Deciding factor for your CMS
Pros & cons of Open-source CMS
In IT when someone says ‘open-source’, anyone can clearly assume that the source code is free and anyone can download & customize the source code as per the need. No ownership or license is required to use the software. Same goes for ‘open-source’ CMS too.
| Pros | Cons | |
| 1 | Any knowledge will work | A bit vulnerable-sometimes |
| If you are an experienced developer, you can tweak the software and get customized solutions easily but if you are a novice or don’t have any technical knowledge, with the help of vast resources & online tutorial you can also build a basic site or blog. | Open source CMS platform is largely dependent on the developers’ community. So you might not get timely security updates related to plugins & modules which in turn can expose the software vulnerable to security issues and a roaming place for hackers. | |
| 2 | Reduce Cost With A Free Platform | No Personalized Support! |
| As it is open-source, so it is free. You may have to pay a minimal fee if you want advanced features or something more than the basic ones | If you face any problem, you might not get any personalized support for your website. Also, you need to be cautious when you install a new plugin on your site. | |
| 3 | Nice Features | Get The Basic Features |
| Flexible and lightweight. | Though there are templates and free themes, one may have to go for paid version for templates with rich-features. | |
| 4 | Great Developers Community | |
| You will get a great community for the open-source CMS application. You will get a wide range of options, plugins, themes and easy customization- as client & business requirement varies! |
Pros & Cons of Closed-source CMS
Closed-source CMS or proprietary content management systems are developed by individuals. The developer or the development company owns the software. These software are paid and they are made with more out-of-box features as compared to the open-source CMS. Now let’s have a look at the pros & cons of a closed-source CMS in the following table
| Pros | Cons |
| Personalized Support You can expect a personalized support for your website in case if you face any issue once the product is delivered to you. It can be a chat room or a phone support, depending on the agreement. More Secure If the Closed-source CMS is developed by an authorized developer, then it would undergo a rigorous testing process. The testing process helps to make the platform more secure by identifying trojans and other security flaws. |
Expensive Depending on the features, the cost can go up to thousands of dollars. Also, you might be charged extra to enjoy a customized support for the CMS platform. Don’t miss to consider the yearly licensing fee in your budget. Less Flexible You will get less scope for customization. In future, if you think to add some features or remove some add-ons, then that will cost you extra. |
The deciding factor for your CMS
Talking About Open-source or Closed-source: Choose The Right CMS For Your Business, As of now, you have understood the benefits and disadvantages of using each of the CMS. The next step is to decide which one is suitable for your business. Let me summarize the facts here so that you can understand the difference in an easy and proper way.
If you look at open-source CMS(Drupal, Joomla, Magento, WordPress), you will experience the following features at free of cost:
- Huge community support
- Easy download & installation
- Simple user interface
- Integration options
- Multiple plugins
- Flexibility
- High usability
However, if you consider closed-source CMS for your business you will get the following benefits but only after paying an amount to your selected developer:
- Common CMS features
- Scalable performance
- Backend services
- Strong technical support
Both are good for business but you have to take a closer look at the plugins, flexibility, security, cost & support before you decide anything. Check all the above-mentioned factors and hopefully, you will be able to select the right CMS as per your requirement.
Though a number of companies are going for closed-source, as a senior tech person I would vote for open-source CMS because of it’s flexibility. Also, how can one ignore the features one is getting without paying a single penny! Nowadays threats on any open-source CMS are also detected and fixed quickly due to the support from a strong developer community.
Among open-source CMS platforms, WordPress & Joomla are very popular. Developers as well as businesses, both prefer these big names to create engaging websites, diverse platforms and optimize customer’s experience.
Talking About Open-source or Closed-source: Choose The Right CMS For Your Business, In fact, for an educational organization, we developed a reliable WordPress based CMS platform with a simple user interface which proved to be efficient for students to submit their assignments online in a timely manner without any glitches. Moreover, the addition of new features enhanced the functionalities of the online writing program system for the students.
Contact Brainvire at info@brainvire.com to hire CMS Developers for customize Drupal CMS development or any website development. We will be happy to discuss the strategy and provide you with the best solution within your budget.
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