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Craft CMS at a glance
Intro
In the world of web design and content creation, choosing the right content management system (CMS) is crucial. The decision should be carefully considered so that our customers do not have to make changes to their website with constant headaches in the future. As experts in online wizardry, we know what's important and go to great lengths to choose a CMS that puts our clients' needs at the centre.
The most common requirements are an intuitive, easy-to-use user interface and good performance in both the backend and frontend. In addition, the website should be appealing to the end user and secure against hacker attacks.
One solution that has impressed us time and time again is Craft CMS. Today we would like to introduce you to the magic of this system and see why it can be an excellent choice for your website or business.
What is Craft CMS?
Craft CMS was launched by Pixel & Tonic in 2013 and redefines content management systems. It is based on one of the most popular programming languages: PHP, has its own plugin store for which developers can create apps and a global community that is always on hand with help and advice.
With remarkable scalability, it offers a powerful solution for managing and maintaining websites and their content. As developers, we appreciate the flexible architecture, while the intuitive user interface allows end users to manage their website effortlessly. But what exactly makes Craft CMS the preferred choice for us? Let's take a look behind the scenes and find out together what really sets this system apart. What kind of system is it and how can it help you take your website's performance to the next level? Dive into the world of Craft CMS with us and discover the key features of this innovative content management system!
An overview of the most important features
Craft CMS is a CMS that allows you to easily manage your website content without the need for technical knowledge. Here are some of the key features for end users of Craft CMS:
- Categories and tags: Organise your content into categories and tags to make it easier to find.
- Multilingualism: Manage your content in different languages to better reach your target group.
- Multi-Site: Manage multiple websites with just one Craft CMS installation.
- Asset Management: Manage your assets such as images, videos and documents easily and efficiently.
- User Management: Create and manage user accounts to ensure that the right people have access to the right functions.
- One-Click Updating: Keep your website up to date by carrying out updates with just one click.
And that's by no means all. Further features that enable an efficient structure of the backend, a dashboard, a live preview,... and many other functions round off the whole thing. However, like every CMS, Craft CMS also has advantages and disadvantages.
What speaks against Craft?
The disadvantages of Craft CMS should not be ignored, as users without technical know-how will quickly be at a loss. But let's take a look at the details:
- To be able to use a Craft CMS system at all, unlike other CMS systems, a certain amount of preparatory work is required, the scope of which varies depending on the size of the project. There is no one-click installation or a store from which templates can be installed directly. Craft CMS must first be installed and set up. In addition, the backend and frontend must be connected with fields. This requires advanced know-how in contrast to Wordpress, for example, where you can connect ready-made templates directly to the backend with just a few clicks.
- Like any other CMS, a "ready-made" Craft CMS system requires a certain amount of familiarisation to get to grips with the features and functions. But once you get the hang of it, everything is very intuitive and comparatively easy to use.
- Another disadvantage is that some extensions may be subject to a charge and the Craft CMS Pro version (at € 299 for the first year) and the Craft Commerce version (at € 999 for the first year) are not exactly cheap to get started with. However, there is also a free open source version.
- The community is still comparatively small, as the system is not yet very well known and is more of an "insider tip".
To summarise, however, these are not disadvantages that would prevent us from using this CMS, but rather hurdles that make it difficult to get started.
And if we now look at the advantages, it could well make sense to overcome these hurdles in order to use one of the best CMS systems on the market in the long term and save a lot of money and nerves in the future.
What speaks in favour of Craft CMS?
There are several things that speak in favour of using Craft CMS and/or even justify a change from other CMS systems. You can tell that the developers have listened. They offer exactly what most of our customers criticise in other CMS systems.
- The first thing to mention is the clarity. Pixel & Tonic itself advertises on its website with the slogan "Everything you'll need. Nothing you won't.". This is because, unlike other CMS systems, it is virtually "empty" after installation and you can install exactly the features that you really need, which improves performance enormously.
- Furthermore, Craft CMS was also generally designed for fast loading times and outstanding performance. A powerful database structure distinguishes it significantly from other CMS systems, which have become so overloaded over the years that they now have slow loading times even in their "raw" state.
- In addition, the high degree of flexibility in the design of websites, true to the motto: "There's no such thing as impossible", convinced us from day one. Customised websites with all the functions the customer wants are the order of the day for us. And where other CMS systems reach their limits, we have been able to create outstanding solutions with Craft CMS.
- In addition, the system can be expanded using plug-ins (tested by Pixel & Tonic) and, thanks to an excellent plug-in framework, it is also possible to create your own extensions and plug-ins, which can provide additional functionality.
- A well-planned and user-friendly Craft CMS backend is intuitive and easy to use, and thanks to the live preview you can view all changes as you write them.
And what about security?
Craft CMS is one of the most secure CMS systems on the market. Due to its unique structure, it is almost impossible to hack a website based on Craft CMS. And even in the one case we have had in the last 3 years, despite a security vulnerability - which was patched within 24 hours - no major damage could be done. In addition, hackers often target widely used systems in order to have as many potential victims as possible. Due to its low distribution, Craft CMS is therefore not an attractive target.
The future of Craft CMS
The system is constantly being developed and new versions are regularly released to make the system more advanced, more up-to-date and better. Each version always offers active support and maintenance for 2 years. After that, critical security problems are fixed for at least another year. Updates to newer versions do not (usually) pose any problems.
You can tell that the Pixel & Tonic team invests a lot of time and resources here to offer users a perfect experience. They always work proactively and even old versions often continue to work perfectly.
Other CMS systems, such as Wordpress, have to be patched almost daily to close security gaps and then have to be patched for hours because patches and versions of plugins are not compatible or there are problems with the PHP version.
With version 5 already in the starting blocks and many great new features, we believe that Craft will continue to be one of the best CMS. It continues to grow in popularity, which means the community and plugin store will continue to grow, making future projects even better!
Conclusion
In the world of content management, Craft CMS is undoubtedly one of the most powerful magic weapons and our absolute favorite. With its flexibility, performance and ease of use, it provides the ideal platform to bring creative online projects to life. Whether you want to create a custom website, blog or online store, Craft CMS allows you to work with us to bring your vision to life. It is also one of the most secure CMS systems we know of.
Choosing the right CMS always depends on your individual needs and goals. We are here to help you find the best solution for your online project.
You can find more information at: https://craftcms.com/ or during a detailed consultation with us.
