Jim Bacha
Art Director
For most organizations, it’s extremely beneficial to have a content management system (CMS) to – you guessed it – manage the content on your website. A CMS decreases the reliance on having a developer handy to make even the smallest content changes. As a result, it puts more control in the hands of an organization’s internal team.
There are hundreds, if not thousands of content management systems out there, and the most popular by far is WordPress. For many considering a new or redesigned website, it seemingly becomes the one and only CMS option – but it’s not necessarily the right choice.
WordPress vs. Umbraco
Yes, WordPress is free and easy to setup, but it has its downfalls when it comes to customization, functionality, and more. On the flipside, a CMS like Umbraco offers additional flexibility and capabilities if you need them. Those extra benefits can help your organization avoid a few issues.
- Because WordPress relies heavily on plugins and third-party tools, security vulnerabilities in these add-ons can cause sites to get hacked more easily.
- WordPress sites aren’t as easy to build as you may think. WordPress actually requires lots of coding and customization, so you'll probably still need to hire a designer/developer to help design, configure, optimize, and launch your site.
- Along the same lines, you’ll need to keep a web developer on retainer as your business grows and you need to make changes to your website. In addition, as the third-party plugins are updated, you’ll need a web developer to ensure these tools aren’t broken on your site.
Don't get us wrong, WordPress is fine for many sites. It powers a whopping 30 percent of the web for a reason. But here’s why we think Umbraco is a better alternative.
Why Choose Umbraco?
At Aztek, we use Umbraco as our CMS of choice. Thanks to Umbraco, we’re able to offer more custom functionality, a better user experience, and a quicker turnaround time for the client.
Part of the problem is that WordPress essentially forces a site to be a blog first and shoehorns anything else into that structure. WordPress started as a blogging platform that designers and developers sort of morphed into something else. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Meanwhile, Umbraco comes at it from the other direction and has all the CMS features comparable to WordPress.
- Create, edit, delete pages.
- Schedule to publish/unpublish content: So that Labor Day post comes down exactly at midnight (while you are in bed).
- Version history, rollback: Go back and restore any previous version of any page, and see who made the changes
- Preview on mobile: See your new page on different mobile devices before you publish.
- Multilingual site/pages
- User Roles: Manage what people can and cannot do both for the administration of your website (writer, editor, admin, etc.) and public users so you can restrict access to sensitive content on your site.
Of course, that’s not all Umbraco has. There are a variety of other features where Umbraco really shines when it comes to content management.
Image cropper
If you've ever had to upload an image for your website (and you aren't a graphics professional with years of Photoshop experience), you've probably done it wrong. Your image was the wrong size, or it was too big and took forever to download. Well, you don’t have to worry about that with Umbraco. Umbraco automatically generates all the right image sizes and quality settings needed. It'll even let you decide where to keep the focus of the crops.
Page builder
WYSIWYG page editors (like WordPress uses) are the worst. These editors are similar to using a Word doc, which leads to messy, extensive code. That's why we love the idea of a page builder. Users can create complex page layouts without touching HTML by selecting from a list of “building block” components... just add words, pictures, and video where you need them instead of dealing with finicky formatting.
Custom templates
Sometimes the page builder is too open-ended. There are some pages where a more consistent structure is called for, such as a product detail page or team bio. Umbraco lets you have both. Templates are customizable to your needs but enforce consistency on pages where it’s needed. Meanwhile, you can use the page builder on other content as you go.
Form builder
Umbraco lets you build your own forms and workflows without a developer. If you can build pages, you should be able to forms, too. Umbraco has one of the best forms editors we've seen. Need a special landing page with a unique form that only sends the results to Linda from marketing? No problem. You can have that up and running in less than 20 minutes.
Manage 301 redirects from within the CMS
When you move, rename, or delete a page, you should create a 301 redirect. It’s important for SEO, as pages that return an error can hurt your search engine visibility. While some websites may require a developer to do 301 redirects, Umbraco allows you to view, create, and manage all the 301s yourself in a simple editor.
Microsoft .Net technology, customizations, integrations
Umbraco uses Microsoft's .Net framework, making it a powerful platform, especially if you want to integrate into other systems such as your CRM or ERP. Or, if you need to incorporate your own custom business rules, Umbraco can be easily extended by your development team.
Open source
Open source means Umbraco is free, with no recurring license fees. Your costs are limited to third party costs for things like custom programming, plugins, and hosting. It also has a strong community of developers who are keeping it up-to-date with new features and security updates.
Aztek has a starter kit
Our team of designers and developers has so much experience with Umbraco, we’ve even developed a starter kit to make sure we can give our clients access to all the neat things we've built, right out of the gate. This means you'll get more features and value out of your new CMS with us, which cuts down on development overhead and code bloat.
Give Umbraco a Try
We hope the features we’ve listed above show you the power you'll have using the Umbraco content management system over WordPress. Need more convincing? Drop us a line. We’re happy to give you a demo and answer any other questions about Umbraco that you may have.
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