Choosing a content management system (CMS) for your website can be a very difficult process that has you constantly changing your mind between the many different solutions available. However the first question you should be asking yourself before you consider any CMS is “What am I trying to achieve?”

We always face a question with the clients: “What tool you are going to use to build our CMS?“. There are many open source and easy techniques to build up a CMS like WordPress, Joomla!, Drupal, Umbraco…  Currently I build up by blog using WordPress, but after I was introduced to Umbraco, I was impressed with extra features and easy way to build up a CMS. So now I had to answer another question: “Which is better WordPress or Umbraco?” But again it is always better to choose according to the website we are building and answering the question: “What am I trying to achieve?”. In this way we can choose correctly. Here is a small comparison between WordPress and Umbraco, it can help to tell when to choose any of these tools.

WordPress:

WordPress is a powerful tool that allows for quick, easy development of websites and blogs. These websites and blogs are usually low to medium level in terms of functionality and content. WordPress at the foremost is a blog publishing tool first. CMS second. It is perfect for a small blog or website with limited content, it has gained its popularity due to ease of customization with plugins and templates. Websites/Blogs can be created in minutes, it this simplicity that has helped create its success among non-developers.

Bespoke solutions can be created in WordPress, however with it being more suited to a blog solution it can be cumbersome to adapt it directly to your needs. This is due to the nature of how WordPress is designed, while being open sourced you are still required to follow set design protocols for the solution to function. A lot of big companies do use WordPress, these sites are for the most part just external blogs and not used for the primary website.

The good parts:

• Easy to learn and use (both development and client usage)
• Flexible implementations with lots of plugins
• Good community and lots of documentation

The bad parts:

• Major security issues
• Outdated web development
• CMS approach throughout the years have been really confusing (since it started out as a regular blog platform)
• Too many plugins to rely on

Umbraco

Umbraco is a fully-featured open sourced CMS with the flexibility to run anything from a small blog to a highly complex website/application. Umbraco uses ASP.NET technology and requires Windows server technology. Umbraco allows for full control over mark-up and design. It gives developers the freedom and tools necessary to create tailored solutions that can be expanded upon as your website grows.

Unlike WordPress which is primarily a blogging tool, Umbraco is a more comprehensive approach to CMS by providing full customization. Umbraco can be tailored precisely to the publishing needs of any advanced website or web application. In other words, Umbraco can be whatever you want it to be.

For developers, Umbraco integrates .Net controls along with performance control such as caching, pre-built easy to use API’s and a built in search engine. While offering all this it allows for custom API’s to be created and used without any restrictions. Security is less likely to be an issue compared to that on WordPress, thanks to the integrated .Net controls. Umbraco uses Microsoft’s latest built in authentication technology ensuring your system is both secure and robust.

The good parts:

• Secure since it relies on .NET
• Modern web development
• Flexible in terms of creating normal website elements
• Good community

The bad parts:

• Time consuming if you’re not well familiar with web development and .NET
• Sometimes buggy (no major issues)
• Built in functionalities are not that into details once you would like take fully advantage of the CMS

Overall, one of the biggest selling points of Umbraco is its simple user interface.  People who are used to filling out web forms and surveys can intuitively grasp the nature of content management within Umbraco. And because the developer has greater control over how the input forms are laid out, it can be customized to suit business needs in almost any situation.

Business owners in the midst of choosing a CMS should take into consideration all of the factors – features, functionality, scalability, etc. as well as price.  While WordPress is great blog software that can be used as a CMS for very small sites, its core functionality just doesn’t stand up to the offerings of a dedicated CMS such as Umbraco.

Here are some references to help more in choosing between WordPress and Umbraco:

• https://cms2cms.com/blog/umbraco-vs-wordpress-final-reckoning/
• http://www.anarsolutions.com/umbraco-vs-wordpress/