Before you write one line of code, before you design one layer of design, and before you write one word of copy, there is a much larger question you need to answer:
Which Content Management System (CMS) should I use to build my website?
As with everything in life, there are pros and cons to each option. Here, we’ll give you the straight up truth about the top four most common CMSs:
After reviewing all the considerations below (listed in no particular order), it’s ultimately up to you to decide which CMS is best for your needs. We hope this helps make that decision a little easier.
Drupal
Summary
Just as Lego pieces fit together perfectly, allowing you to build anything your mind can imagine, Drupal modules (aka plugins) and code act as the building blocks of an editable website.
Everything fits together. Everything plays well together.
The back end of Drupal isn’t much to look at, and there aren’t many pre-made kits. Drupal is for the builder who wants full creative and functional control of their masterpiece.
Shopify
Summary
Oh Shopify … I don’t want to paint my car, I want to pimp my ride!
With Shopify, you can change the design, the fields and the output of pages, but you can’t change the logic. It’s baked in.
There are some functionality plugins that seem cool on the surface, but they’re hosted elsewhere. That means they push code to your site, which can cause major security breaches and performance issues.
WordPress
Summary
Most CMSs are packaged into one comprehensive solution. If you find a solution that works for you, it will save you a ton of time.
However, if you want to alter the solution even slightly, it can become difficult to manage. WordPress is no exception. It’s a strong platform for content-heavy sites like blogs or news feeds and the GUI (graphical user interface) is simple and clean.
Beware of the plugins—unless specifically made to do so, they typically don’t play well together. Plugins are frequently to blame when WordPress sites break.
Magento
Summary
We liken Magento to a model airplane because once it’s built, it super cool. That said, it can also be complex to build and difficult to change once put together.
Magento was created for send user wanting to build and maintain their own websites. It has a strong backend for eCommerce—it can handle a massive inventory of products.
On the downside, it doesn’t have a lot of plugins, and is not ideal for content-heavy sites.
Need help deciding which CMS is best for your needs? Give us a call, we can help.
Questions Businesses Ask Before Choosing a CMS
Start with what the site needs to do day to day, because that answers more of the CMS question than any feature list. WordPress fits content-heavy sites like blogs and news feeds, Shopify and Magento are built for selling products, and Drupal suits complex builds that need full creative and functional control. None of the 4 is universally best, since each one is built for a different kind of site. Picking backward from a platform’s popularity, instead of forward from what the business needs, is where most CMS decisions go wrong.
WordPress is reliable when you stick to well-maintained, compatible plugins and keep them updated. Plugins are its biggest strength and its most common headache, because conflicts between plugins not built to work together are a frequent source of instability.
There’s some risk, and it comes mostly from third-party plugins rather than Shopify itself. Shopify lets you change the design and adjust fields, but its core logic stays fixed. Added functionality often has to come from plugins hosted outside Shopify’s own infrastructure, and that’s where the security and performance risk lives.
Drupal is worth it when the site needs real functional control, like custom workflows, complex permissions or unusual content structures. Its modular, building-block approach earns the steeper learning curve in those cases. For a simpler content-heavy site, that flexibility is usually more than you need, and WordPress wins on ease of use.
Magento makes more sense when you have a large or complicated product catalog with heavy inventory management. It’s harder to build and has fewer plugins than WordPress or Shopify. That makes it a better fit for product-focused businesses with the technical resources to support it, not smaller stores just getting started.
That’s common, because most businesses need content, eCommerce and custom functionality to live on the same site. Talking it through with a team that has built on more than 1 of these platforms usually surfaces the right fit faster than comparing feature lists.
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