Craft CMS is a Content Management System. It's the foundation to your website but more importantly, the interface you use to manage your website's content.
Freelance Craft CMS developer
I'm a freelance web developer, based in the UK, who specialises in developing bespoke websites using Craft CMS.
Craft CMS is a content management system which can scale well from small websites up to medium and large websites with high levels of traffic. The content authoring experience is fantastic, with multi-user support, live previews, good asset management, drafts and revisions out of the box.
From a developer point of view, Craft is my favourite CMS to work with. Its modern set up means your website can be built and tested in a development environment before changes are pushed (via a staging environment if necessary) to production.
What is Craft CMS?
Hoes does Craft CMS compare to WordPress?
Both Craft CMS and WordPress can help you reach your end goal. However there are some differences to consider.
Craft is built from the ground up as a CMS and doesn't necessarily need third party plugins. WordPress was originally built as a blogging platform and requires third party plugins for most new builds.
WordPress itself is open source and free to use, which can be an advantage, but once you add in the cost of plugins from third party vendors, the cost begins to creep up. That said, it's still likely to cost less than Craft and therefore if you're on a tight budget, WordPress can help to meet that budget. Craft being commercial does come with benefits though – developer support is available and you depend less on third party plugin vendors.
Another area where WordPress has an advantage is with the availability of themes. If you're on a low budget, starting with a WordPress theme can help to keep the cost of a new website down. Craft doesn't support the concept of themes, every website built on Craft is bespoke.
From a content authoring point of view, I find Craft's control panel to be far superior. Craft boasts useful features such as live preview, much better asset management, a strong focus on accessibility and an overall an easier to use workflow. This is subjective, not everyone agrees and often people prefer what they know best.
Finally, the developer experience is better with Craft. Support for a proper deployment pipeline (the process of developing and testing in a separate environment before making changes in the production environment) means there are less likely to be unexpected issues with updates.
In summary, I think WordPress is a suitable option when the budget is tight but for completely bespoke websites or websites with advanced features, Craft CMS is the way to go.
Is Craft CMS good for e-commerce?
Craft is an excellent choice for e-commerce. It's stable and your license comes with support from the team behind Craft CMS if needed.
To power the shopping cart of your website, you could use Craft's advanced e-commerce solution (Craft Commerce) or integrate with third party solutions such as Shopify or Snipcart.
What experience do you have with Craft CMS?
I've built everything from basic websites, to e-commerce websites and advanced websites with features such as membership systems, subscriptions and more.
Can my existing website be migrated to Craft CMS?
In short, yes. Your site can be re-built in Craft using the same frontend design. It's usually possible to migrate other data over too. I've previously migrated e-commerce data from WordPress and Magento stores to Craft, keeping subscriptions intact, but it will vary on a case by case basis.
When might Craft CMS not be the best option?
Craft CMS is a solid choice for many websites. That said, there can be good reasons to go with other solutions:
- You might opt for a WordPress website with a pre-made theme if you have a low budget.
- If you're already familiar with another system, you may prefer to stick with that system.
- For web applications, you probably don't want or need a CMS, in which case a framework such as Laravel is the better foundation.
There are more niche reasons to avoid Craft too but for most use-cases, it's one of the best options available.
How much does Craft CMS cost?
The current cost to license Craft CMS is $259 USD upfront, then $59 USD per year thereafter.
Mike's development services have been a God send to us - he is fast and efficient, nothing is too much trouble and he is also incredibly patient. His customisation work on recent Wordpress projects of ours has been excellent. I would recommend him without question to anyone wanting a reliable service and also great value for money.
We've worked with Mike on a number of occasions to create and manage bespoke websites for our clients. He's reliable, delivers quickly and the work meets my clients' expectations. I would not hesitate to recommend Mike to others in need of website development and look forward to our continued work together.
I've worked with Mike on 4 projects now. He not only does a great job, but he's quick to reply to all queries. His knowledge is second to none and I fully recommend his services. I've got another project in the pipeline and Mike will be taking care of that one as well
Mike's always been my go to person for building and maintaining websites. Having used his services for 3 projects to date I would without doubt recommend his work to others. All projects have been delivered on time to the agreed budget. I look forward to working on more projects in future.