Craft: The CMS You Probably Don’t Know About (But Should!)
Insights, delivered.
In the ever-evolving digital arena, businesses continuously seek tools that enhance user and developer experiences. At Mighty Citizen, our compass generally points toward one recommended Content Management System (CMS) solution: Craft. Below, we’ll explore the why and how behind our recommendation, hoping to shed light on the pivotal role a CMS plays in seamless website management.
Understanding the Content Management System
Before diving deep into Craft, let’s take a moment to understand the essence of a CMS. A Content Management System is not just a platform for creating and maintaining website content; it’s a tool designed to simplify the complexities of site management, especially for non-developers. Imagine having to update your contact information in multiple places, tracking where every piece of content lives, and feeling submerged by the overwhelming upkeep. A well-constructed CMS emerges as a life raft in this sea of complexity, ideally allowing you to create once and publish everywhere (COPE), mitigating duplication of efforts and the inevitable confusion that comes with managing dynamic, multifaceted websites.
Why Craft Takes the Crown
With numerous competitors in the digital market, there are a few reasons why Craft stands out in the vast ocean of CMS options:
Streamlined UX: Craft prioritizes the author’s experience with intuitive interfaces and logical structures, ensuring that those managing the content can navigate and operate the backend without getting entangled in technical cobwebs.
Developer-Friendly: With a code base that’s logical and consistent, developers find it easier to understand, learn, and implement functionalities on Craft, reducing the learning curve and enhancing the development process.
Flexibility & Freedom: Unlike some CMSs, which enforce certain design and functionality constraints, Craft provides the building blocks for a site, allowing for designer creativity and flexibility without imposing frontend restrictions.
Affordability: While enterprise-level CMS platforms often come with hefty price tags, Craft delivers competitive, robust features at a fraction of the cost, making it a wise choice for mission-driven organizations of all sizes.
Accessibility: W3C (the World Wide Web Consortium, the main international standards organization for the web) chose Craft for their own website, citing their dedication to accessibility as one of the primary factors for consideration.
Community and Developer Support: While some CMS communities are massive relative to Craft, the Craft community makes up for this by having a supportive and engaged community where plugin developers often interface with Pixel and Tonic (the creators of Craft) to collaborate extensively on the product. Similarly, feature requests and issues from the community often affect future releases of Craft, allowing for the developers who use Craft on a daily basis (and their respective clients’ needs) to shape the product.
Crafting the Developer and User Symphony
For developers and designers, Craft doesn’t enforce assumptions about content or how it should be displayed, offering a true playground for customization and innovative design. Developers find the syntax comprehensive, and the flexibility allows them to architect the backend in a way that’s both user-friendly and tailored to specific client needs.
For users, particularly those tasked with content management, the intuitiveness of the CMS enables them to handle content updates without the fear of “breaking” something or disrupting the design.
CMS and the Enterprise: A Consideration of Alternatives
CMS platforms like Sitecore and Plone have had their moment in the spotlight within the mission-driven and enterprise-level space. However, Craft isn’t just holding a candle to these platforms; it’s outshining them by offering an affordable, high-quality, scalable solution. It can handle extensive loads, manage complicated, relational data systems, and can be utilized on massive sites, proving that you don’t need to exhaust your budget to acquire a top-tier CMS.
Mighty Citizen Can Help
While there’s no one-size-fits-all answer in the CMS world, and certain sectors (such as government agencies) might have specific restrictions or preferences (like Drupal), Craft generally stands out as a robust, versatile, and user-centric option.
At Mighty Citizen, we understand the nuances, complexities, and potential hurdles of digital content management. We leverage Craft’s abundant features to deliver sleek, user-friendly, and robust websites for our clients, ensuring that their digital presence is not just a reflection but an amplification of their brand in the digital realm. Check out some of our client work in Craft on our Craft partner website.
Embarking on a new digital project or contemplating a website overhaul? Let’s craft something mighty, together.
