Craft CMS Vs WordPress — Comparison On A Click

For someone looking for a CMS for their business website, every inquiry will lead down the same path.

WordPress > Hire WordPress Developer > Website!

And that’s probably why newbies don’t get to explore other viable CMS options like the Craft CMS.

Even before you begin looking for Craft and jump on to train Hire-Craft-CMS-developers, here are some points that will help you make the right choice for your business.

Craft CMS was introduced in 2010 by Pixel & Tonic to create something new and different in the Content Management System (CMS) arena.

I’ll give you three reasons how Craft CMS brought a difference and changes the way we develop websites.

1. Craft is like a blank slate. For developers who love freedom and wish to exercise their creativity, Craft CMS is their dream-come-true! Most CMS want you to follow a particular way; they have some restrictions. And sometimes, they act as roadblocks to your creativity, compelling you to think a certain way. On the other hand, Craft is a liberal CMS that allows maximum customization and a lot of free-styling.

2. Since Craft follows an MVC (Model-View-Controller) design pattern, its load speed is much faster than that of WordPress. Now, the question that arises is; How does MVC help in reducing the loading time?

Let’s assume that you order a mushroom pizza from dominos. The cashier will note your order and charge you while someone from the back team has already begun rolling the dough. Everything from rolling the dough to pulling out the freshly baked pizza requires logical and pre-planned procedures.

So, when the cashier takes your order — he/she is considered as the controller. When the cook bakes the pizza, all the steps involved sum up to the Model, and the final product that you receive is the View.

The smart thing about this is that when asked to create a mushroom pizza, it didn’t go ahead to look for every topping and then choose mushroom. And that’s what happens in Craft. It only looks at the required items.

3. In comparison to most CMS (WordPress Included), Craft is the most secure of them all. It uses PDO for all database queries and establishes a parameter around all of its dynamic values that prevent SQL injection attacks. Apart from this, there are probably fifteen other reasons why Craft’s security is so much more reliable than any other CMS. And we shall reserve that topic for another day.

Now that we have established the three preeminent reasons why Craft CMS should be our first choice. Let’s look at a quick yet decisive comparison between WordPress and Craft to decide whether to hire Craft CMS developers or WordPress developers.

1) Built-In Features & Functions — Our Vote Goes To Craft CMS!

Everybody knows that WordPress was originally created as a blogging platform. And it is probably why its functionalities are set to please a crowd of bloggers. It was much later that the community decided to consider building websites from it.

Craft CMS, on the other hand, is purely created to host functional websites. And this makes its features and functionalities much more developer-friendly than WordPress.

Now, we cannot deny that WordPress allows a much more independent reality than Craft CMS. All it takes is selecting a theme, adding the plugins, and making some pre-filled customization to obtain a rough version of your website.

So, it is a boon for a DIY crowd, but for a handful of others interested in a unique website, WordPress DIY is probably not on their mind.

A distinguishing point here is that — to create a WordPress website that is as functional as your Craft CMS website, you might have to apply a plethora of plugins and a couple of hundred extra lines of code, which brings us back a full circle.

So, WordPress is easy to set-up and quick to go live, but Craft is feature-rich and flexible. I’d say our vote goes to Craft CMS here!

2) SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Creating a website is only the first step. The next is to have it rank on the SERPs for organic traffic. WordPress and Yoast SEO make a perfect pair to pitch any website on the SERPs. But here is something, SEO is like gambling. Nobody knows the next step; one can only rely on past trends to predict the future.

While Yoast SEO provides generic SEO-friendly fields to a website, such as alt tag, meta description, it is not enough to ace it. Craft’s SEOmatic is just like WordPress’ Yoast SEO. The difference lies in the efficiency and complexity of the features of the two plugins.

SEOmatic goes beyond the definition of generic SEO plugins to create sitemaps for Google’s crawlers. And this makes it easier for them to crawl and index your web pages than look for relevant keywords themselves.

Also, Craft has a better loading speed than WordPress because it doesn’t manipulate codes. As I’ve mentioned earlier, the Craft website is like an empty box; developers don’t manipulate codes; they fill it according to the needs. Such authenticity leads to a lean website rather than a bloated one — inturn making it faster. And we know how much crawlers love fast websites!

So, for us, Craft CMS + SEOmatic is the winning pair!

3) Content Management System

Even before I begin to explain the details, let me declare the winner — Craft CMS!
The reason is pretty simple; Craft CMS doesn’t make any assumptions about your content. Since it is built to develop websites, its features and functionalities are in sync with the developers’ expectations.

Its matrix-block architecture outshone the previous version of WordPress’s HTML-based approach. After the addition of Guttenberg, WordPress also began following a similar approach.

There are three reasons why Craft CMS is a winner when it comes to content management system;

• While WordPress themes are cost-effective if the budgets are a little tight, they are not very unique. So, as a user, you see a standard looking website. When you consult with or Hire a Craft CMS developer, you unlock an array of customizations since Craft is an empty box waiting to be filled.
• You might have to use a lot of plugins to achieve the same functionality that you did in Craft with a few simple lines of coding. Extra spending, extra efforts, and a massively heavy website.
• On studying the heatmaps, if you wish to make changes to your Craft website, it is easier to make changes in the code rather than manipulating it.

So, you see, Craft CMS is a flexible, scalable, and robust CMS platform!

4) Plugins & Integration

WordPress was built as a blogging platform, and when the community decided to turn into a website churner, they had to make provisions to cater to the shortcomings. And they did so by adding plugins. Currently, there are over 55,000+ plugins in its library and counting.

Craft, on the other hand, falls short here. While creating and integrating a plugin in Craft is very easy, it still cannot fully compete with WordPress.

Here, WordPress CMS stands as the clear winner by leaps and bounds!

5) eCommerce

eCommerce is the new-age buying and selling platform. Every business is running towards establishing their eCommerce website. But their dilemma remains the same — Should we hire a Craft CMS developer or a WordPress developer?

Let me quickly break it down for you!

Both these platforms have a dedicated channel for eCommerce. WordPress has a plugin called WooCommerce, and Craft has a product called Craft Commerce.

WooCommerce is a feature-rich plugin for WordPress, like many others. It has gained the trust of many and is super easy to operate. Of course, if you’re looking for advanced customization, you might want to hire a WordPress developer.

On the other hand, Craft Commerce requires you to hire a Craft CMS developer but ensures that your money goes well-spent. Since it is a product itself, it doesn’t build off-of anything. You have the liberty to make a plethora of customization right from the beginning.

So, if you’re looking for a unique, flexible, scalable, and feature-rich eCommerce platform, then Craft Commerce is your buddy!

The Ultimate Finale!

So, coming back to our original question, if you’re looking to choose between hiring a Craft CMS developer or hiring a WordPress developer, then our vote goes to Craft!

To wrap it all up, Craft CMS might not be very popular at the moment, but any rational developer will believe in its efficiency over any other CMS.

WordPress is a popular choice since it has been in the business for a lot longer than Craft CMS, but its core as a blogging platform has it losing the battle. For anybody looking at it from a price angle, then hands-down WordPress is your go-to platform, but if you’re looking at efficiency, flexibility, and long-term return, then Craft CMS is the one!

You can always get in touch with our team of consultants and expert developers to quench your query and then make your final choice. We shall stay with you every step of the way!

Originally published at https://www.zealousweb.com.