Your website serves as the crucial first impression for visitors and potential customers.
A good website is pivotal in establishing credibility, enhancing brand awareness, and serving as the primary point of contact for potential business transactions.
While creating and setting up a website is often associated with high costs and time commitments, web content management software presents a solution that is not only cost-effective but also enjoyable and freely accessible.
*This data was pulled from G2 in Fall 2023. Some reviews may have been edited for clarity.
HubSpot CMS Hub is a popular CMS that makes it easy to create a website, offering critical features for an exceptional user experience and business growth through a theme library, drag-and-drop editor, premium cloud hosting, website analytics, and more. Easily create and manage website pages personalized for different visitors -- and optimized for devices and conversions.
"HubSpot CMS Hub stands out as a dependable and comprehensive content management system (CMS) equipped with diverse functionalities for seamless website content management. It serves as an excellent choice for organizations due to its intuitive interface, seamless integration with the HubSpot ecosystem, robust personalization options, effective SEO optimization, and scalability. The platform facilitates tailored user experiences, emphasizes SEO and performance optimization, and offers flexibility for businesses of all scales. With its wide-ranging capabilities, HubSpot CMS Hub provides a holistic solution for marketers and content creators aiming to enhance their online presence."
- HubSpot CMS Hub Review, Patrick Steven U.
What users dislike:
"While the initial impression of its documentation is positive, navigating through the modules can be perplexing. The documentation lacks comprehensive information about available variables and whether encapsulation within standard HTML tags is necessary for functionality. Developing new sites or modifying modules is notably challenging without a dedicated testing environment, making it essential to ensure that changes made on the portal are synchronized with the local development environment. While defining modules is more convenient on the platform itself, making alterations to their appearance (HTML, CSS) is better facilitated with an integrated development environment (IDE)."
- HubSpot CMS Hub Review, Jesus E.
WordPress.org is the most popular CMS tool, and part of its fame can be attributed to being an open-source offering. One of the major benefits of WordPress’ popularity is the multitude of plugins and add-ons available; for businesses, this means less time coding custom tools and plugins in-house and faster delivery.
"WordPress, being free and open-source, can be installed effortlessly with a single click on the server. Its extensive library of third-party plugins significantly expedites tasks. The user interface design is straightforward and easy to navigate. Notably, it boasts an excellent URL structure, particularly when compared to other platforms. Moreover, for those with coding knowledge, customization is easily achievable to suit individual preferences and requirements."
- Wordpress.org Review, Vanshika T., Nov 08, 2022
What users dislike:
"I'd appreciate a built-in drag-and-drop editor for simplicity. The current block editor is user-friendly, but it requires some learning. Occasionally, the backend experiences lags, possibly due to active plugins. Ensuring plugin compatibility and frequent updates is necessary. I hope for improved built-in SEO functionality and enhanced A/B testing and personalization in future updates."
- Wordpress.org Review, Katherine K., Aug 23, 2022
Sanity is a headless content management system, providing content delivery and total composability through a decoupled, real-time content backend, customizable content workspaces, and tailored editing interfaces for content creators to match specific business needs, serving as a central hub for content creation and operations.
"Building my inaugural client website with Sanity, Nuxt, and Typescript has been a seamless experience. Integrating the Nuxt Sanity client was straightforward, and the robust community and comprehensive documentation have been invaluable. The platform is incredibly user-friendly and offers an ample free tier, making it ideal for experimentation. The fully hosted service with a free tier allows me to launch Jamstack sites without incurring initial hosting or CMS fees, with the flexibility to upgrade resources as needed in the future. I'm planning to leverage Sanity for eCommerce integrations in my current and future projects, drawn to its extensive features and adaptability that cater to diverse client requirements."
- Sanity Review, Andrew G.
What users dislike:
It would be beneficial to have a feature that provides visibility into resource allocation, such as identifying common requests that consume a significant number of API requests, or pinpointing storage files that occupy substantial space. This would greatly enhance the observability of clients' websites in terms of resource usage, leading to more informed decisions and cost reductions in cloud operations.
Umbraco is an open-source CMS built on ASP.NET. It provides users with complete control of their website and features. As a flexible and scalable platform, Umbraco helps your site look, feel, and work the way you want through its APIs and open-source code.
Umbraco has been my CMS of choice for several years due to its exceptional capabilities. The user-friendly interface facilitates the swift creation of document types and customized properties for developers. Additionally, the availability of multiple default properties further enhances the development process.
- Umbraco Review, Charlie P.
What users dislike:
"Having utilized Umbraco for several years, I've consistently found it to be superior to other content management systems. Its intuitive UI enables developers to swiftly generate document types and customize properties, leveraging the various default properties at their disposal."
- Umbraco Review, Luís B.
Webflow is another popular content management system that integrates with visual design, allowing the creation of content structures, easy content addition, and visual design on the page without the need for complex coding or database management. Webflow CMS simplifies the editing process for editors, designers, and developers, enabling easy content management and publication directly on the live website.
"Webflow serves as an excellent centralized platform for managing multiple website builds effortlessly. Notable features include the convenience of workspaces for project organization, user-friendly templates integrated within projects, intelligent and intuitive website development tools, simplified methods for creating dynamic sites, an abundance of valuable guidance from both Webflow's resources and its user community, and a user-friendly built-in CMS management system."
- Webflow Review, Alex K.
What users dislike:
"Webflow's limitations primarily revolve around the constraints on custom code. Unlike other CMS platforms that permit customized HTML code integration, Webflow's inbuilt widgets may not always accommodate specific requirements. If Webflow can address this aspect, it has the potential to attract a larger user base."
- Webflow Review, Jeegen P.
Duda is a professional website builder and CMS for agencies and SaaS companies. It provides a customizable platform for high-performing websites at scale, equipped with powerful team collaboration and client management tools for responsive, feature-rich websites optimized for speed and SEO, serving a diverse range of customers from freelance professionals to large hosting companies and online publishers.
"Duda's White Label and sales resources have significantly amplified my website sales, far surpassing what I could achieve independently. Their comprehensive solutions and white label options instilled the confidence I needed to pursue my business, knowing that I could genuinely assist my clients. While I've experimented with various other website builders as a freelancer, Duda has proven to be the most reliable option thus far. While there's always room for improvement, their commitment to incorporating community feedback and consistently rolling out updates every month is commendable."
- Duda Review, Raneesa H.
What users dislike:
"Duda is stable and reliable, but it lacks some features compared to platforms like Elementor. It excels in building scalable sites, though it may not be as widely integrated due to its market share. While it may not offer as many free add-ons as WordPress, its reliability justifies the trade-off. The templates are decent but not cutting-edge, although the upcoming All Flex editor is expected to enhance design flexibility. Although third-party apps are paid add-ons, they work seamlessly and require minimal configuration compared to WP."
- Duda Review, Justin C.
Storyblok, beloved by developers and marketers, offers a modern CMS that centralizes content management operations with a central content hub, digital asset manager, custom user roles, and permissions, allowing flexibility to integrate with any technology and publish to any frontend, supported by open-source frontend SDKs and powerful APIs with top-tier security.
"Storyblok serves as an exceptional CMS for Marketing and Content teams. The platform boasts a clean and highly intuitive user interface that is incredibly user-friendly, a feature that I, as a Product Designer, particularly value. Our studio is a staunch advocate of the visual editor, which enables real-time visualization of changes during the content creation process. This functionality greatly streamlines the page-building process, allowing for seamless adjustments of content, visuals, and components, ultimately achieving the precise results we aim for."
- Storyblok Review, Clémence O.
What users dislike:
"Introducing an auto-translation feature would greatly benefit our workflow, resolving many of our challenges. One particular issue that posed a persistent challenge was the restriction where nestables could only be added in a list of blocks. Oftentimes, we required them to be a single block to streamline the process and eliminate the need for separating individual elements from the array. Managing Story Previews proved to be a complex task, especially in the context of single-page applications (SPAs) that involve multi-step processes within a single story. We addressed this issue by restructuring the content into stories and resolving them at the parent level during the loading phase. While this approach yielded positive results, we encountered a limitation regarding the depth of nested elements, which was capped at two levels due to certain technical constraints within Storyblok."
- Storyblok Review, Martin L.
Acquia Drupal Cloud empowers ambitious brands to create meaningful customer moments, offering software and services built around Drupal for enterprise companies to build, operate, and optimize websites, apps, and other digital experiences, fostering innovation and customer-centric strategies.
"The cloud admin UI simplifies the management of development, staging, and production environments for all sites, making it incredibly convenient. The Cloud CDN functionality has proven to be excellent, ensuring reliable uptime and strong performance. Given that we collaborate with multiple development agencies on various sites, the straightforward permission-setting process has been particularly beneficial and hassle-free."
- Acquia Drupal Cloud Review, Brian C.
What users dislike:
"While my overall experience with Acquia Drupal Cloud has been positive, there are certain aspects of the service that warrant improvement. Although the support team is usually prompt in their responses, there have been instances where certain issues required prolonged back-and-forth communication, ultimately leading me to resolve the problems independently. Managing a Drupal site structured with a multisite approach poses greater complexities within the Acquia Drupal Cloud compared to alternative hosting environments. Furthermore, the service's cost is relatively high when juxtaposed with other providers offering similar features and functionalities. Additionally, I have encountered challenges with the Git repository sync, particularly regarding the deletion of branches in specific edge cases."
- Acquia Drupal Cloud Review, Nicholas B.
Pantheon provides web and content solutions for agile cross-functional teamwork, offering plans for fast launches and maintenance, ensuring fast website launches and maintenance with its secure, flexible, high-velocity environment and 24/7 support for WordPress, Drupal, and NextJS sites, along with streamlined workflows and a lightning-fast content delivery network.
"It serves as an excellent hosting solution for developers, offering comprehensive support for continuous integration, custom upstreams, Git, and Composer. With its CLI tool and a free tier for developmental sites, it stands out as a practical choice. Moreover, paid websites are equipped with three default environments: dev, test, and live, and users can create up to 10 additional disposable environments. These features prove especially useful for previewing pull requests before merging them into the development site."
- Pantheon Review, Alejandro M.
What users dislike:
"Pantheon's environment might pose challenges for new users or clients seeking direct involvement in the editing process. The pricing, particularly for mid-tier companies, could be considered relatively steep. Consequently, it might not be the most suitable choice for smaller businesses or websites, primarily due to the associated hosting expenses. While the initial setup process might be slightly daunting, there is a wealth of resources, tips, and tutorials available to aid in comprehending the workflow."
- Pantheon Review, Anne S.
Contentful is the intelligent composable content management platform that empowers teams to collaborate, innovate, and deliver impactful experiences at scale, catering to both technical and non-technical users to create, manage, and publish distinct content experiences across digital channels with speed and scale within a unified content system.
"Contentful is a highly user-friendly headless CMS that offers a seamless starting point, yet continues to provide robust support as your business expands. Its REST-based integration into the frontend is efficient, and the provision of SDKs further simplifies the integration process. Even individuals unfamiliar with CMS found the onboarding process to be straightforward, while the integration of customized previews was also hassle-free."
- Contentful Review, Michael M.
What users dislike:
"The issue arises when certain fields retain traces of previous formatting, leading to incorrect interpretation of the text. Resolving this problem could potentially save hours of revision work. One possible solution might involve the integration of AI for translations, allowing users to input text in one language and automatically populating the corresponding fields in other languages, streamlining the process significantly."
- Contentful Review, Silvia C.
Progress Sitefinity maximizes the top line with intuitive content management tools for marketers and a flexible platform for developers, allowing both teams to deliver unique experiences that drive ROI and reduce total cost of ownership, building a connected Digital Experience Platform with comprehensive support for critical DXP capabilities.
"Sitefinity has been instrumental in facilitating the swift launch and seamless operation of our eCommerce platform. Its seamless integration with authorize.net, a payment gateway we were already familiar with from our previous CMS platform, contributed to a smooth transition. Sitefinity boasts robust features, and we have encountered no errors with its code during our usage. While there might be limitations in customization at times, once deployed, it proves to be highly reliable and resilient."
- Progress Sitefinity Review, Brian F.
What users dislike:
"Progress Sitefinity has a tendency to modify its licensing structure, leading to confusion among our clients. As a trusted Sitefinity Partner, we prioritize clarity and aim to prevent any potential confusion that may arise, particularly among clients who may not be well-versed in the intricacies of these alterations."
- Progress Sitefinity Review, Dan F.
Bloomreach stands as the world's #1 Commerce Experience Cloud, revolutionizing how brands shape highly personalized customer journeys that resonate like magic. Within its suite of products dedicated to authentic personalization and fueling digital commerce growth, Bloomreach features a cutting-edge headless CMS. It enables brands to wield unprecedented control and flexibility over their content management strategies.
"Bloomreach is widely recognized for its intuitive user interface, effective tools, and exemplary customer support within the CRM domain. Its user-friendly design caters to individuals of varying technical expertise, ensuring seamless navigation across the platform. Equipped with a robust set of CRM functionalities, Bloomreach empowers businesses to optimize workflows, automate operations, and derive insights from data. Moreover, the dedicated support team contributes to a smooth user experience by providing timely and reliable assistance. For those seeking a CRM solution that prioritizes usability, efficiency, and exceptional support, Bloomreach stands out as the ultimate choice."
- Bloomreach Review, Rosalie D.
What users dislike:
"While Bloomreach boasts exceptional flexibility, it demands a significant time investment, which can be a notable drawback. Additionally, the initial stages of using the platform might seem overwhelming until you acquire a comprehensive understanding of its functionalities. Caution is advised with processed events as they can accumulate rapidly. It's crucial to bear in mind that every action, such as campaigns, Facebook audiences, and AB tests, generates an event. Often, the best practices recommended tend to exacerbate this issue."
- Bloomreach Review, Rita S.
Contentstack, the fully automated Composable DXP powered by the leading headless CMS, combines the benefits of SaaS and open source, providing businesses with personalized e-commerce experiences by unifying real-time customer and product data, using AI to create endless paths to purchase and driving fast business growth.
"A highly adaptable CMS that combines user-friendliness with exceptional support. It significantly accelerates the development of Spark programs with immediate support. Our financial considerations were thoroughly discussed with the Contentstack team, known for their prompt and amiable assistance. The user interface is remarkably intuitive, allowing me to resolve various issues by focusing on the site's directives. Contentstack's tool is incredibly user-friendly, making it effortless to educate others on how to navigate the CMS. We've consolidated multiple Contentstack projects on GitHub, streamlining collaboration between the design and development teams by centralizing all resources in one location."
- Contentstack Review, David W.
What users dislike:
"Despite its high ratings, the platform is still in its early stages, which means that for large enterprises, some anticipated features are still in the process of development. Nevertheless, their composable headless framework serves to address this concern to some extent and sets them apart from their conventional CMS counterparts."
- Contentstack Review, Bill M.
Kentico's hybrid headless digital experience platform minimizes overhead and maximizes ROI, enabling faster implementation with a rich set of capabilities and APIs, reducing the need for additional personnel, and ensuring a faster time-to-market, leading to significant returns on investment.
"Kentico has been instrumental in streamlining our company's marketing efforts through its comprehensive suite of tools. With its all-in-one platform, we can seamlessly design, manage, and monitor our website, while also efficiently tracking customer data. The platform empowers us to initiate targeted email campaigns, establish automation and personalization modules, and more. With a little training, website editing becomes a swift task. The ability to schedule updates in advance ensures timely content refresh, guaranteeing compliance and up-to-date information. Following the launch of our revamped website, we've observed a significant enhancement in load speeds, which, in conjunction with our SEO strategies, has led to a remarkable surge in both user sessions and counts"
- Kentico Review, Mathew P.
What users dislike:
"Insufficient support remains a key challenge with Kentico. While it offers a wide array of functionalities, it may fall short when faced with extensive requirements, often necessitating the re-implementation of certain aspects to align with specific needs. For instance, although it facilitates the dispatch of 200,000 newsletters, the process can be time-consuming, sometimes taking up to four hours."
- Kentico Review, Benjamin V.
WordPress VIP is a managed hosting platform for enterprise and large-scale websites, ideal for high-traffic sites with tens of millions of pageviews. It's designed to handle high-traffic volume with superior performance and security, making it suitable for large businesses and websites with substantial traffic.
"To truly thrive in the digital age, it's crucial to establish a unique digital presence. This is where WordPress VIP comes into play. Since integrating the WordPress VIP domain, I've witnessed a notable surge in my customer base. The platform's search engine optimization capabilities have proven particularly effective, contributing to its status as an invaluable digital asset."
- WordPress VIP Review, Abhishek B.
What users dislike:
"Creating a local working environment can be quite challenging, especially when dealing with data imports. While the recent release of the VIP CLI tool shows promise, I encountered several difficulties during the setup. I am hopeful that the developers will address these issues and provide a stable version soon."
- WordPress VIP Review, Nag T.
Manage documents, media files, accounting records, and product information for your business efficiently with enterprise content management systems.