In blogging or website sphere it’s said, “In the beginning was the CMS platform”. And it’s true, if you want to start your own online project, you will definitely face the issue of choosing your basic site tool. Nowadays, with the variety of existing content management solutions, you may be fully provided with the exceptional options for your website development. The distinctive feature that marks them out is the self-hosted and hosted CMS tool solutions. But, is it the only point that defines your choice? At least, it shouldn’t be your prerogative!
There are much more options that determine your choice of the appropriate website/blog builder. First of all, you should know that the main feature that denotes the good CMS platform is its functionality, that varies while speaking about fully hosted and self-hosted services. So, now we will review the top CMS platforms (self-hosted) and blogging services (free hosted), to know which of them fits you best.
Self-Hosted CMS Platforms
WordPress Spectrum
While looking for your new CMS platform, the first tool you hear about in all probability will be WordPress. The popularity of this website/blog tool is more than huge. Its main benefits are well-known ease and advanced functionality. It’s so-called a Swiss-army knife for your web project.
One more privilege of WordPress as your CMS software is the total control over your website theme. What does it mean? Usually, with free hosted blogging services it’s rather tough to get or create the unique template for your website. While with a self-hosted tool you have the whole range of various themes. And if you know a little of CSS and HTML, your web page will have a pretty advanced look. Also, you may improve your site functionality with the bulk of plugins, while the hosted CMS platform has the limited amount of them.
Joomla Scale
Moving on, we apply to Joomla CMS software scope. So, in contrast to other free hosted solutions and even to WordPress, Joomla is considered to be the guru of well-developed functions and reasonable usability. It’s suitable for community network management and other social-oriented pages. As the rule, the users are satisfied with Joomla editing options. Moreover, the amount of templated considerably surpasses any other CMS platforms’ offers.
Speaking about the operating abilities of Joomla, it’s pretty simple to manage all the processes after watching various and accessible tutorials. Thus, all your website procedures will be reduced to the minimum investments of efforts.
Drupal Offer
You think you’re a crackerjack? Then Drupal is right for you. It’s considered to be the most advanced CMS platform. Are you tempted to own it? Firstly, you should know it requires the deep knowledge of programming. Drupal is a developer-oriented tool, also the functionality of Drupal-based sites are provided with the powerful modular architecture.
Drupal also gives you chance to develop your own modules that will allow you to move far beyond the Drupal core. Chasing the last tendencies, Drupal is mobile responsive that means you may manage all your website processes from any device.
Hosted Blogging Services
In fact, blogging services are the gateways to start running your first web project. Thus, they do not require any programming skills, but also, do not offer some advanced functions. Usually, the blogs that are based on the online services look rather simple and unprofessional. Your domain name includes the name of your blogging tool that is not easy to optimize and generally, you can hardly get the high ranking. Nowadays, the most popular blogging services are Tumblr.com and Blogger.com.
Tumblr.com Review
Tumblr is a flexible blogging platform that looks like a social network, usually, it’s compared to Twitter. The main feature that distinguishes Tumblr among other blogging builders is the ability to upload posts with the big-sized pictures. And also, the whole Tumblr posts look like the image gallery rather than of a full value blog. Tumblr provides limited customisation options, so there is little you can do to change the layout of your blog.
Blogger.com Part
| Self-Hosted | Hosted | |
| Design |
Possible to customize |
Limited customization options |
| Plugins | Free/ paid/ custom | A few of built-in ones |
| Pricing | Domain registration & hosting fee | Free (but it’s paid if you want a custom domain name) |
| Operation Control |
You are responsible for your website protection, update and optimization |
Everything is managed automatedly. |
| Customization | Full | Not allowed |
| Ownership | You are the owner of your own website. | You can’t sell ads on your site and other actions are rather limited. |
| SEO | Great optimisation opportunities | Limited SEO options |
Solution to Consider
In case you are already running your hosted website or blog, but willing to try the features of a self-hosted CMS, there’s a snug solution to convert your current website content to Joomla or perform the migration to WordPress with no data losses. Moreover, if you feel yourself certain of deep programming knowledge, you may migrate your site content to Drupal 7 automatedly with aisite. The migration is really fast, reducing your efforts to the minimum. Set up your free Demo Migration to see how easy it is. This may be the turning point in the life of your website.
