Table of Contents
- Craft CMS Review – Robust and User-Friendly
- Benefits of Craft CMS
- Factors to Consider Before you Decide to Buy Craft CMS
- Pricing
- User-Friendliness
- SEO
- What Do the Customers Think?
- Best User-Friendly CMS
- WordPress Review – Convenient with Vast Community Support
- Benefits of WordPress
- Factors to Consider Before you Decide to Buy WordPress
- Pricing
- User-Friendliness
- SEO
- What Do the Customers Think?
- Best CMS with Community Support
- Craft CMS vs WordPress – Buyers’ Guide
- Pricing
- User-Friendliness
- SEO
- Final Verdict
WordPress is one of the most popular content management systems that you can go for to create your online course website.
That being said, did you know that Craft CMS is another option that could also prove to be quite fruitful?
In this post, we’ll compare Craft CMS and WordPress to determine which is the most suitable content management system for online course creators.
| Features | Craft CMS | WordPress |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | 2 and a half stars | 4 stars |
| User-Friendliness | 4 and a half stars | 4 stars |
| SEO | 4 and a half stars | 4 stars |
Now that you know what to expect from each CMS, let’s delve deeper to see what they have to offer.
Craft CMS Review – Robust and User-Friendly
Most CMS (including WordPress) tend to expect you to follow their given process and don’t give you complete control over your website.
This is where Craft CMS shines as it offers you a blank slate that truly allows flexibility and free-styling in any way you want. This particularly appeals to veterans that want to think outside of the box when they develop their websites.
In addition to being easy to use and providing complete control, a Craft website is also much more secure than websites made by other CMS.
An example of this is how Craft uses PDO for database inquiries to prevent SQL injection attacks. There are tons of other measures that can’t be found in other CMS which make Craft CMS exceptionally secure than most of its competitors.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| • Better eCommerce infrastructure • Fast and not prone to crashes • Offers advanced SEO settings • Secure • Easy to use | • Does not have many plugins • Relatively expensive |
Benefits of Craft CMS
When we talk about benefits, let’s start with ease of use: Craft CMS is incredibly simple to navigate through straight out of the box.
The team at Craft CMS has put a special focus on making the lives of content managers easier and it really shows. If you’re an online course creator that has never built a website before, then Craft CMS is definitely an option you should consider.
It’s very intuitive to use even for people who aren’t very tech-savvy.
As mentioned above, Craft CMS is much more secure than most CMS out there. We’ve already mentioned how they prevent SQL injection attacks but one of the main reasons why WordPress is much less secure is simply because it’s so popular.
Another great thing about Craft CMS is its performance. It follows a standard Model-View-Controller design pattern. All you have to know about it is the fact that it enables Craft CMS websites to load much faster.
As an online course creator, this can be extremely beneficial for you since the less frustration your website visitors have, the more likely they’ll be to buy your product(s).
Factors to Consider Before you Decide to Buy Craft CMS
Pricing
Craft CMS’s pricing is as follows:
- Craft CMS: $299 and $59/year for updates
- Basic Craft Commerce (limited functionality): $199 and $39/year for updates
- Craft Commerce: $999 and $199/year for updates
As an online course creator, you’ll most likely have to go with the first plan as it contains all the features you’ll need to build your online shop.
It’s important to note that you’ll have to go for the paid plan only if you intend to host and sell your online course(s) straight from your website.
If the purpose of your website is simply to gather traffic and direct to your online course which is on an established online course platform, then you can get by with the free plan.
User-Friendliness
As mentioned above, Craft CMS was built with the intention of providing ease of use to content managers. Hence, it has an extremely intuitive interface that is not buggy at all (unlike WordPress).
Furthermore, it features many aspects that make web development much easier such as matrix live preview, one-click updating, and much more.
SEO
WordPress has many great SEO plugins such as Yoast SEO which enable it to build great search-engine-optimized websites.
Similarly, Craft CMS platforms have SEOmatic which does everything common SEO tools do but on top of that, it can also render metadata and create sitemaps for Google.
Furthermore, Craft CMS also has an advantage over WordPress in terms of other aspects that also affect the search engine optimization of a website. Examples of these are page load times and website security.
What Do the Customers Think?
Users love Craft CMS’s neat interface and powerful backend features such as SEO tools and rank tracking.
One reviewer said how he was able to make his first Craft CMS website without needing any type of development support.
Here are some reviews we came across:
Best User-Friendly CMS
The best user-friendly CMS is Craft CMS thanks to its easy-to-navigate interface and simple tools that can automate the tedious tasks of site-building. It does pretty much everything WordPress can do and more.
WordPress Review – Convenient with Vast Community Support
WordPress really needs no introduction. It’s the most popular CMS out there thanks to its ease of use and availability.
It allows you to create all sorts of websites and its drag-and-drop interface is really something that clicks with both veterans as well as novices.
Thanks to its popularity, there are over 50,000 plugins available in its library. Many of them are hugely beneficial and can cut your website development time in half.
Furthermore, you can also find tons of support and community forums to solve any problems you may face during development.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| • Completely free • In-line HTML and CSS editing options • Huge library of plugins • Extensive customization options • Intuitive to use | • Does not come with a domain and hosting solution |
Benefits of WordPress
When we talk about WordPress, the first thing to mention is the fact that it’s completely free to use.
Thanks to its popularity, you can find tons of WordPress themes to use as a starting point for your WordPress website. From there, you can use its extensive customization options to adjust it according to your online course business’s aesthetic.
WordPress websites also have the benefit of being fully compatible with most third-party tools. This is because thanks to its popularity, most software developers tend to make their products with WordPress compatibility in mind.
Another benefit is its huge plugin library. While it’s true that many plugins are outdated and not worth using, there are tons of others that can be highly useful and help you develop your site in a much easier way.
Factors to Consider Before you Decide to Buy WordPress
Pricing
As mentioned earlier, WordPress is completely free to use.
With that being said, it’s important to note that WordPress does not provide its own hosting solution.
This means that while you won’t have to pay for WordPress, you will have to find a third-party web hosting service and pay their fees.
User-Friendliness
WordPress prides itself on being extremely simple to use even for people who are not very experienced with web design. It’s one of the reasons why it grew so much in popularity.
That being said, WordPress developers tend to face a lot of bugs that can sometimes have very convoluted solutions.
You’ll definitely be able to find solutions to these bugs thanks to WordPress’s overwhelmingly large community but it’s still something that hinders the development process.
SEO
WordPress has many great SEO plugins such as Yoast SEO and SEOPress that make it very easy to make your WordPress site search engine optimized.
The plugins have options to change alt attributes, URLs, etc. which increase the likeliness of your website to be ranked on search engines.
What Do the Customers Think?
You can probably already guess that WordPress CMS has extremely positive reviews with the vast majority of developers singing praises of the platform.
People love its ease of use and its huge libraries of themes and plugins which make the job much easier.
Here are some reviews to check out:
Best CMS with Community Support
The best CMS with community support is WordPress thanks mainly to its popularity. Since so many people use WordPress, you can find tons of support forums that can help you make your online course website the best it can be.
Craft CMS vs WordPress – Buyers’ Guide
Pricing
Pricing is definitely something you have to be careful about when you choose a CMS.
As an online course creator that’s working on their first course, you’ll most likely already need to pay subscription fees for other tools.
Hence, it’s a good idea to opt for a CMS that is either completely free or does not charge too expensive of a fee.
User-Friendliness
User-friendliness is crucial when it comes to whatever platform you choose for your website’s development.
You want to be able to pick up the tool and use it instantly without having to go through tutorial posts and videos. You don’t want to spend time learning the tool because that time needs to go towards working on your online course.
SEO
The main reason to build a website is to boost your reach and increase your discoverability.
To do that on the internet, your website has to be search engine optimized.
Be sure to opt for a CMS that has extensive SEO settings and options to ensure that your website is rankable on search engines.
While creating and selling online courses can be very profitable, it’s not easy. Take a look at our guide to help you go through each step.
Final Verdict
This brings us to the conclusion of our post for Craft CMS vs WordPress.
In the end, we have to say that Craft CMS is definitely better (if you have the budget for it).
$299 is a hefty price to pay but it’s definitely worth it. Craft CMS offers a better interface, faster site speed, higher security as well as better options for SEO.
Hence, if you can afford to, definitely go for Craft CMS.
Which one do you think is better? Let us know in the comments below.