How To Choose A Cms Guide Jan 2019 Update

How to Choose a CMS: The Ultimate Guide | Core dna
Table-of-contents
Introduction ................................................................................................................. 2
Who should decide the CMS choice? .............................................................................. 3
SaaS vs. Hosted vs. On-premise CMS platform ............................................................... 6
SaaS CMS platform pros & cons ..................................................................................... 7
SaaS CMS comparisons ................................................................................................. 9
Crownpeak ............................................................................................................... 9
Kentico Cloud .......................................................................................................... 10
Core dna .................................................................................................................. 11
Squarespace ............................................................................................................ 12
Cloud CMS ............................................................................................................... 13
On-premise CMS platform pros & cons ......................................................................... 14
Hosted CMS platform pros & cons ................................................................................ 15
On-premise and hosted CMS comparisons .................................................................... 16
WordPress ............................................................................................................... 16
Drupal ..................................................................................................................... 18
Joomla .................................................................................................................... 19
Concrete5............................................................................................................... 20
Alfresco ................................................................................................................... 21
8 things to consider when choosing a CMS platform ...................................................... 22
4 mistakes to avoid when choosing a CMS platform ...................................................... 32
100 questions to ask your vendor when selection a website solution ............................... 34
1
Introduction
Your CMS is the chassis of your content marketing campaign.
It doesn’t matter how great your content is, if your CMS can’t display and manage it right,
it won’t have nearly half the impact it deserves.
This might sound like a moot point, but I’ve seen plenty of organizations plateau because
their CMS can’t keep up with their ambitions or their growth. The fact that you can’t
switch over your CMS with a flick of a button makes your choice all the more important.
So what should you look for when choosing a CMS? What features should you prioritize?
Should you opt for a SaaS or a hosted solution? What stakeholders should be part of the
decision-making process?
In this post, we’ll show you answers to these questions, and more.
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Who should decide the CMS choice?

Before you can even consider different CMS features, you need to figure out who decides
what CMS to use.
This is harder than it appears. As the size and needs of your organization grows, so do the
number of stakeholders. Your IT might demand a CMS that fits with their current
infrastructure stack. Marketing might want something that plugs in with their marketing
tools. Sales, on the other hand, would want CRM integration.
Keeping all stakeholders happy can be a potential minefield.
In fact, according to one Forrester survey, most web content management system
initiatives fail because of internal politics.
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This is why the first two steps in choosing a CMS is to:
1. Figure out stakeholders involved in the CMS decision

In most organizations, the following departments would be involved in the CMS decision-
making process:
• IT: Since IT will be ultimately responsible for the technology and may need to
maintain and modifying the CMS, then integrating them in the selection is vital for
the success of a CMS deployment.
• Marketing: The CMS is essentially a marketing tool. For content marketing-

focused organizations, it’s crucial that marketing gives the go ahead before
making a CMS selection.
• Sales: Close integration between the CRM and CMS will improve sales efficiency
and effectiveness.
2. Prioritize stakeholder requirements

Every department involved in the CMS selection process will have different requirements.
Ask them to prioritize their requirements (in terms of features and integrations) using
the MoSCoW method:
• Must-have: Essential features the department can’t work without;
• Should-have: Features that are generally as important as Must-have’s but are not
as time critical;
• Could-have: Features that are desirable but not critical for the department’s
functioning;
• Would-have: Features that are least critical, lowest payback or not appropriate at
this time.
You might have a matrix like this after taking their recommendations under consideration:
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Keep this in mind before you start the CMS selection process. Understand that a typical
CMS selection process will take a significant amount of time. For a medium-sized business,
you can expect 2-7 months between understanding requirements, writing the RFP and
signing the final contract. Essentially, you’re looking for a solution that checks off as many
high-priority features for as many stakeholders as possible.
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SaaS vs. Hosted vs. On-premise CMS

platform
One of the most important decisions you’ll have to make upfront is deciding between a
SaaS, hosted or an on-premise solution.
On-premise CMS: With an on-premise CMS, you buy a license from the vendor and install
the software on your own servers or your hosting provider's servers. The CMS provider is
only responsible for maintaining and updating the software; everything from installation
to security, and infrastructure upgrades will be handled by you.
WordPress and Drupal are two examples of on-premise solutions.
Cloud hosted CMS: With a cloud hosted solution, you buy a license then install the
software at a data center or web host where you lease server space. This works just like an
on-premise CMS, except that it is installed on third-party servers you don’t directly own.
Typically, any on-premise solution can also be a hosted solution provided the web host
meets the server requirements.
Hostway and WPEngine are two examples of hosted solutions.
To make a very simple analogy, think of the difference between taking an Uber and
owning a car. With the latter - like on-premise CMS - you are responsible for the car’s
maintenance, insurance, and fuel.
SaaS CMS: A Software as a Service Solution (SaaS) CMS solution is an emerging category
that has risen to prominence in the past few years. The SaaS CMS works like any of your
favorite SaaS tools - Salesforce, Google Docs or even Gmail. There is nothing to install,
update or maintain. The CMS provider takes care of all technical issues so you can focus on
creating and managing content.
You usually buy a subscription and pay on a monthly basis for your use of the CMS. There is
normally no long-term contract or upfront costs before deployment. The Software is pre-
built and you benefit from the ongoing enhancements and improvements made by the
vendors.
Core dna and CrownPeak are two examples of SaaS CMS solutions.
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SaaS CMS platform pros & cons

SaaS solutions are a paradigm shift from the normal website CMS platforms, like in the
CRM industry where Salesforce disrupted the traditional CRM vendors, SaaS is starting to
become more prevalent.
Pros:
• Feature rich - SaaS platforms are developed once and used by everyone in the
community, this means they are designed to be easy to use and have lots of
features to help drive your online business.
• No maintenance/upkeep: All the maintenance work - fixing bugs, maintaining

infrastructure - is taken care of by the CMS provider.
• Regular updates: SaaS solutions upgrade their platforms continuously, making

sure you're always up to date with the latest features.
• No installation: All installation work is taken care of by the CMS provider. All the
applications are pre-built and working in production. You can sign-up, pay the
monthly fee, and start using the CMS right away.
• Pay-as-you-go model: SaaS solutions typically offer monthly payment plans.

Instead of paying a big upfront licensing fee, you pay for each month that you use
the CMS. This brings down costs substantially.
• Security: Since the CMS is installed away from the premises, you can take
advantage of established processes and infrastructure to reduce security risks. Any
decent SaaS solution would also have strong backups and a recovery process in
case of security concerns.
• Scalability: Since SaaS solutions are usually hosted in the cloud, they can scale
with your demand. A sudden burst of viral traffic wouldn’t take your site down.
• Service Level Agreements: Most SaaS CMS vendors will offer a minimum uptime
promise, backup and redundancy plans.
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Cons:
• Customization - SaaS CMS platforms aren't development platforms so you can't

dramatically change how the core application works to suit your needs.
• Support: Since the CMS vendor is responsible for all installation and maintenance,
you are essentially dependent on a third party for your support. If the support isn’t
good, you can’t jump in and fix things yourself.
• Security: Again, with a Saas CMS, you give away your security to a third party. For
most businesses, this shouldn’t be an issue, but if you deal with sensitive data, this
loss of control over security can be a concern.
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SaaS CMS comparisons

The SaaS CMS market is barely ten years old, but even so, this relatively young section of
the enterprise content management market has already produced a plethora of SaaS
solutions. We’ve compared some of the market’s best offerings below.
Crownpeak
Crownpeak is an enterprise-grade decoupled Digital Experience Platform (DXP) that

comes with Digital Quality Management (DQM) which ensures that all of the brand’s
experiences come in line with their best practices and web accessibility compliance. It
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features A/B testing and has over 60 built-in integrations including Dropbox, Oracle, and
Brightcove as well as advanced security features.
Who it’s for: Crownpeak is ideal for marketers who want to deliver personalized content
via omnichannel delivery without heavily relying on IT. Also, since Crownpeak has strong
vertical compliance, it is suitable for brands in financial and healthcare.
Kentico Cloud
Kentico Cloud is an API-first headless CMS that is aimed at enterprises. With Kentico,
developers can create their own customer experiences using the tools and programming
language of their choice. Marketers can also use Kentico to collaborate with developers
and fellow marketers to write, edit, review, and approve content.
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But the major drawback is that there is a noticeable lack of front-end presentation layer
to enable marketers to preview their content to help them become familiar with the end-
user experience. And also, marketers will be heavily relying on their development team to
create their desired experiences.
Who it’s for: Kentico is geared towards companies looking to manage an omnichannel
presence.
Core dna
Core dna is a marketer-friendly decoupled (hybrid) CMS that comes with 80 built-in
applications that facilitate functionality such as eCommerce, intranets, extranets, portals,
as well as enterprise-grade content and asset management. Our platform also allows you
to track your customer activity across multiple touchpoints so you can deliver personalized
content throughout the customer journey.
Who it’s for: Core dna is suitable for a wide range of industries and verticals, from
eCommerce brands, to companies wanting to deliver a seamless omnichannel experience,
to organizations in need of a powerful employee intranet. It is also ideal for industries that
follow a strict vertical compliance as Core dna comes in line with GDPR and HIPAA
compliance. But, don’t take our words for it. Check out what other people say about us.
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Squarespace
Squarespace is known for its ease-of-use thanks to its user-friendly interface and drag and
drop capability. Users can create their own customized designs for websites and online
stores. It also comes with a multitude of built-in integrations including Adobe Creative
Suite, Google Drive, Getty Images, and more.
But we would like to highlight that Squarespace is not a headless CMS out-of-the-box. It
can be turned into an API, but you would need the assistance of a full-time developer to
make this possible.
Who it’s for: Suitable for bloggers and small businesses who want to set up a website and
just get going, without having to worry about any technical elements.
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Cloud CMS
Cloud CMS is a headless CMS that also follows an API-first approach, similar to Kentico
Cloud. Cloud CMS is built around JSON and possesses a number of enterprise features
including full editorial environment, flexible content models, multi-factor authentication,
and instant preview - a feature not available in Kentico Cloud.
But Cloud CMS is quite complex to use and will require a lot of support from a developer.
And also there is no SEO support out-of-the-box.
Who it’s for: Cloud CMS is mainly aimed at developers who want to have full control over
how they want to deliver experiences to the end-user.
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On-premise CMS platform pros & cons

Despite the enormous popularity of SaaS solutions, on-premise software still commands
an enormous share of the CMS pie.
On-premise CMS solutions have these pros and cons:
Pros:
• More control: You decide the infrastructure and environment to install the CMS
on. This gives you more control over the CMS.
• Customization: If you’re using an open-source CMS, you can customize the

solution to fit your exact requirements. Even closed-source CMS will give you
considerable room for customization, especially when it comes to integrations.
Cons:
• Maintenance, installation, and upkeep: Your IT team will be responsible for

supporting the CMS. This can radically increase deployment time, add to upfront
costs and might even require hiring additional personnel.
• Scalability: Unlike a SaaS solution, the scalability of an on-premise CMS depends

entirely on the underlying infrastructure. This can impact scalability, especially if
you don’t take advantage of the cloud.
• High upfront costs: Besides the license fee, you’ll also have to pay for
infrastructure and IT to install the CMS.
• Long deployment time: Between the installation and customization, you might
end up spending weeks and even months to deploy the CMS.
In a nutshell, a SaaS solution represents the future. It is cheaper upfront, highly scalable,
and gives you the flexibility to switch to another provider. On-premise solutions might
have been viable 10 years ago, but the security, maintenance and scalability issues are a
big red mark today. The continuous innovation ensures that your investment is never
outdated.
Bottomline: Small to medium-sized businesses would do well with a SaaS solution since it
keeps upfront costs low and doesn’t require IT. Large businesses with complex needs can
pursue an on-premise CMS but only if they have the personnel and expertise to handle the
requirements.
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Hosted CMS platform pros & cons

Hosted solutions work pretty much like on-premise solutions. The only difference is that
they are hosted on third-party servers.
A hosted CMS has these pros and cons:
Pros:
• Faster deployment: Since you don’t have to set up servers on-premises, you can
start the installation and deployment process much faster.
• Scalability: You can host the CMS in the cloud (such as AWS), which means you
can instantly scale your resources when the need arises.
• Lower upfront costs: You can rent server space from your web host on a monthly
basis. This keeps upfront costs lower compared to an on-premise solution.
Cons:
• Host-dependant vulnerabilities: The security and scalability of your CMS

depend entirely on your host. If the host goes down or has any security
vulnerabilities, you can’t jump in and solve the problem yourself.
• Higher long-term costs: Since you are essentially leasing server space from your
host, your costs will remain static or even increase month over month. Long-term,
this might be less cost-effective than buying your own on-premise servers.
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On-premise and hosted CMS comparisons

Most, if not all, CMSs that can be hosted on-premise can also be hosted on third-party
servers. The CMS vendor may even host your website instance in-house, but without
offering the SaaS features, services, and benefits associated with SaaS CMS solutions.
Below are some examples of on-premise and hosted CMSs, compared.
WordPress
There’s no denying the popularity of WordPress. Powering over 32 percent of websites is a

major feat. With its extensive directory of plugins and themes along with its easy-to-use
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front-end editor, WordPress has allowed many brands to set up a website, blog or app
with little or no technical support.
However, the downside is that WordPress does suck up a lot of time in maintenance, and
you’ll need technical knowledge to customize the design, functionality, and layout of your
site.
Who it’s for: WordPress is suitable for setting up simple and straightforward blogs in
travel, lifestyle and other recreational areas, news sites, and websites containing static
content. Some businesses have used WordPress for eCommerce via the WooCommerce
plugin.
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Drupal
Originally developed as a student community solution, Drupal has gone on to become a

fully-fledged open source social publishing CMS with a flexible and modular layout, making
it highly customizable. Plus, with over 36,000 extension modules, Drupal can be extended
to suit a company’s needs.
The downside though, is that the backend administration in Drupal is quite complicated
and does require a lot of technical expertise. For example, to add a module, you need to
install it via FTP, which is a complex process. Plus, updating extensions are also quite
tedious, since some of the extensions are not always compatible with the backend.
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Who it’s for: Drupal is suitable for small and medium-sized organizations who have
access to technical expertise. It’s ideal for community platforms, sites with multiple users,
and sites which require complex data organization.
Joomla
Joomla is the second biggest open source CMS offering in the market with over 2.5 million
installations. Unlike WordPress, Joomla comes with more comprehensive out-of-the-box
features, meaning you don’t need to install a load of extensions during the initial set up.
This particular CMS is based on a stand-alone MVC framework, allowing Joomla users to
create their own extensions and share it with the community.
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But similar to Drupal, the extensions need to be installed via the backend. Also, the
premium extensions can be quite pricey as well. And in terms of rights management and
approval, this is often seen as inadequate.
Who it’s for: Despite being aimed at both beginners and advanced users, Joomla is more
challenging than WordPress. It is suitable for smaller and medium-sized projects in e-
commerce, community platforms, social publishing, and social networking.
Concrete5
Concrete5 is known for its ease-of-use. Its intuitive interface lets non-technical users
create a basic website with relative ease. Users can make modifications to the core
functionality without needing to go into the source code and they can also install add-ons
without having to go to the backend.
Though the lack of market penetration in comparison to WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla
means there are far fewer themes available, but this is improving with time.
Who it’s for: Ideal for non-technical marketers who want to set up a website for online
magazines, newspapers, non-profit organizations, small businesses, and online
communities.
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Alfresco
Alfresco is an Enterprise Content Management (ECM) that supports open standards, open
APIs and a range of deployment options including on-premise, cloud, and hybrid. The API-
driven environment in Alfresco makes it highly integratable and extendable.
While Alfresco can be used to organize your documents in a systematic way and keep
track of previous versions, many users have stated that the interface is quite
“intimidating”. Also if you want to customize your Alfresco site, you need Java skills and
full-time developers.
Who it’s for: Ideal for enterprises with access to technical expertise who want to manage
and store their documents.
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8 things to consider when choosing a CMS

platform
When you break it down, every CMS choice essentially boils down to eight things:
1. Business impacts - What impacts will this platform have on my business?
2. Real costs - Do I understand the true costs of the platform?
3. Ongoing requirements - Launching a website is only the start, what are the
ongoing needs of the selected platform?
4. Technology: How well does the CMS play with my existing technology stack?
5. Skillset: How easy is the CMS to deploy? Does it require special skills to use?
6. Features: Does the CMS have all the features you need to run your organization
and meet your goals?
7. Future needs - How does the platform cope with changes in my business needs?
8. Support - Does the vendor provide the training and ongoing support I need to be
successful?
Let’s look at each of these three things in more detail.
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1. Business impacts
At the start of this post, the first item we considered was the organizational impact of
technology.
When considering a CMS platform your choice will impact very differently.
The CMS platforms at a high level can be divided into two main camps, The ‘Development
platforms’ and the ‘Solution platforms’. Development platforms are like a blank canvas
that you build anything you want. A solution platform comes pre-built and can be
customized to your needs. All SaaS platforms are generally solution platforms.
When considering the impacts on your business you need to think about the responsibilities
that you take on when selecting a platform.
With a development platform, you will either need internal staff or contract out external
technical expertise. When you develop your website on these platforms, it requires
considerably more steps in terms of functional requirements and development cycles to
produce the final product.
With Solutions platforms, most of the development is done and your business will need to
configure the platform to suit your needs. Adoption is also generally faster as these
systems are designed to be easy to use, with extensive documentation and support.
2. Real costs
A recent post we took a detailed look into the true costs of managing a website. We
looked at the costs across a number of lenses and provided a 20 point checklist to help you
make sure the pricing was correct.
3. Ongoing requirements
The processing of building a website for your business can be challenging. Managing the
stakeholder, ensuring you deliver on the requirements of the business, getting your vendor
to deliver on their promises are only a few of the issues that arise during the process.
The build, however, should be considered the start of your digital journey. The hard work
begins the day the site is launched and you now need to validate the assumptions you
made many months prior during the discovery phase.
Integrated analytics provide the starting point for your answers, A/B testing of content
and user journeys. This then leads to updates to the website, changes to content,
launching landing pages for specific campaigns. Understanding how the CMS platform
behaves when continuous change is required should form part of the decision-making
process.
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4. Technology integration
Your CMS can’t exist in a silo. At a time when technology affects every aspect of your
business, it is crucial that your CMS work well with your other marketing, sales,
communication, and project management initiatives.
Start by doing a technology audit. Make note of the tools/technologies you use to do the
following:
• Marketing automation
• Customer relationship management
• Project management system
• Forms management
• Email/Social media marketing
• ERP
• Customer support
Most of these tools will either feed data into or pull data from your CMS.
For example, your blog post might have a gated content or lead magnet associated with
it. This lead magnet plugs into your lead acquisition tool, which, in turn, plugs into your
marketing automation and email marketing tools.
Once a lead is qualified, you would want to feed it to your CRM. This, in turn, should plug
into your marketing automation tool to further nurture the lead(s).
This creates a number of dependencies which affect your CMS decision. The better
integrated your CMS is with your other marketing and sales tools, the smoother your
marketing machinery.
While you’re doing this, also take a close look at any other upgrades or migration planned
in the near future. If you’re going to make significant changes to your technology stack in
the next six months, it makes sense to choose a CMS that will be compatible with these
changes.
5. Skillsets
This is an often-overlooked part of the CMS selection process but it has a deep impact on
the success of any CMS deployment.
Simply put, you want to choose a CMS that your team can actually use.
Broadly speaking, you can divide this into two categories: technical and end-user skill
availability.
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A. Technical skill resources
The first thing you should consider is your existing IT expertise.
Understand that installing, maintaining and securing a CMS is a challenge. If you don’t
have in-house IT capabilities to do this, you can rule out on-premise/hosted solutions
altogether.
Start by auditing your IT resources and document the following:
• Security expertise: Ask how competent is my IT team in securing the CMS against
different, ongoing attacks?
• Existing infrastructure: Is my existing infrastructure secure and scalable enough

to run the CMS? If not, is a SaaS solution a more viable option?
• Maintenance: Can your IT handle ongoing maintenance and upkeep work?
• Ease of development: Do you have in-house resources to modify the CMS if need
be? If not, how easy is it to find freelancers to outsource development? Is the CMS
written in a language with plenty of third-party development options (say, PHP vs.
Perl)?
Keep in mind that technical skills are a concern only if you choose a hosted/on-premise
solution.
If you go with a SaaS solution, you can skip these technical requirements altogether and
focus on the end-user experience.
B. End-user skill
Besides the technical requirements, you’ll also want to consider how easy the CMS is to use
for your end-users (marketers, content creators, and salespeople).
Ideally, you should choose a CMS that your end-users can use readily, without additional
training.
Here are two things you should consider here:
• Authorship Experience (AX): Authorship experience determines how easy it is to

create, edit and manage content. A poor AX will have an impact on the
productivity, efficiency, and morale of your content creators.
• User-Experience (UX): This determines the actual experience of using the CMS.
For a SaaS solution, this will include the process to onboard new users, integrate
third-party tools, etc. For a hosted solution, this would include the installation,
maintenance, and modification process as well
It’s also a good idea to do a skills audit for all stakeholders in the CMS decision-making
process. Try to understand how comfortable they are with content management systems
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in particular and technology in general. For developers, audit for existing programming
skills as well.
6. Features
More often than not, features (or lack thereof) will determine your CMS choice. A robust
set of features will help meet your business goals and keep all stakeholders happy.
What features you actually require will depend on your business goals and your existing
organizational structure. A fast-growing startup might want scalability, while an older
business would want the CMS to play well with its legacy software.
Common sense CMS features
While feature requirements will vary from business to business, there are a few “common
sense features” every CMS should have, such as:
1. Ease of installation:
If you’re going with a SaaS solution, you can skip this section altogether.
No matter what platform you consider, there are requirements to make the adoption of
the new platform seamless.
Consider these questions:
• Does installing the CMS require technical expertise?
• Is the installation process well-documented and easy to follow?
• Is there a software-based solution to install the CMS at your host (such as

WordPress’ cPanel based installation)?
• Can the CMS run on your existing technology infrastructure (i.e. your web
host/servers)?
• What are the skills needed to get the final solution, (for example, With SaaS
platforms in many cases there is no requirement to create integrations or backend
coding changes.)
• How is change managed?
• How are new features and upgrade implemented?
2. Ease of use: Ease of use - UI and UX - is an often overlooked feature. You want the
CMS to be easy enough to use for your least technically literate user (see the ‘skillset’
section above). It helps if the UI/UX is similar to tools you already use in your organization.
This will make the transition much smoother.
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3. Documentation and support: The documentation (for developers and end-users) and
quality of support are critical features of any CMS. Poor documentation will frustrate your
developers while bad support will waste your end-users’ time.
Consider these questions:
• Is the documentation thorough and well-organized (ask someone from IT to

audit)?
• What formats are the user manuals available in? Are there videos or interactive
presentations/demos to help users understand the software?
• What kind of support does the CMS offer? Is there an email/phone number you can
contact for help? Is there a user forum to discuss issues with other users?
4. Scalability: Can the CMS scale with your organization? Can you use it to host tens of
thousands of pages without a drop in performance? Are there large websites (>100,000
pages) already using the CMS?
5. Flexibility and adaptability: Your business will not be the same in 5 years as it is
today. Can your CMS keep up with your growth?
Ask:
• Does the CMS vendor have a roadmap of new features it will add over the next few
months/years?
• Has the CMS vendor shown a commitment to keeping the software up to date with
market trends?
• How often is the CMS updated?
• Can you modify the CMS - directly or through customization requests - if need be?
• How quickly are feature requests (such as a specific integration) fulfilled?
• Is the CMS’ underlying code “future proof”? Does it have any unstable
dependencies (say, it relies on an outdated framework)?
You want to choose a CMS that can grow with your business. Look 5,10, even 15 years
down the line, not just the present.
6. Security: This is obviously a big one - you want a CMS that will keep your content and
customer data secure against current and future threats.
There are four things to consider here:
• Security features: Does the CMS have built-in security features (such as 2-step
authentication)? If not, does it have plugins and third-party integrations to
improve security?
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• The pace of development: Do the developers release updates and security fixes
quickly? This is a particularly big issue with open-source software.
• Infrastructure requirements: Does the CMS support any infrastructure-level

upgrades to improve security?
• Plugin/module environment: Are your commonly used plugins/modules secure?

Do their developers regularly check for fixes?
Security is a double-edged sword. The more popular a CMS, the more it will be prone to
attacks. But more popularity also means that developers will be faster to respond to
attacks.
Considering that there are tens of millions of brute force attacks against a popular CMS
like WordPress every day, it’s crucial that you invest in security.
Features for marketing & editorial
You saw above features that every CMS should have, no matter who is using it.
While these are common-sense features, there are also a number of department-specific
features you should consider when selecting a CMS.
As mentioned before, it’s a good idea to prioritize these features into three categories -
must-have, important, and nice-to-have. This will make your selection process much
easier.
Some features you should consider are:
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Must-have features
• Integrations with your marketing and sales stack.
• Easy to use and feature-rich content editors.
• Well-aligned with business goals. For instance, if you’ll be using the CMS primarily
to blog, you want strong blog management tools.
• Mobile support. You should be able to read, manage and even edit content on
smaller screens.
Important features
• User-management with permission control. Particularly important if you have a

lot of content contributors.
• Supports a variety of content types, including videos, audio (including

podcasts), blog posts, and standalone pages.
• Personalization - Ability to create segments and one-to-one experiences.
Nice-to-have features
• Workflows and approval process for content.
• Multisite support
• Multilingual support, especially if you plan to serve content in multiple

geographies.
• Training support in multiple formats (video/audio/text).
Of course, these are only guidelines. Your business might classify these features into other
categories depending on your requirements.
Features for developers
Your developers have distinctly different requirements from your marketing and editorial
teams. For them, maintaining, modifying and keeping the CMS secure are top priorities.
On that note, here are some developer-focused features you should consider:
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Must-have features
• Scalability that doesn’t compromise on performance.
• Security features such as user management, permission control, regular bug fixes,
2-step authentication, etc.
• Stability; the CMS shouldn’t crash or hang.
Important features
• Performance on your existing infrastructure.
• Upgradability
• Modularity, especially with open-source software.
• In-depth documentation
Nice-to-haves
• 24x7 support
• Proven bug-fixing policy
• Vendor reputation and proven track record
7. Future needs
Your CMS platform is an investment and asset to your business. Many businesses
depreciate the asset as they assume that there is a lifespan to the CMS platform. This isn’t
necessarily the case, with the growth of SaaS platforms, re-platforming will become a
thing of the past. Your website will “evolve” with the needs of your business. Retraining
and retooling will become a thing of the past.
Ask vendors how the product is kept current and how new features find their way into your
website. Understand how upgrades work and the costs involved with the upkeep and
maintenance of the CMS platform. Propose a staged approach to the development of
your website and ask when you change and want new features, applications, and how
these are priced
30
8. Support
Support is one of those services that are either neglected or completely absent. With open
source, support is an additional cost to the CMS platform. What adds complication is a
traditional development platform is that you not only need support of the software but
support of the hosting Infrastructure.
What can arise in this situation is the people supporting the software are not necessarily
the same people, this leads to the blame game where each party points the finger at the
other.
Having a single party responsible for the whole solution is an imperative. With SaaS
platforms, it is an end to end system so all aspects are supported.
In addition, training is a support item. Helping you achieve the most from your platform
ensures that your satisfied and achieve the return on your investment. With SaaS
platforms, they have “customer success teams” who are allocated to ensure that your
solutions deliver on your expectations.
31
4 mistakes to avoid when choosing a CMS

platform
You might do all your homework and still end up making a mistake when choosing your
CMS.
Some common mistakes we regularly see businesses make are:
1. Confusing “feature bloat” for “feature rich”

A “feature rich” CMS has features you and your team actually cares about.
A “feature bloat” CMS has tons of features with very little actual use.
Don’t confuse the two. A laundry list of features looks good on a sales page, but ask
yourself: are they actually useful and relevant to your needs?
2. Choosing a complex and costly CMS for future needs

It’s not uncommon for businesses to select a CMS based on unrealistic growth
expectations. They might end up choosing a complex and costly CMS just because they
anticipate accelerated growth “in the future”.
While it’s important to plan ahead, it is even more important to make sure that your CMS
fulfills your existing needs. If a CMS has complicated features that won’t be of any use
until you have, say, 100,000 pages, it might be wise to choose something simpler.
SaaS platforms allow you to “evolve” as your needs change. Starting with something for
your current needs and then adding features as you become more comfortable and your
customer expectations increase.
This is a tough balancing act, but making this mistake can cost you thousands of dollars
while impacting your current work.
3. Choosing features over ease-of-use

Ease-of-use is often overlooked in the CMS decision-making process. Sure, features are
important, but what good are they if no one can use them?
This mistake is often a result of IT and not end-users making the CMS decision. What
might be intuitive to one department might be completely alien to another.
32
With SaaS platforms, extensive testing and user feedback provide continuous
improvement to the user interface and the functionality. When considering a SaaS
platform you can engage with their demonstration environments and know exactly what
you're purchasing
Having to lock yourself into a development environment and the functionality before you
have had a chance to understand the relevance of the functionality is where considerable
time and budget is lost. Reworking and reconstructing features and interfaces don't add
value to the project
4. Not understanding your content management problems

Before you even go into the market to choose a CMS, ask yourself: do you fully understand
your own content management problems?
It’s not surprising for businesses too often want a new CMS without fully understanding
the why.
If you have an existing CMS solution, ask yourself:
• Do you really need an alternative?
• Can you modify your existing solution to accommodate your new requirements?
In case you’re not using a CMS, ask yourself:
• Will a CMS offer a significant productivity boost compared to your current

methods?
• Will your productivity gains be substantial enough to justify CMS costs?
• Will you grow fast enough in the next few years to demand a CMS?
This will give you a much-needed clarity for making a better decision.
33
100 questions to ask your vendor when

selection a website solution
Pre-planning:
1. Have you created a list of business outcomes you wish to achieve?
2. Based on your business outcomes what are the requirements of your solution?
3. What requirements do you think are “must have”?
4. What requirements do you think are “nice to have”?
5. What are the key personas of the website?
6. What is the persona journey you wish them to follow?
7. What are the different content types and experiences you wish to support?
Company:
8. What is the structure of the company?
9. What are the base credentials, Years, Management, Profitability, Values?
10. What experience does the vendor have with the platform you're considering?
11. How many developers work on the platform?
12. How many projects have they done on the platform?
13. What has been the most complex? Why? What were the outcomes?
14. How many people can support the solution?
Platform:
15. How is the platform architected?
16. Is it a 'Development platform' (you build on top of) or 'Solution Platform' (pre-
built)?
17. Is the platform well supported?
18. Does the platform include Hosting, performance, and security features?
19. What interfaces does the platform support?
20. Who else uses the platform?
34
Features:
21. Do the platform features satisfy your requirements?
22. Does the platform have features that will be useful in the future?
23. What is the process for new features?
24. How are features communicated?
25. How are features documented?
26. Do you have any input for new and updated features?
Roadmap:
27. Does the platform have a roadmap of future development?
28. Is the roadmap updated regularly?
29. Are you made aware of the updates to the roadmap?
30. Can you contribute to the roadmap?
Content management:
31. How does the platform manage content?
32. Can you use tags to organize content?
33. Can you use categories to organize content? If yes, how many category-levels can
you have?
34. Can you use content with a specific tag/category across multiple pages (home
page, blog page, landing page, etc.)?
35. Does the CMS support Schema.org meta-data tagging?
36. Does the CMS support the ability to create lists of pages based on category/tag for
navigation purposes?
37. Does the CMS allow users to identify and promote older content to the front page?
38. Does the CMS offer a way to manage older versions of any page?
39. Is there a way to mass-upload content?
35
Content editing:
40. What content types does the CMS support (rich text, plain text, images, videos,
etc.)?
41. What content types can you edit within the CMS (including text, rich text, and
HTML+CSS)?
42. Does the CMS include a WYSIWYG editor for in-line editing?
43. Can you import content directly from external sources into the editor? If yes, what
sources are supported (Word, Google Docs, etc.)?
44. Does the CMS preserve the editing when importing rich text from external sources?
45. Is there a gallery or library to manage reusable content, especially videos, images,
audio files and PDFs?
46. Can you edit metadata within the editor, including meta descriptions, keywords,
creation dates, titles, etc.?
47. Does the CMS support HTML + CSS editing for individual pages?
48. Does the editor offer a content preview before it goes live on the site?
Content promotion:
49. Can you show external content from social media on any page?
50. What social sharing features does the CMS ship with?
51. Does the CMS have built-in features to modify and control critical SEO elements
like Page Title, Meta Description, OG: Image?
52. Can the CMS identify missing SEO elements (such as page title or meta
description)?
53. Can you modify the URL structure to be more SEO-friendly?
54. Does the CMS offer a way to capture email subscribers to a blog or blog category?
55. Does the CMS offer subscribers a way to get new blog posts via email?
Advanced features:
56. Does the platform support personalization and segmentation?
57. Can the platform support multi-tenancy (Multi sites on the same system)?
58. Does the platform support multilingual?
59. Does the platform support custom fields?
60. Does the platform support asset management?
61. Are other applications integrated into the platform without 3rd-party connectors
(i.e. Zapier)?
62. Can you have multiple editors?
36
Analytics:
63. What kind of analytics does the CMS offer (if any) out of the box?
64. What analytics tools does the CMS support out of the box (Mixpanel, Google
Analytics, etc.)?
65. Does the CMS offer any management or automation features based on analytics
data (example: add a post to front page after it crosses X views)?
66. Does the platform support security analytics?
67. Can you monitor the server performance?
Design:
68. What theming or templating system does the CMS follow? Is there documentation
detailing this system for developers?
69. What themes/templates does the CMS ship with out of the box?
70. What is the process for installing new themes/templates?
71. Is there a library for finding and installing new themes/templates?
72. Does the CMS support mobile-friendly designs?
73. What is the process for importing designs from a third-party?
74. Does the CMS support mega-menus (on desktops/laptops) and mobile-friendly
menus?
Workflow management:
75. Is there any method to define workflows based on user roles?
76. Can you create multiple workflows for different parts of the site?
77. What notification system does the CMS offer for users based on their current
position in the workflow (example: sending an editor an email when a new post is
added)?
User management:
78. What user-management features does the CMS offer? Can you restrict access to
certain features based on user roles?
79. Can you set up page-specific user roles (for example: contributor to landing pages,
editor at blog)?
80. What is the process for authenticating users? Are there any features to make user
authentication more secure (such as 2-step authentication)?
37
Integrations:
81. What marketing and sales tools does the CMS integrate with?
82. What is the process for integrating third-party applications into a page?
83. Does the CMS support a library of integrations, plugins or modules?
84. How are integrations kept current?
Blogging:
85. Does the CMS come with a built-in blog? If yes, how many blogs can you host on
one website?
86. How does the CMS handle comment moderation on blog pages? What measures
are taken to prevent spam?
87. Does the CMS support third-party plugins (such as Disqus) to manage blog
comments?
88. Does the CMS come with a built-in RSS feed for the blog?
Developer-focused features:
89. What technology stack does the CMS use?
90. What infrastructure stack does the platform support?
91. Is the infrastructure and security included?
92. What specific technological skills are needed to change the site's functions?
93. What is the bug fixing policy for the CMS?
94. What is the upgrade process for the CMS?
95. What kind of documentation does the CMS offer?
96. What is the estimated time to implement a CMS solution for a business similar to
ours?
Pricing & support:

97. What is the estimated price associated with implementation for a business similar
to ours?
98. What upgrades do you offer? Are these essential to the core product's functioning?
99. What are the maintenance costs associated with the CMS?
100. What training and support do your offer? Include model for technical
support, communication process, time zones, channels, etc.
38
ABOUT CORE DNA
Core dna is a complete Digital Experience Platform
(DXP) and cloud CMS that enables you to manage
and grow all of your web properties in one
platform. With over 80+ pre-built apps, Core dna
allows you to launch new sites in weeks, not
months.
Want to see how Core dna can help you grow?
Schedule a demo today!

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How to Choose a CMS: The Ultimate Guide | Core dna

Who should decide the CMS choice?

Keeping all stakeholders happy can be a potential minefield.

This is why the first two steps in choosing a CMS is to:

1. Figure out stakeholders involved in the CMS decision

• Marketing: The CMS is essentially a marketing tool. For content marketing-

2. Prioritize stakeholder requirements

• Must-have: Essential features the department can’t work without;

SaaS vs. Hosted vs. On-premise CMS

WordPress and Drupal are two examples of on-premise solutions.

Hostway and WPEngine are two examples of hosted solutions.

SaaS CMS platform pros & cons

• No maintenance/upkeep: All the maintenance work - fixing bugs, maintaining

• Regular updates: SaaS solutions upgrade their platforms continuously, making

• Pay-as-you-go model: SaaS solutions typically offer monthly payment plans.

• Customization - SaaS CMS platforms aren't development platforms so you can't

SaaS CMS comparisons

Crownpeak is an enterprise-grade decoupled Digital Experience Platform (DXP) that

On-premise CMS platform pros & cons

On-premise CMS solutions have these pros and cons:

• Customization: If you’re using an open-source CMS, you can customize the

• Maintenance, installation, and upkeep: Your IT team will be responsible for

• Scalability: Unlike a SaaS solution, the scalability of an on-premise CMS depends

Hosted CMS platform pros & cons

A hosted CMS has these pros and cons:

• Host-dependant vulnerabilities: The security and scalability of your CMS

On-premise and hosted CMS comparisons

There’s no denying the popularity of WordPress. Powering over 32 percent of websites is a

Originally developed as a student community solution, Drupal has gone on to become a

8 things to consider when choosing a CMS

1. Business impacts - What impacts will this platform have on my business?

2. Real costs - Do I understand the true costs of the platform?

Let’s look at each of these three things in more detail.

• Customer relationship management

• Project management system

• Email/Social media marketing

A. Technical skill resources

The first thing you should consider is your existing IT expertise.

Start by auditing your IT resources and document the following:

• Existing infrastructure: Is my existing infrastructure secure and scalable enough

• Maintenance: Can your IT handle ongoing maintenance and upkeep work?

Here are two things you should consider here:

• Authorship Experience (AX): Authorship experience determines how easy it is to

Common sense CMS features

Consider these questions:

• Does installing the CMS require technical expertise?

• Is the installation process well-documented and easy to follow?

• Is there a software-based solution to install the CMS at your host (such as

• How is change managed?

• How are new features and upgrade implemented?

Consider these questions:

• Is the documentation thorough and well-organized (ask someone from IT to

• How often is the CMS updated?

• How quickly are feature requests (such as a specific integration) fulfilled?

There are four things to consider here:

• Infrastructure requirements: Does the CMS support any infrastructure-level

• Plugin/module environment: Are your commonly used plugins/modules secure?