5 best CMS platforms for 2021

Are you looking for Content Management System (CMS) platforms? Welcome on board! CMS platforms are a great way to build a website without being an expert on programming or writing codes.

The only issue is that variety is massive already. To pick well is the key to save you time, effort, and money. Moving from one to another is possible, but it will delay your online success.

Let’s narrow the menu for you not to be dizzy!

Word Press

Open-source available since 2003. Based on MySQL (database) and PHP, a scripting language for managing dynamic content. You can build from a blog to a big e-shop with it.

Advantages:

It’s free.
Available in more than sixty languages.
Robust infrastructure to build any type of site.
Flexible. There are literally thousands of native Word Press but also third-party apps, themes, plugins… Free, paid ones compatible and available for installing. Customization for your website has massive possibilities.
It downloads all your content in XML format, in case you want to migrate to a different system.
SEO friendly.
Big and supportive community.

Disadvantages:

New additions are making it a heavy platform and a bit confusing.
They limited out-of-the-box functionality. Additional plugins are needed.

Drupal

CMS open-source since 2001. Popular and powerful PHP-written CMS.

Advantages:

It’s free.
Built-in system to make things easier.
Its flexible and modular structure allows many different modules (plugins) for you to customize as much as you want.
Plenty of plugins (Drupal native and third-party too) are available for expanding your website’s functionality.
It supports lots of data.
SEO friendly.
Active community, ready to help.

Disadvantages:

Some modules require manual configuration via FTP. Not compatible extensions with the backend will require a process to be updated. It can be a bit complex for beginners.
If your business needs are demanding, the basic Drupal installation will need a lot of additions.

Joomla

It was released in 2005. It’s a reliable and popular open-source CMS. PHP and MySQL based.

Advantages:

It’s free.
Robust and flexible infrastructure. Any kind of website can be built with it, maintain, and scale.
Thousands of free and paid extensions are compatible and available to increase your website’s functionality. What to add totally depends on your business’ needs.
Built-in multilingual support.
Multi theme use.
Wide and helpful community.

Disadvantages:

Managing the whole system’s possibilities could be a challenge for beginners. You can need guidance.
Available extensions are thousands, but less than for otherCMSs.

Ghost

Open-source specifically for blogging. Written in JavaScript. Ideal CMS for big companies and individuals. Available since 2013.

Advantages:

It’s free.
A friendly, neat editor that allows text formatting even when adding special characters.
Built-in SEO’s optimization.
The necessary tools for charging users to get your content (subscriptions) are available.

Disadvantages.:

Less flexible than other CMSs if you change the kind of business.
It’s a popular CMS but still not compatible with all hosting providers, like more used CMSs.
For advanced functions, a bit of code must be understood.

Magento

Released in 2008, Magento is a reliable open-source for e-Commerce. Written in PHP, a powerful CMS.

Advantages:

Free and paid versions. We’ll talk about the free one.
Pretty customizable.
Flexible, a lot of third-party extensions can be added to expand your site’s functionality.
It allows you to build all shop sizes, managing plenty of customers and products. There’s room for your business to grow.
Choices for getting payments, money transfers are many, and some are already built-in.

Disadvantages:

It can be hard for beginners. Building an e-shop from scratch is a big task.
Just the paid version (expensive) includes customer support. Getting the free one, you rely on Magento’s community.

Conclusion

These 5 best CMS platforms are top-notch. They power really big online e-shops, government institutions, publishers, and more. Remember, the software is free, but you still need a hosting provider to run them.

5 Best WordPress caching plugins

Is your WordPress website experiencing a slow performance? It can be due to poor hosting service, but also, every new addition to make your site more attractive (images, content, etc.), and the traffic growth can slow it down.

Slow loading directly affects users’ experience and search engine position, so speeding the site is critical. WordPress caching plugins is an easy way to do it!

What’s a caching plugin?

Caching means storing website data in a provisional storage area (cache) to get them faster every time a user requests your site through a browser.

A caching plugin is a software that creates a static version of your site (HTML), faster to load than the dynamic, heavier version.

Now, check out the features of the best 5 WordPress caching plugins!

WP Rocket

Easy to use for experts and beginners.
Installing and caching through one-click.
It’s a paid plugin. For caching, one site $49, three sites $99, and an unlimited number of sites $249. Anual prices.
Page cache, cache preloading, gzip compression.
Lazy loading, for images to be loaded only when users scroll them.
Concatenation, minification (JavaScript, HTML, CSS files), DNS pre-fetching, CDN support.
It optimizes the site’s database to remove unnecessary data.
Page and browser caching.
CloudFare and multisite compatible.
It works smoothly on the demanding e-commerce sites.

To consider:

There’s no free trial or free version. It offers a 14-day money refund guarantee.

WP Super Cache

Free and open-source of Automattic, the venture behind WordPress.
Three modes for caching. Simple, for regular users, without editing PHP files. Expert allows advanced users to modify the .htaccess file. Super caching, to cache pages for known users (regularly logged into the site, commentators, etc.).
Simple caching and cache rebuilding (cache on the site isn’t deleted every time that a comment is posted. Instead, it rebuilds the cache and shows the old page to other users).
CDN support, page cache, gzip compression, advanced-cache preload.
Removes old, useless files to optimize.

To consider:

It might be hard to set up fully.

W3 Total Cache

It’s free and open-source.
It’s integrated with a CDN.
Well suited for regular desktop and mobile sites.
Minification, feed optimization, HTTP compression.
Gzip compression, page cache, object cache.
Database cache.
Support for Google AMP.
Compatible with different hosting solutions (shared hosting, clusters, dedicated servers).
CDN linked to the media library to see the optimization of your images.

To consider:

Beginners can find this plugin hard to use.

Comet Cache

Easy to install, friendly dashboard.
Free and paid versions are available. One-site license costs $39, three-sites license $99, and unlimited sites license $139. They’re one-time rates!
It uses WordPress browser caching with Apache server to avoid multiple roundtrips server-browser.
You can choose the CDN (CloudFront, MaxCDN, or another).
It caches tags, categories, pages, posts, RSS feeds.
It generates site statistics about cache status.

To consider:

Both versions include kind of the same features. The main difference is, the paid one does all the job automatically.

WP Fastest Cache

Easy installation.
Free and paid versions. One site license is $49.99, for 3, $125, and for five, $175—one-time fees.
.htaccess file is changed automatically.
Blocking cache for specific posts or pages (Short Code).
CDN, SSL, Cloudflare support.
Cache for mobile devices and for logged-in users.
An automatic preload, or create a cache of the whole site.
Auto-clean cache (Cache Timeout).
WP-CLI cache clearing.
The paid version includes disable emoji, minification (HTML, CSS), Gzip compression, adds expires headers, combine (JS, CSS), leverage browser caching, mobile cache, widget cache, lazy load, etc.

To consider:

The free version has limited functionality.

Conclusion

There’s a wide variety of WordPress caching plugins. Paid and free, less or more complex. The decision is yours!