Most websites are administered using a Content Management System (CMS). When choosing one, we think it’s worthwhile to look beyond Wordpress and what's offered by Webflow.
When clients approach us to build a website, the great majority want to be able to edit and add content after launch. The reason is simple: Unless you’re building a static landing page, you want to keep your website up-to-date with information: Articles, images, products, resources, etc…
The way to do this, of course, is to use a content management system (CMS): It allows you to change the copy or images on your website, update information, and add new pages—all without breaking the custom design created for you.
We use the Kirby CMS because we think it strikes the perfect balance between power and versatility for building custom websites. Our clients also think it’s a joy to use. Let’s dive into it.
Not all CMS are created equal
Plenty of articles have been written to cover how a CMS works, so we won’t go into the details here, but it’s important to understand that each of the many available content management systems is built on a distinct philosophy. That means they function differently and have some advantages and disadvantages.
Take WordPress, the 800-pound gorilla in the CMS space. By some estimates, WordPress powers around 40% of all websites on the internet. There’s a lot to like about it! It’s free to use, has lots of available design themes and plug-ins to extend its functionality. But over the years, WordPress has become a victim of its own success: Today, it feels bloated, has a confusing editor experience, and its reliance of plug-ins often make the whole install buggy and slow.
Another popular platform is Webflow, which allows designers to build websites using a no-code interface and comes with an integrated CMS. This cuts out a lot of development time (and cost), but the resulting websites are severely constrained by the platform’s limitations and insistence on being code-free: It doesn’t integrate very well with other tools, struggles to support multi-language websites, and it quickly becomes very expensive: Webflow hosting alone can cost several hundred euros per year.
The biggest disadvantage of these two platforms is that they make it cumbersome to edit your content, which should be the reason you use a CMS in the first place. Especially if you’re publishing content regularly, WordPress and Webflow make that work very annoying: Wordpress has a somewhat archaic and overwhelming interface with often too many options, whereas Webflow’s “in-context editor” can be limiting when you need to do more robust content management. That means you’ll be less likely to do it and your website is more likely to become stale over time.
Kirby: Lightweight, modern, fully-custom
The Kirby CMS is different from many other players because it doesn’t prescribe a particular way of managing a website. The developers of the CMS wanted to create something that’s as flexible and un-opinionated as possible: A CMS that adapts to a given project, not the other way around.
Kirby is what’s known as a flat file CMS: Instead of putting content into a database, it relies simply on folders with text files and images in it—not unlike the file system on your computer. Then it uses the PHP language to turn those files into a website. The site not only loads incredibly quickly, it’s also highly customizable: Instead of prescribing a way for the files to be handled, Kirby allows us designers and developers to define exactly what should happen with content and how it should be rendered.
This means a website we build in Kirby is entirely tailor-made: We don’t rely on any templates like you would on WordPress, and we don’t need to work with the prescribed logic of Webflow. Instead, we can design a website exactly like you want it to be, and then implement a CMS to work exactly like the design intended—without having to compromise on functionality.
The best part is that the customization doesn’t only apply to what you see on the web: It’s also how the CMS itself works. When we set up a website, we build the layout of the editing interface at the same time, paying attention to your content needs and the editorial experience. After all, a website for a magazine has different editing needs than an e-commerce shop—and we think the CMS should reflect those needs.
All that makes editing content in a Kirby CMS a breeze: Since the entire interface has been designed to work with your editors, it’s easy to edit copy or add new pages.
Since everything is custom-built, integrations with other software is straightforward. Need to integrate a newsletter? CRM? Form? Everything is possible, and we won’t need to rely on a plugin that might become unsupported and take your whole site down with it.
Tailor-made for you
If you’re building a website, it’s tempting to go with the usual suspects of the CMS space. We say: Look beyond them. The investment in a custom build with the Kirby CMS ensures that you don’t need to compromise on design or functionality, and that you can update your page for years.
Admittedly, as a design studio we have s kin in the game: It is in our best interest to deliver sites that work for our clients in the long run. That way, we can work with them for a fixed time period, deliver a website, and then support them whenever the need arises. That frees our resources to move on to another project—rather than do tech support for a buggy and incomplete site.
We think it’s a win-win for our clients and ourselves—and the Kirby CMS is instrumental for it. So much so that we're now a Kirby Partner.
Want to learn more about what we can build for you using Kirby CMS? Let’s talk.