When it comes to building your own bespoke website projects, WordPress is one of the most well-known CMS systems.
However, it isn’t the only option when it comes to a reliable and versatile CMS, with Craft CMS another popular choice.
In this article, we will be looking at the pros and cons of both WordPress and Craft CMS- as well as the similarities and differences- so that you can decide which one is best suited for your web project. Let’s get started.
Craft CMS vs WordPress At A Glance
Craft CMS is a content management system that has a strong focus on its main task at hand, that being the management of content (as the name suggests!).
The system is highly flexible and is often used for web development by developers and designers who tend to work with CSS or HTML.
Craft has in-house developers that will take care of the development aspects, as there are no beginning templates available. The program itself is based on Twig, which is a modern PHP template engine.
WordPress is more directed at helping anyone create their own website, whether they have coding knowledge or not. The scripting language for WordPress is PHP.
| Craft CMS | WordPress | |
| Pricing | Craft has two pricing categories: CMS Pricing and Commerce Pricing. For their CMS Pricing, there are three options: Solo, Pro, and Enterprise. Solo is free. Pro costs $299 per project and includes a year of updates. An additional $50 a year is required for updates after that. Pricing for Enterprise depends on the number of projects that you have. The Commerce pricing has two categories: Lite and Pro. Lite will cost you $199 per project, and this includes a year of updates, followed by an additional $39 a year for any updates following that first year. Pro is for the complete, fully featured eCommerce experience, costing $999 per project with a year of updates and an additional $199 per year for updates after that. | WordPress.org and WordPress.com have two separate pricing plans. WordPress.org is free, but in order to build a website, you will need to find a hosting company. Hosting plans range in price, with some as little as less than $3 a month and others costing over $100 a month. WordPress.com has five different plans that are tailored to your individual needs. These plans are as follows: Free, Personal, Premium, Business, and eCommerce. The free version is limited but does include useful features. Personal costs $4 a month and is a little more extensive. Premium costs $8 a month and builds on the Personal plan. Business costs $25 a month and is intended to be used for small businesses. The eCommerce plan is $45 a month and is designed for online stores. All of these plans are charged on a yearly basis. |
| Customization and Design | Craft has no starter templates, which is difficult for those with less experience. The developers of Craft also play a major part in the design of your website. | WordPress has tons of themes that are available immediately, making it a better option for those without a lot of experience. It allows you to have complete control over your approach to web design, with traditional and complex methods available. WordPress has various tools that allow you to build stylish content even if you don’t have a huge amount of experience with web design. |
| Ease of Use | Easy to use as long as you have existing coding knowledge. | Incredibly easy to use no matter what your skill level is, with a beginner-friendly dashboard. |
| Extensions and Plugins | A few hundred plugins are available on the Craft store, but Craft does not let the developers of the plugins manage their licensing away from the platform. | Currently, there are over 58,000 WordPress plugins available, including both free and paid options. |
| Performance | Craft tends to be a faster option as the program uses a standard known as MVC or Model-View-Controller. This will only load the absolute necessities onto the site when they are needed. | WordPress can be made faster with performance plugins but due to not using the MVC framework, the performance is somewhat laggy compared to Craft. |
| Best For | Web professionals, designers, and experienced developers. | For anyone looking to create a website no matter what their experience, from beginners to entrepreneurs, companies, and experienced web developers. |
The Even Parts Of Craft CMS And WordPress
Let’s first look at the similarities between the two programs so that you know what to expect from both.
- Multi-Site Installation: Both programs have native multi-site support built in.
- Publishing: WordPress and Craft allow for custom publishing, as well as offering user roles that have custom options for publishing.
- Content Management: Similar methods are used to manage content, with Craft utilizing matrix-block architecture and WordPress using the similar Gutenberg editor. Both of these methods are block-based, making for fast and efficient content management on your webpage.
Craft CMS: Pros, Cons, And Details
Created by Pixel & Tonic, Craft CMS is a program built to help web developers create websites with ease in a modern way. It doesn’t build the actual website for you, though, as you have to write the HTML code yourself.
Craft CMS Strengths
- Security: Flexibility to create customized access to those on all areas of the website, heightening the security.
- SEO: More functionalities and greater control over the inbuilt SEO tools.
- Performance: The use of the aforementioned MVC framework allows for better performance.
Craft CMS Weaknesses
- Limited Plugins: Compared to WordPress, Craft CMS is incredibly limited when it comes to the available plug-ins.
- No Starter Themes: As Craft is aimed at more experienced developers, there are no starter themes to help beginners.
- Price: The free version of Craft is limited, with the price of the paid-for packages being considerably more than the WordPress packages.
WordPress Pros, Cons, And Details
WordPress is one of the most popular open-source content management systems on the market. It dominates the industry due to its ease of use, with users not needing any coding knowledge in order to get started when it comes to building their websites.
WordPress Strengths
- Ease of Use: WordPress is suitable for a wide range of users of different experiences thanks to the intuitive interface, featuring an inbuilt dashboard.
- Range of Plugins: With over 58,000 plugins, WordPress definitely has a variety of ways that users can customize their webpage.
- Range of Themes: As well as plugins, WordPress also offers various themes to help you get started.
WordPress Weaknesses
- Security: There is the risk of vulnerability with WordPress if you don’t update your plug-ins and themes regularly.
- Slower Performance: WordPress doesn’t utilize the same MVC framework that Craft does, which could lead to slower performance in general.
- Plugin Reliance: We may have mentioned this on our pros list too, but having such a strong reliance on plug-ins isn’t always a positive, due to the risk that outdated ones pose.
Both of these programs are excellent for web development, with neither of them being a clear, better choice than the other.
Each might be more appealing to different audiences, though. If you are a beginner in web design and development,
WordPress is definitely the best choice for you.
If you are an experienced developer who is able to write their own HTML code, then Craft CMS has the more advanced features that you’re sure to be looking for.
Paul Martinez is the founder of EcomSidekick.com. He is an expert in the areas of finance, real estate, eCommerce, traffic and conversion.
Join him on EcomSidekick.com to learn how to improve your financial life and excel in these areas. Before starting this media site, Paul built from scratch and managed two multi-million dollar companies. One in the real estate sector and one in the eCommerce sector.