Why is custom development superior to template development?
It is not difficult for a client to get lost in the variety of possibilities for creating a website. How to understand when a free website builder or inexpensive WordPress development is enough, and when it makes sense to invest in commercial CMS and look for serious developers?
It all depends on the size and needs of the business. In this article, we will talk about how to determine which tools to develop it best at each stage, as well as share practical examples.
Website on the constructor
This is the simplest and cheapest way to create a website from the line “I want everything for free and I don’t want to think about anything.” I can’t say that a constructor is a bad option. It can be used when you need your own business page on the Internet with basic functionality.
Among the most popular site-builders, today are Wix, Tilda, OpenCart, and many others. As a rule, most have free versions or tariffs with a minimum cost, with which you can try the capabilities of the service and even create a simple website.
The site is created according to a ready-made template. You can select it from the catalog, add the necessary blocks and elements, content, and design to your taste. As a rule, the constructor provides users with its own hosting and hosts the site on its own subdomain.
Basic versions have various restrictions on the number of pages, site size, etc. For an additional fee, you can connect your domain, additional services, export the source code, order promotion, and grow up to a certain point.
What are the disadvantages of this tool? Any constructor is a rather rigid framework in which sooner or later it becomes cramped. One of the most important advantages of professional website development is full access to the code and its modifications. Due to the limitations of the builder, the business will not have access to certain services, it will not be able to set up web analytics or SEO as efficiently as possible, there may be complaints about the usability of pages, the mobile version, etc.
Content management systems
So, you have decided that in order to implement your tasks, you need a full-fledged site content management platform – CMS, Content management system.
They usually start with free, open-source systems. The most famous are WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Opencart, and others.
If you do not have serious website requirements, such as unique design, non-standard features, high security, you can easily use WordPress or its analogs. Such a site can work quite successfully and bring profit to its owner. If it is also well written, and not a “crutch on a crutch”, then it is easy to maintain in the future.
What are the pitfalls and when do the problems begin? The most important issue is security. This means that no one can guarantee the safety of the site: it can be copied or hacked. If for the time being, you can not think about such things, then with the growth of a business, when it becomes known and arouses the interest of competitors, security issues come to the fore.
Paid CMS
Commercial CMS is the next step as your business grows. They are necessary for large sites with high security and promotion requirements and can reduce labor costs in the case of more or less typical tasks.
These are box-based solutions with fairly wide capabilities. The main convenience comes from the point of view of integration with third-party services and SEO optimization. By the way, it is much more convenient to develop a website immediately taking into account SEO, and not to rewrite the entire structure later when you decide to promote. It is convenient to do this with paid engines.
The choice of a platform from all this set is an individual matter, mainly depending on the developer. This is not to say that some system is much better or worse than another – there are few fundamental differences between them, there are simply local features and conveniences. However, each platform has its own standards that impose restrictions on developers. Therefore, each company, as a rule, specializes in one or more CMS and offers them to choose from.
The choice of a platform from all this set is an individual matter, mainly depending on the developer. This is not to say that some system is much better or worse than another – there are few fundamental differences between them, there are simply local features and conveniences. However, each platform has its own standards that impose restrictions on developers. Therefore, each company, as a rule, specializes in one or more CMS and offers them to choose from.
Custom website development
The highest level – when your business is so unique and needs atypical solutions, you need to order custom development. It involves writing a website using frameworks without using boxed solutions.
When does it make sense? Not just in pursuit of individuality, but in terms of rationality. If you have serious requests for the functionality of the site, then it is often more expensive to implement and maintain them within the framework of a boxed solution than from scratch. In addition, this option is suitable for high-load projects with numerous integrations, since in the case of limited CMS, too much effort is required.
It happens that complex projects are born at the level of the “box”, but with the growth of needs they are gradually added – and as a result, rather a general philosophy remains from the initial data, and the rest of the code becomes unique.
Custom solutions may be needed as complex projects (large services, social networks, projects with integrations, etc.), and simpler, but with atypical tasks. The development of such a site can take from several months to several years, taking into account the development of the project. The budget for the development of atypical projects depends on the volume of work and the cost of man-hours.
If you have not yet decided on the type of development, Lightpoint Global specialists will advise you and help you make the right choice. Feel free to contact us at any time!
