Platforms ToucanStar Web Solutions

When deciding on a technology or platform, we take into consideration a number of aspects:

Functionality - what it is that you need your website to do
Design - are you happy to use a template or do you prefer bespoke design
Ecommerce - if you sell a product or service, what is the complexity and what are your customers looking to do (e.g. research, enquiry or purchase)
Integration - perhaps most important of all, what does the website need to 'plug in' to?
Security - what level of security does your website need? Enquiry only sites will require a different level of security than, for example, a site which holds customers' personal information

For most of the web solutions we do, we have used one of three platforms: Umbraco, WordPress and Shopify.

We will describe these platforms here to give an idea of their scope, advantages and disadvantages.

Umbraco

Example of an Umbraco CMS Umbraco is a .NET open-source CMS (Content Management System). We have seen it evolve tremendously in the past couple of years - although it was always solid, the user-experience has improved and it has a clear interface, ready to use for people who are quite familiar with HTML to ones who only know basic Word for example.

To setup Umbraco manually you need some technical knowledge however it also comes as a one-click install on Azure and many other .Net hosting platforms. The CMS is more of a framework than an instant complete fully functional CMS, meaning to get the best out of it, it needs configuration. However, it allows for incredible customisation of the CMS that is completely tailored to the website owner's needs. This means we can setup different templates and layouts, and you as website owner or administrator can make any changes to the website at any time. You will have full control over the site and do not need us for text changes, new pages, additional imagery etc. Only 'structural' changes (branding or additional functionality for example) will require our help.

Advantages of Umbraco:

Very robust and secure
My Account / member functionality as part of the core functionality
Free to use
Simple to use
Great to setup a multilingual site, for end-users and/or for administrators

Disadvantages of Umbraco:

Requires Microsoft hosting which is mostly more expensive than linux
Design has to be bespoke; there are a few starter kits available but not a large theme marketplace

WordPress

The most popular and well-known CMS around, WordPress is 'officially' a CMS for blogs. That said, many people use WordPress for wide-ranging websites. WordPress is an open-source PHP CMS (Content Management System), and by using plugins it is very easy to add functionality to your website.

Advantages of WordPress:

Easy to setup
Design - choose a free or paid for theme, or bespoke design
Plugins can quickly add features and functionality to your website
Free to use
Cheap to host

Disadvantages of WordPress:

Security; plugins are often hacked and due to WordPress' popularity it is a big target for hackers
Plugins do not always work together; installing or updating a plugin can break other functionality on your website
For websites with many pages of multiple levels the Admin structure for the pages is challenging

Shopify

Shopify is relatively little known in Europe, but is immensely popular in North-America and is only getting bigger. Shopify is an ecommerce platform, that follows a similar model to WordPress with regards to themes and apps (comparable to plugins). There is a lot of 'out-of-the-box' functionality included, but Shopify is not free to use. As a website owner you pay a monthly fee (no contract), but you can have an ecommerce website ready in no time, which has lots of features, is fully tested and highly secure.

Advantages of Shopify:

Range of features included in standard setup
Quick to launch your ecommerce site
Easy to use
Design - choose a free or paid for theme, or bespoke design
With Shopify Apps, you can quickly add features and functionality to your website, especially for the back-end (administration) and integration with other systems
Secure and scalable infrastructure

Disadvantages of Shopify:

Monthly fee, although this includes hosting
The CMS interface for pages is not configurable without the use of Apps

CMS - Umbraco / WordPress / Shopify

Umbraco

WordPress

Shopify