WordPress dominates world online content marketing and everyone knows that. The platform caused a sensation when it was released in the early 2000s and has become very popular since. In fact, more than seventeen percent of all websites use WordPress.
Due to its tremendous popularity and impressive functionality, it gets most of the conversations about content management. Most people recommend using it to build websites for the same reasons as well.
However, it would be unfair to focus on WordPress while talking about CMS technology since many other similar platforms exist, and as strange as it may seem for some people, they’re competitive even still.
Let’s take a look at other CMS available that are forming the competition.
JOOMLA
Last year, this CMS celebrated its 10th birthday. It was released a few years after WordPress and has grown into a multipurpose CMS with quite an impressive reputation. Joomla has thousands of developers and website owners for users (around 3.3 percent of all websites are powered by this CMS).
Like well-written papers, Joomla’s functionality deserves the highest grade. Not only does the platform feature all things WordPress can do but also has templates and extensions at its disposal, so they do make Joomla a legitimate competitor.
Sites known for using Joomla include Harvard, Notre Dame, The Hill, the UN, and Linux.
DRUPAL
The next competitor is not as fierce as Joomla with a mere 2.2 percent running it (4.7% of all websites with said CMS). However, the popularity of the platform has grown since the release of the latest versions with comprehensive functionality.
Drupal is widely perceived as a complex system designed for those who have a web development background. It doesn’t feature a lot of templates or themes because it uses a completely different approach to creating stuff by using modules.
Sites that use Drupal: Rush University Medical Center, Tesla Motors, Los Angeles City, University of Oxford, the White House, and Emmy.
MEDIUM
This is a publishing platform that’s also been in the shadow of WordPress from the get-go. However, it has a number of impressive functions. It has a remarkable import tool that makes publishing painless, plus a built-in audience that automatically connects with the user thanks to Medium social media feature.
The platform tells users how many people viewed the publications and how many read to the end, and it doesn’t even require original content to be published.
JEKYLL
This is another competitor that has been disregarded by many because of its complexity; for instance, this static site generator is written in Ruby and requires NodeJS to run. It can, however, generate HTML pages just by having a text without the database requirement, which is pretty amazing.
As you’ve probably realized, Jekyll’s audience is web developers and other people with a web-related background.
SHOPIFY
As great as WordPress is, it can’t be used to create a really good online store. Truth is, it was created for other purposes, so even plugins such as WooCommerce can’t provide all the functionality ecommerce requires. Shopify is one of the best alternatives for those who need to build an online store since it provides all the tools needed for this task.
The platform comes with simple tools for setting up an online store – delivery, customer service, complaints, and many more. It also has apps and templates available.
BLOGGER
Next is Blogger, a blogging platform that Google developed. The number of sites using Blogger is nowhere near the number of WordPress-powered ones (just 280,000), but it comes highly recommended for first-time bloggers who need a small and simple platform for writing online.
The simplicity of Blogger is perhaps the main advantage of the platform, allowing to create and run a blog in a matter of hours, so it saves a lot of time for beginner bloggers. Another massive advantage is customization. The drag and drop system enables users to design a custom look of their blog quickly and efficiently.
SQUARESPACE
Last but not least is Squarespace, which is a hosted site builder. It works just like Weebly but has a richer functionality, with fully customized and customizable templates. With this tool, anyone can build a pretty decent website very quickly and painlessly.
IN CONCLUSION
WordPress obviously holds the leadership position, whilst others are trying laboriously to tip the scales in their favor. However, no competitor from this list has even come close to matching WordPress. Yet.
That doesn’t mean we should disregard alternatives but rather appreciate the diversity of the industry. The future seems bright for Joomla, Drupal, and others, so let’s wait a while and see what happens.