Umbraco and WordPress

The majority of our websites are built on one of these two Content Management Systems. They're both brilliant, and they're very different to each other. A bit like parents with two kids who are vastly different, we have no favourite: each one brings a different set of solutions to specific problems. How do you decide which one is best for your project?

  • Umbraco

    Great for larger projects when lots of customisation is needed and you want to connect some gnarly third party systems for additional information, commerce or bookings/reservations. Umbraco can handle anything you throw at it, and some.

    Pros

    • Uses Terabyte’s Design Language System to ensure leading-edge design, coupled with rapid deployment
    • Big and fast - can easily handle high traffic volumes and demanding technical requirements
    • Ideal for complex integrations
    • Widely used: over 400K installs globally
    • Open source, no license fees
    • Regular feature and performance enhancements
    • Excellent content editing experience
    • More secure
    • Easier to update / multipurpose images and content

    Cons

    • More time and effort required than WordPress to roll out standard/common functionality
    • Relatively small plugin library to extend core features (requires custom build)

  • WordPress

    Great for smaller projects or campaign sites which are light on functionality but need to look great. Template driven and open source means costs are relatively low.

    Pros

    • Extremely fast to deploy; standard/common functionality availability out of the bag
    • Easy to use and easy to customise
    • Mobile friendly
    • Used by 59.5% of all the websites that use a content management system (CMS) –28% of the web uses WordPress
    • Feature extension through a massive plugin library (over 45K available) making adding functionality fast and cheap
    • Open source
    • SEO friendly

    Cons

    • Cost of ownership can be high for very complex sites
    • Not as robust as Umbraco for integration with 3rd parties
    • The more of the larger feature plugins you use, the slower your site can be