Once you are ready to have a website for your business, there is always a question - Whether we use pre-built CMS platforms or start from scratch.

I always get this query from my clients. Sometimes clients come to me saying that they wanted to have a website, opted for a CMS platform, and now they have a working website, but it is not working as per their expectations. Or sometimes clients come to me saying that they wanted a website for their business and started with scratch development, but it is still having issues and not reaching the final version for launch.

The thing is, some people love CMS platforms and fear custom scratch website development and some love the scratch development and hate CMS. This thinking need to be rectified. Both have some advantages and disadvantages, and you just have to know those before choosing the right way. You can't put clothes in the dishwasher to clean clothes or put your dishes in the washing machine to clean them. In the same way, we have to know our requirements first, then go through advantages and disadvantages of both to get astonishing results.

Before we jump to 'advantages & disadvantages' talk, first we have to know what is CMS.

CMS is a short form of Content Management System, and it is like a tool by which you can manage content like text, image, videos, files etc. Hence, a website CMS is a tool to manage content for a website. Often these CMSs are user-friendly and need non to very little technical knowledge to operate it.

CMSs are made from scratch.
``But wait. Then what is the difference between CMS platform website and scratch website? It is so confusing! ``

Don't get confused. CMS is, what I told you earlier, just a tool to manage content. Every CMS is made from scratch by some technical guy or team. Now about pre-built CMS Platforms, they are already built from scratch by their teams to use by others. So we do not have to write things from scratch, and just have to use these pre-built platforms as a base and start building on top of them with already integrated CMS. So in pre-built CMS platforms, you have CMS to manage the design, pages, links, text, images etc. which will be reflected on the website. That's why, with a very little technical knowledge also, you can build a basic website by yourself. That is the power of pre-built CMS platforms like WordPress, Joomla, Magento etc.

In short, CMS platforms are already built tools that we can use to design a website with speed. We just have to set up the pre-built CMS files and go.

Now let's talk about custom scratch website. As we say website from scratch, it does not always mean 100% scratch. Sometimes web development teams use already available libraries on the website for some feature or task. Scratch development often means that you can shape the website as per your needs. For e.g. if you want to make a car from scratch, you choose & buy right inner parts as per your needs and assemble them according to your design. Make work on screws, body, connections etc. So that is not 100% scratch. 100% scratch is like you first find the iron and other metal ore. Extract metals from them. Then from those metals make inner parts of car like engine, axles etc. No carmaker is doing work from scratch. They just obtain what they require for their car and put it together and put their engineering and build cars. Similarly, custom scratch website is made from a mix of different libraries, developer's own custom code and engineering.

Now as you are now aware of pre-built CMS platform websites and custom scratch websites, here are seven factors with advantage and disadvantages that can help you in choosing the right way.

1. Cost - In the beginning, building with CMS platform is very cheap. But once you go on with heavy customization, it will cost you more and more. On the other hand, custom scratch development is expensive at first, but in long term when you expand, it will be optimal cost.
2. Performance - CMS platforms are pre-built and always loaded with many stuffs to help every kind of audience. CMS platforms may impact the performance when not optimized correctly. Now, custom scratch website is very high in performance when compared to CMS based websites. Custom scratch website don't have non-needed stuffs and is very optimized.
3. Speed of Development - CMS platforms are faster to build. Even a basic website can be put in a day using CMS platforms. On the other hand, custom scratch website takes a pretty amount of time in development.
4. User Experience - CMS platform websites are built on a base, so they give you a standard user experience. Where, a custom scratch website can provide a great user experience as you design the interface as per your need.
5. Security - CMS platform website are having standard security and may often vary from low to medium security assurances. Custom scratch websites can be highly secured as you can put security measures as you want.
6. Control - CMS platform websites are built on pre-defined base, so you can't have much control over here. There are limits for doing things in CMS based websites. On the other hand, custom scratch website gives you better control over the website. You can modify, remove or add new features and design to the website.
7. Third Party APIs & Plugins - CMS platforms usually have plugins built for 3rd party services. If 3rd party service is not so popular, then there is very slim chance that you will find a plugin for that service. But when you find a plugin, 3rd party integration will be a piece of cake and can be done with little technical knowledge. In custom scratch website, you need a programmer/developer to integrate third party APIs and to make them functional as per your need.

Conclusion:

If you are small or new business and tight on budget, you can always opt for pre-build CMS platform for website. They are good-looking, maintain standard and easy to maintain & update. They are very helpful to put your business on the online space as soon as possible in low cost.

If you have budget, time and targeting for a customized experience for users, you can always go for custom scratch development. In long term, it will be profitable. Majority of popular apps and websites are custom-built from scratch like Facebook, Twitter, Amazon etc.