Choosing the right Content Management System (CMS) is vital—it’s the face of your business and shapes how customers experience your brand. Get it right, and your online presence thrives; get it wrong, and it will drag you down.
As for energy companies, having a scalable and fully secured CMS is essential. Two platforms—WordPress and CrafterCMS are the frequent options. Both offer distinct features, their fair share of pros and cons, capabilities, and ideal usage, but the right choice really will depend on your business needs.
WordPress: The Popular CMS Powerhouse
Undoubtedly, WordPress is still the most popular CMS, with over 62.7% market share versus other CMS available in the market, and that’s pretty high! WordPress is an open-source platform with thousands of plugins and themes available, and it’s highly versatile and suitable for any vertical, including energy companies. And the best thing? Anyone can use it even without extensive knowledge of coding.
Why Developers Love WordPress
- Ease of Use: WordPress offers a built-in dashboard. You can easily play with different elements, making it user-friendly even for non-developers. The platform is ideal for quick website setups, offering drag-and-drop functionality with different builders available.
- Customizability: With the power to choose from over 60,000 plugins and thousands of themes, WordPress allows developers and non-developers to create custom websites without coding everything from scratch. This is particularly useful for start-ups, small businesses, blogs, and e-commerce websites.
- Community Support: WordPress has a vast, active community of developers, offering forums, tutorials, documentation, and other resources that make troubleshooting and learning easy.
CrafterCMS: A Modern, Enterprise-Grade CMS
CrafterCMS, 10 years younger than WordPress is designed for enterprises seeking scalable, headless CMS solutions. It’s a modern platform, built with a developer-first approach, offering flexibility and high performance.
Even though it has a relatively smaller number of users than WordPress, many developers prefer to use CrafterCMS because of its main benefits from a developer-first approach. It has a well-documented codebase, extensive API, great support from modern development workflows, and other features, making it easy for developers to manage and play around content and web assets.
Why Developers Choose CrafterCMS
- Headless Architecture: CrafterCMS is a headless CMS, which means, it decouples the front-end presentation from the back-end content management. Developers can deliver content to any device or platform—whether it’s a website, mobile app, or IoT device—via APIs. This gives developers more freedom in building sites, making CrafterCMS one of the most flexible and dynamic CMS.
- Enterprise-Grade Scalability: One of the requirements of an enterprise company is the capability of a CMS to scale up easily. Good enough, CrafterCMS is Built for large-scale enterprises, it can effectively manage substantial content and high traffic, making it a good fit for energy firms with wide reach and intricate data management requirements.
- Personalized Experiences: Creating an individual experience is one approach that can increase customer engagement and CrafterCMS can provide this. Real-time content delivery based on user behavior will allow energy companies to provide tailored digital experiences across multiple channels.
- Strong Developer Support: CraftCMS is built on modern Java technologies, it also supports Git-based workflows, comprehensive documentation, active community, and dedicated support.
Are you ready to start your Energy Digital Transformation?
Security: A Critical Factor
Security is a major concern for anyone building a website, and both WordPress and CrafterCMS have differing approaches to this critical area.
WordPress Security
As the most widely-used CMS, it is no wonder why WordPress is a frequent target for cyberattacks. According to different reports, the platform’s reliance on third-party plugins exposed them to vulnerabilities, not to mention personal accounts without robust codes.
“Between August and September 2022, Wordfence blocked over 4 million attacks aimed at 280,000 sites that installed the plugin WPGateway. The plugin suffered a vulnerability that allowed hackers to add a malicious admin account, potentially taking control of the website.”
– According to WCanvas (18 WordPress Security Statistics for 2024)
However, WordPress security can be significantly enhanced through:
- Updating the core platform, plugins, and themes more frequently and regularly
- Make sure to have a strong password with 2-factor authentication (2FA)
- Managed WordPress hosting solutions like WP Engine or Kinsta, offer enhanced security features.
For businesses without an in-house or dedicated security team to oversee and manage WordPress, security can be a challenge, especially when the site scales.
CrafterCMS Security
CrafterCMS is designed with enterprise-grade security in mind. Built on Java, it features robust security protocols such as Role-Based Access Controls (RBAC), advanced encryption, and support for authentication standards. This makes it particularly secure for industries like energy, where regulatory compliance and data protection are paramount.
CrafterCMS has strong built-in security features, such as:
- Role-based access controls (RBAC)
- Advanced encryption methods
- Support for enterprise-grade authentication methods like LDAP, OAuth, and SAML
- Seamless integration with existing security infrastructures These features make CrafterCMS more secure out-of-the-box compared to WordPress, especially for enterprise-level deployments.
Developer Experience: Plug-and-Play vs. Flexibility
The developer experience is another critical factor to consider when choosing a CMS for your energy website.
- WordPress is a no-code, plug-and-play tool, developers and non-developers professionals can easily build a basic website using available plugins and themes without needing a code.
- CrafterCMS, on the other hand, is for developers who want to have full access to front-end frameworks, it’s modern architecture allows for the development of modern web applications and omnichannel digital experiences, making it suitable for energy companies, looking to integrate across multiple platforms.
Use Cases: When to Choose WordPress vs. CrafterCMS
- WordPress is best suited for:
- Small to medium-sized energy firms need a fast, affordable website.
- Blogs, portfolios, or smaller e-commerce stores.
- Teams with limited development resources or those seeking a quick go-to-market solution.
- CrafterCMS is ideal for:
- Large-scale enterprise websites with complex content and high traffic loads.
- Energy firms need omnichannel content delivery across websites, mobile apps, and IoT devices.
- WordPress is best suited for:
The Verdict: Which CMS is Right for Your Energy Website?
Choosing between Worpress and CrafterCMS will come down to the size, complexity, and security you need for your energy website.
WordPress is a good choice for a business looking for an easy-to-use website and quicker time-to-market, especially for small to medium-sized businesses and non-developer professionals. On the other hand, if you’re an energy company that’s undergoing digital transformation, or looking for a more flexible, robust, and scalable, the enterprise-grade security and performance of CrafterCMS is what you need.
Both platforms can surely build future-proof websites, but for energy companies looking to leverage the latest web technologies and omnichannel experiences, CrafterCMS stands out as the modern choice.
Are you planning to build or revamp your energy website? Exist Software Labs, Inc. can help you create a future-proof, scalable platform that aligns with your business needs and goals. Let’s bring your vision to life—reach out to us today!
