Contentful vs. WordPress: Which Is Better for Your Business? (original) (raw)

Choosing a content management system (CMS) is like deciding on a car to take for a long road trip. You want something reliable, easy to operate, and flexible so you can handle anything you encounter on the road.

WordPress and Contentful are two of the best content management systems.

To help you decide which platform is right for your business, we’ll compare WordPress vs. Contentful and break down their key differences in pricing, ease of use, scalability, and more.

Let’s dive in.

1. Contentful vs. WordPress: A Quick Look
2. Choosing Contentful vs. WordPress
3. Pricing
4. Ease of Use
5. Themes and Templates
6. Scalability
7. Support and Community
8. Security
9. E-Commerce Capabilities
10. Our Winner
11. Other Platforms To Consider

Contentful vs. WordPress: A Quick Look

Contentful and WordPress are two very different CMS platforms, each with its own advantages and drawbacks to consider. Here’s a quick breakdown of how they compare across various features:

What Is Contentful?

Founded in 2013, Contentful is a composable content platform that operates differently from traditional CMSs and is typically classified as a headless CMS.

With this type of CMS, the front end (presentation layer) is separated from the back end (where content is stored), making it easier to distribute content across multiple channels.

Contentful is also API-centric, meaning you can retrieve and send data through API requests. This offers greater flexibility in website development since you have full control over your site. Plus, its scalability makes it a popular choice for larger enterprises. Examples of companies that opt for Contentful include KFC, BMW, and On Running.

Pros and Cons of Contentful

While Contentful shines with its impressive capabilities, the platform doesn’t fit every business. Here are some pros and cons to consider:

Pros:

• Composable infrastructure allows you to reuse content across different channels and regions.
• API-centric nature allows for greater freedom and flexibility when building websites and applications.
• Comprehensive SDKs for JavaScript, Python, iOS, and other programming languages.
• Scalable architecture allows your site to grow without the need for major updates to the site’s infrastructure.

Cons:

• Requires development and can be challenging to use for those lacking technical experience.
• Higher costs for enterprise-level subscriptions.
• Limited built-in features like themes, plug-ins, and templates.

What Is WordPress?

The most popular CMS, WordPress has been around for over ten years and powers over 43% of all websites.

WordPress is an open-source software, which means it’s available for anyone to use. It’s generally considered to be one of the most accessible and simplest ways to create a business blog or website.

Pros and Cons of WordPress

WordPress has been the go-to CMS for decades, but growing businesses should be mindful of some potential drawbacks. Here are key advantages and considerations to keep in mind:

Pros:

• Easy to use and intuitive even for non-experienced users
• Open source software
• Thousands of themes and templates are available for effortless customization
• Self-hosting setup allows for complete control of the site

Cons:

• Scaling requires comprehensive optimization and can pose challenges for complex sites
• Requires frequent updates and maintenance to keep plug-ins and security features running smoothly
• Plug-in conflicts can cause performance issues

When To Choose Contentful vs. WordPress

Whether you should opt for Contentful or WordPress largely depends on your specific business, goals, and capabilities. Here are some scenarios to help guide you:

Choose Contentful if:

• You need to manage content across various channels, such as websites, mobile apps, and wearables.
• You expect high amounts of growth and traffic to your site.
• You require a high degree of flexibility and customization.

Choose WordPress if:

• You need to get your website up and running quickly and easily.
• You’re looking for an easy-to-use platform for publishing content.
• You prefer to use templates and themes for customization.

Questions to ask when evaluating your options:

• Do you have developers with strong technical skills, or do you need a user-friendly platform that beginners can use?
• Do you need to manage content across your website, mobile apps, and other platforms?
• Would you prefer to use pre-built themes and templates or create the website design from scratch?
• Will your website need to scale quickly and manage high volumes of content and heavy traffic?
• What’s your budget?

Pricing

Costs are a key consideration when deciding which CMS to use for your business. Here’s a look at the pricing structures of these platforms:

Contentful Pricing

Contentful pricing is subscription-based with platform plans, then potential add-ons for personalization. The platform offers:

• Free plan with up to 10 users, two locales, and 50 GB of CDN bandwidth per month.
• Lite plan, which costs $300 per month, supports up to 20 users and offers 100GB of CDN bandwidth per month, making it ideal for small businesses.
• Premium plan offers custom pricing billed annually depending on the number of users, API calls, and bandwidth your business requires.

Businesses can add personalization, including AI Actions, with custom pricing.

WordPress Pricing

Since WordPress is an open-source software, it is free to use. But running a website on this platform isn’t completely free. You’ll need to cover the costs for hosting and domain fees, premium themes, and plug-ins.

Most businesses would likely need to opt for a paid WordPress plan, which varies in price depending on transaction fees, bandwidth, support, and security features.

To clear up any confusion between the two, WordPress.com is their hosted service, which offers different plans. WordPress.org is free to use, but businesses would have to sort out their own hosting, updates, and site security. Third-party services offer these and charge for their management of the website, with too many different options to list here.

Here’s what WordPress.com pricing looks like for the different paid plans available:

Personal: $9/month

• Premium: $18/month
• Business: $25/month
• Commerce: $70/month
• Enterprise: Starts at $25,000/year

Pricing Winner: WordPress

For budget-conscious business owners, WordPress’ flexible pricing allows you to choose plans and features that fit your budget.

It’s worth noting that the costs of running a WordPress site can vary dramatically, depending on what combination of services or add-ons the business needs.

Professional users may find their costs significantly higher than the basic prices listed here.

Ease of Use

To run your website effectively, you’ll need to know your way around your chosen CMS. Keep in mind that the learning curves of these two platforms differ in complexity. Here’s how:

Contentful

Contentful boasts a simple and uncluttered user interface that makes it easy to navigate. However, setting up a website in Contentful requires extensive coding and API integration. Overall, Contentful is user-friendly for developers, but inexperienced users will likely face a steep learning curve.

WordPress

One of the main reasons why WordPress is so popular is because it’s very easy to set up and use, even if you’re a content creator without any technical expertise or coding skills. When creating your site, you can pick from a number of themes and plug-ins to personalize it to your brand. You can also use page builders, such as Divi or Elementor, to simplify setting up the layout.

Ease of Use Winner: WordPress

If you’re looking for a CMS that’s quick to set up and easy to use, WordPress is the go-to choice.

Themes and Templates

If your business doesn’t have a large development and design team, you’ll probably rely on templates and themes to get your website up and running.

Contentful Themes

Contentful’s headless architecture allows for enhanced flexibility, allowing developers to build websites, mobile apps, and other platforms from the ground up using APIs.

Unlike most CMS platforms, Contentful doesn’t have pre-built templates and themes since it manages content through APIs. However, you can still integrate themes and templates from third-party providers.

WordPress Themes

WordPress offers an extensive collection of themes and templates for easy customization, including different layouts, color palettes, and font styles.

You can also install plug-ins to add additional features to your website, such as animations, interactive content, icons, widgets, social media integration, and more. With WordPress, updating content design is a very simple process.

Themes and Templates Winner: WordPress

WordPress takes the cake on this one — the tens of thousands of themes and templates available are hard to beat.

Scalability

As a growing company, scalability is crucial when choosing a CMS — whether you’re expanding channels, entering global markets, or handling increased traffic.

Contentful Scalability

Thanks to its cloud infrastructure and headless architecture, Contentful is highly scalable. Its modular design lets you construct the platform tailored to your specific site’s needs.

Additionally, the API-centric approach can handle high traffic volumes and easily accommodate multiple languages as your site scales.

WordPress Scalability

While WordPress is also scalable, there are some additional considerations you’ll need to take into account. For example, certain plug-ins and themes can have performance problems as your site scales.

Additionally, you need to make sure you’re using the right web hosting provider that supports scaling. You can also use a content delivery network (CDN) to increase site speed and improve site performance.

Scalability Winner: Contentful

While WordPress is also a scalable platform, Contentful is like planting your tree in an open field instead of a small pot.

Support and Community

Whether you’re a beginner or an expert developer, having a strong community and support tools is essential for resolving any issues that may arise.

Contentful Support

Contentful offers an array of support resources, including a help center and Discord community. Customers with paid plans also access the Support Portal for in-depth guides on technical subjects as well as the ability to submit a support ticket for more personalized help.

WordPress Support

All WordPress users have access to support guides, tutorials, and a very active community forum. Those with a Premium plan also have access to support from an expert team, while customers with a Business, Commerce, or Enterprise plan receive 24/7 support.

Support and Community Winner: WordPress

While both platforms offer plenty of resources and support, WordPress’ large and active community gives it a leg up.

Security

CMS security is key for business, or else you’re at risk of cyber threats. Here’s how their security features stack up:

Contentful Security

Contentful boasts a robust security program managed by its Information Security Management System (ISMS), which aligns with the ISO 27001:2013 international standard. The platform’s security protections include:

• Data encryption: Your data is encrypted at rest and in-transit to protect your content.
• Penetration tests: Annual penetration tests are run on infrastructure, web applications, and APIs to proactively detect and fix vulnerabilities.
• Web Application Firewall: A Web Application Firewall is employed to protect application endpoints from cyberattacks.
• Threat detection: Using AWS GuardDuty, threats are monitored and addressed in real time, detecting malicious IP connections, unauthorized activities, and more within our AWS accounts.
• Two-factor authentication (2FA): Contentful users can set up 2FA to safeguard their accounts.

WordPress Security

WordPress also offers a variety of security features to keep your website safe such as:

• Encryption: The platform encrypts all sites to boost security and protect privacy.
• Daily security scans: WordPress uses Jetpack Scan to check for weaknesses, malware, harmful plug-ins, and other potential vulnerabilities.
• Firewalls: The platform employs firewalls to analyze traffic and protect your site from attackers.
• Website data backups: WordPress data is backed up regularly so you can access it if your data is ever lost, such as during a natural disaster.

While WordPress offers security features, its effectiveness depends on users keeping the platform, plug-ins, and themes updated. Additionally, the platform’s extensive use of plug-ins and themes can lead to vulnerabilities.

Note that while WordPress isn’t in compliance with ISO 27001:2013, certain hosts, like WP Engine, are. The role of third-party plugins and hosting providers in keeping up with security is worth mentioning as several do a great job of keeping sites up-to-date.

Security Winner: Contentful

Due to its robust security features and headless architecture, Contentful is the more secure platform of the two.

E-Commerce Capabilities

For businesses that need e-commerce functionality, both Contentful and WordPress offer options to sell online:

Contentful E-commerce

Contentful’s approach to e-commerce is fundamentally different. As a headless CMS, it provides the content but not the commerce logic itself.

• Headless commerce: With Contentful, you manage product descriptions, images, and other marketing content. The actual e-commerce functionality — like shopping carts, payment processing, and order management — is handled by a separate, dedicated e-commerce platform.
• API integrations: Contentful connects to a commerce platform (e.g., Shopify, BigCommerce, or commercetools) via APIs. This allows you to combine the best-of-breed tools for content and commerce, creating a highly customized and flexible setup known as composable commerce.
• Omnichannel experience: This headless model makes it easy to deliver content and product information to multiple channels beyond a single website, such as mobile apps, in-store kiosks, or social media, all from a single source of truth.
• Development required: This model requires more technical expertise and a development team to integrate the CMS with the e-commerce engine and build a custom front end. It is not an out-of-the-box solution.

WordPress E-commerce

WordPress offers a complete and user-friendly e-commerce solution through WooCommerce, the most popular open-source e-commerce platform.

• Integrated solution: WooCommerce is a plugin that seamlessly integrates with WordPress, providing all the necessary e-commerce features right out of the box. You can manage products, track orders, and handle payments directly from your WordPress dashboard.
• Vast functionality: WooCommerce’s core features can be extended with thousands of free and paid extensions. These allow you to add everything from advanced shipping options and subscriptions to email marketing integrations and multi-currency support.
• Ease of use: Setting up a store with WooCommerce is straightforward for beginners. The learning curve is minimal, especially for those familiar with the WordPress environment.
• Total cost of ownership: While the WooCommerce plugin is free, you’ll incur costs for hosting, a domain name, and potentially premium themes or plugins. For many small to medium businesses, the total cost of ownership is often lower than a custom-built headless solution.

E-Commerce Winner: It Depends

Small businesses needing a cost-effective solution that will be up and running quickly should consider WordPress, while larger businesses requiring a more customized solution with an omnichannel presence might consider Contentful in tandem with an e-commerce API.

Our Winner: WordPress

Contentful is ideal for businesses that need top-tier security and scalability, but for most companies, WordPress is the better choice. Its flexible pricing, user-friendly interface, vast library of themes and templates, and large, supportive community make it the go-to option for a reason.

Other Platforms To Consider

Not feeling like Contentful or WordPress align with your needs? Not to worry — there are plenty of other CMS platforms out there that may be a better fit. Here are some additional options to consider:

• Webflow: Best for collaboration across development, design, and marketing teams.
• Drupal: Best for sites that require advanced security features.
• Joomla!: Best for global brands needing multilingual support.
• Shopify: Best for e-commerce businesses looking for a fully managed platform.
• Wix: Best for beginners looking for an easy-to-use drag-and-drop website builder.
• Squarespace: Best for users looking for an all-in-one solution.
• Adobe Commerce: Best for e-commerce brands that integrate with Adobe.
• HubSpot: Best for businesses looking for a comprehensive marketing solution.

How To Get Your Contentful or WordPress Site in Front of Your Audience

No matter which platform you choose in the WordPress vs. Contentful debate, Siege Media can help grow your business’s online presence. Our content marketing services take the guesswork out of growth, ensuring your website ranks on search engines.

With optimized blog design, high-quality content writing, and targeted SEO strategies, we’ll make sure your site reaches your target audience.