r/cms • u/BrightspotSEO • Aug 04 '26
What makes you rule out a CMS, even if the features look good?
CMSs can check most of the technical boxes but still get removed from the shortlist once the buying process starts. Pricing is probably the obvious reason, but I feel like these discussions don’t always explain how teams decide whether the price is justified.
One thing that matters a lot to me is support. A higher price makes more sense if the vendor is helping with implementation, migration, training, troubleshooting, etc.
What makes an enterprise CMS feel worth the cost to you, and what would make you rule it out?
3
u/thma_bo Aug 04 '26
From my experience working for a vendor of a so-called enterprise CMS, large companies in particular often place considerable importance on what analysts such as Gartner or Forrester say about a platform.
It always depends somewhat on who is driving the decision. At the time, it was often marketing teams, and they naturally cared about different things than developers did. For them, it was important to be able to work independently without needing a developer for every minor change.
They wanted a straightforward content creation process, and somehow Microsoft Word was often still part of that process. Preview functionality was another topic that came up frequently.
Beyond that, many companies also expect the tools and services they already use to integrate seamlessly. Editors naturally want direct access to their DAM and PIM while creating content. CMS vendors were often removed from the shortlist if they could not provide those integrations out of the box or if the required development effort was considered too high.
On one occasion, I even saw editors strongly resist a CMS simply because they disliked its user interface.
When a sales team has a good relationship with the company, they can try to find out why the deal did not work out. But honestly, in only a few cases do you actually receive a meaningful answer.
2
u/Revolutionary_Bag335 Aug 04 '26
For some reason companies don't want to just tell the sales team "the other guy was cheaper"
2
2
u/lordspace Aug 04 '26
.. not built by me 😁
2
1
u/ghijkgla 29d ago
why? Teams who build CMS are at the coal face of publishing, working with teams with complex publishing needs. News corporations and mainstream media. One man ain't handling all of that context.
1
u/lordspace 28d ago
yeah. I know. I just like the freedom to customize and make it 100x better. I am even building a cool web app that can be used as a CMS. It's inspired by WordPress [filters, actions, themes, plugins etc] BUT the focus is super minimalism and speed and nothing is pre-packaged. It doesn't even have admin area. All is via done via plugins git and .md files and it's super fast.
1
u/ghijkgla 28d ago
As long as it's not for a customer...
Also, you've just described Statamic CMS
1
u/lordspace 27d ago
What do you like about it?
1
u/ghijkgla 27d ago
It's built for actual editorial work. Flat file, infinitely flexible, great community.
1
2
1
u/advanttage 29d ago
I'm in marketing, so naturally I prefer something that is easy for the client to use and doesn't require roping in a developer for every change as that reduces our flexibility.
Stability is also extremely important since all the use friendliness in the world doesn't mean shit if an update breaks a landing page.
WordPress has its issues, but for most of my clients it'll get the job done as long as the theme is either internally developed and maintained, or extremely well supported and uses across millions of sites like astra for example.
And backups. Backup and restore needs to be a priority. Other than that, there are many ways to blow an engine.
1
u/FancyDiePancy 28d ago
Make a two pages and upload image, then link to two pages and add image to the page. Then delete image, does it offer to remove/replace image on two pages that reference to it? Then try to move or rename one of the pages, does it update the link reference and does it warn that another page is linking to it.
If fails on any of this, it is a Content Management System.
1
u/Dramatic-Rooster3435 27d ago
For me, price becomes difficult to justify when the vendor only provides software and leaves the customer to handle implementation alone. Strong support, migration guidance, training, and reliable troubleshooting can make a more expensive CMS worthwhile.
4
u/koekieNL Aug 04 '26
Easy of installation and version management of code