Since the dawn of code, there has been an endless debate over which is better: open source or closed source CMS (Content management system). Determining a winner of the two is like declaring a winner of the Cold War. With so many factors and opinions weighing in, it simply can’t be done.That’s why we won’t even try and tell you one is better than the other.
What we will do is lift our voice and declare why we are committed closed source loyalists that are Kentico certified developers and CMS users.
Cost Efficiency: Open source can seem very attractive because it’s promoted as free or having very little cost. You can host a wordpress.com or a sitebuilder.com site for free. Godaddy.com site hosting is only $10. Typically only the license is free. When you add up the lifetime existence of your site there are many small costs that add up big. For example; customer support is typically an additional cost, add-on and plugin upgrades usually are not automatically included with your website. They are third-party products. Trying to correct an issue like this may cause you to lose content or you may have to rewrite your entire site. For many of these platforms there is no real standard for developing software so it’s entirely possible for a plug-in to cease to exist or no longer be supported. This can turn out to be a nightmare. As you scramble to find a replacement, your site isn’t working.
Out-of-the-Box Functionality: With a closed source platform like Kentico the core or base product is exactly what you need to get the site you want. Added benefits of a self contained system can easily allow you to automate your content marketing strategy. With open source, the base platform is insufficient causing you to need all the little add-ons and plugins. Because the open source community is so large and well, “open” there is no standard interface. Once you search through the thousands of developers of one type of plugin you still really don’t know which one to choose. Most of the time you don’t know that a plugin is incompatible or inconsistent with your site until you install it.
Full Source Code: Although we try to avoid editing it, on those rare occasions that we need the full source code, we have access to it.
Security: It's very difficult to identify who actually developed some open source software. There are no guarantees in terms of security, support, and performance. We work specifically with Kentico because they are a well-established reputable company with more than 1100 vetted partners in 80 countries.
The primary target when creating and managing content is to attract and retain the right customer. Not every content management system whether it be closed source or not is a customer experience management solution, but Kentico is.
Tell us what do you use and why?