In a world that depends heavily on the products of the Internet, both companies and individuals alike are producing websites at a record number. Every year, millions of new websites launch themselves in the hopes of drawing in potential customers for products and services or members for non-profit organizations and scientific endeavors. To create these websites, webmasters much choose to use a free website builder, which has very limited control of the website itself and is littered with advertisements, a content management software, such as WordPress, or a web development software, such as Dreamweaver. In this article, we will be looking at the differences between content management software and web development software.
What Is Content Management Software
Content Management Software (CMS) has been used for years to build blogs and other content-based feeds. In recent years, however, content management software has been used to create professional websites with ease through the use of templates and plugins, which are often provided by the community at large. Content management software is easy to use because it features many different tools that specifically designed for building websites, is usually open source and community-driven, and is compatible with web-based programming languages, such as HTML, CSS, PHP, and Javascript.
What Is Web Development Software
Web Development Software (WDS) has been around slightly longer than content management software and has always been designed with the purpose of building websites. Unlike content management software, web development software is usually downloaded to a user’s computer and used to create the framework of a website layer by layer, with functions usually be written from scratch or added in via a library of scripts. While web development software is specifically intended to build websites, it is considered by most people to be an outdated form of technology and is actually less equipped for building websites than content management systems are.
Why Is Content Management Software Better Than Web Development Software
Although web development software is specifically designed for building websites, it can take a webmaster or programmer with many days of labor to create even the simplest website. This is because web development software is based almost completely on programming scripts, with a few handy tools thrown in here and there. Content management software, on the other hand, allows for users to use programming languages in addition to pre-developed themes and plugins that have been created by other users of the software. By simply selecting the layout he/she wants and choosing which plugins to install for the functionality he/she is looking for, a webmaster can quickly build a professional website in just a few hours. When using a content management software to build a website rather than a web development software, the real work for the webmaster is simply adding in content instead of worrying about making the site look and behave the way he/she wants it to. While there is nothing that a web development software can do that a content management software cannot do, there are many things that a content management software can do that a web development software cannot do.
Brandon is a web designer and developer and occasionally writes articles for peterborough website design, a full service website design & internet marketing company based out of Peterborough, Ontario Canada. You can find more information about the company here peterboroughdesign.ca
