As a CMS company, we often hear the question: what’s better, an open source or a proprietary CMS?

As we previously covered in this article, open source and proprietary CMS platforms both have their benefits and their inconveniences and often the answer to the above question is: it depends. On your needs, on your workflows, on your scale, etc.

As a company trying to provide our clients with the best possible CMS solution, we have created a platform that combines the best of open source and proprietary platforms.

So what exactly does that involve? Here we give you a summary of what proprietary and open source CMS systems are, and a rundown of what you can expect from Agility.

Defining Open Source and Proprietary CMS

Open Source

Open source CMS systems are built collaboratively by a community of users, using a code that is available online for anyone to use, modify and distribute. These platforms are typically free of charge, as they aren’t technically owned by anyone. As a CMS user you can simply download your open source platform of choice for free, install it on your host and use it to create your website.

Proprietary

Proprietary CMS platforms, on the other hand, are developed privately by a specific company, using a code that is owned by them and not readily available. These platforms are typically licensed to companies for a fee and often come with a variety of services attached to them, such as support, design, development and training.

Agility’s Open Source benefits

So what benefits does Agility offer that are typically found in open source platforms?

1. Frequently updated

Not unlike community-run open source platforms, Agility is frequently updated with new features and technologies.

We consider it a top priority to enable our customers’ online solutions to grow with their business, which means being able to anticipate their needs and working with them to develop new features and products as they become necessary.

As a platform, we aim to provide the best technologies to our customers and to ensure that any glitches or bugs are fixed promptly.

2. Flexible

One of the great perks of open source platforms is the great flexibility they offer. With these platforms, you have many customization options and infinite integrations available, as these can be built by anyone in the community.

At Agility we are also committed to providing this level of flexibility. For starters, the Agility Content Manager is designed to allow any member of your team to easily make content updates and build new pages without having to rely on a developer.

Additionally, with Agility it is extremely easy to add new integrations, as we can easily build APIs for any system you may require. This is on top of the suite of Agility products we already offer, including Ecommerce, Ticketing and POS. Essentially, whatever your needs may be, our platform is flexible enough to accommodate them.

3. Multiple development resources available

Agility was built not just with your end users in mind, but also with your content and development team in mind. As a result, we built a platform that is extremely easy to build on and that uses no proprietary languages; any developer with knowledge of ASP.Net can build on Agility.

In creating a platform that is easy to build on, it is our intention to make it as easy as possible for your developers to learn the platform, and for things to be handed over from developer to developer without any development hiccups arising. You’ll find it is also easy to find new developers with the necessary knowledge to step in, if the need should arise.

4. A la carte pricing

One of the most common concerns we hear from people regarding proprietary solutions is the additional costs that can come along with it, to do with services such as support. With Agility we’ve built a pricing model that follows the same principles as our approach to building solutions: you get what you need.

Don’t worry about having to pay for costs associated with features and products you’ll never use. You’ll only ever have to pay for the additional components you need, and no more.

Agility’s Proprietary CMS benefits

Additionally to the benefits outlined above, Agility also leverages some of the strongest attributes of proprietary CMSs to build a platform that offers the best of both worlds.

1. Security

If you’ve done research on the drawbacks of open source platforms, you’ll know that security usually comes at the top. With the code of open source platforms being readily available to everyone on the web, this opens up potential security risks.

Because Agility is a proprietary platform, you don’t need to worry about this. What’s more, Agility offers highly secure hosting on Microsoft Azure, offering unmatched security monitoring and management for cloud-based solutions.

2. Cost-effective development

Contrary to popular belief, proprietary CMS platforms are often more affordable than open source platforms, despite licensing. This is because open source solutions often require high levels of development and customization, whereas many proprietary companies provide these kinds of services quite affordably.

With Agility we’ve ensured that the total cost of ownership is affordable long-term, as our platform is built with future growth in mind. This means that compared to other platforms, on Agility solutions can be customized and new features can be developed cheaply.

This is especially the case for third-party integrations, which often lead to issues on open source platforms. As Agility operates on a single version, you never need to worry about platform upgrades requiring features or integrations to be rebuilt or updated. In contrast, with Agility all that’s required is an API, and you’re all set.

3. Support

As mentioned earlier, open source platforms aren’t owned by anyone and, therefore, don’t provide services such as support. In fact, the availability of support is one of the key selling points of proprietary solutions.

At Agility we provide 24/7 support directly from our team, who have first-hand development knowledge of the platform and are best equipped to deal with issues. Because our development team is so involved in support, the risk of website bugs and downtime is very low, as issues are fixed fast and efficiently.

It is important for us that all our customers have peace of mind that they’ll be able to simply pick up the phone and call us if an issue arises. What’s more, our customers are able to talk directly with the people who were involved in building their solution and features!

4. Scalability

When it comes to cloud hosting, nothing compares to Microsoft Azure. We chose to partner with them because they are simply the best.

One of the greatest benefits of Azure is their scalability options. Through manual scaling and auto-scaling, Azure helps avoid site performance issues and downtime by increasing your server size during high-traffic periods.

This means that, for example, if you’re going through a special sale and attracting lots of sudden traffic, your website will still perform optimally and enable you to take full advantage of conversions and sales.

5. Setup

Finally, a very underestimated yet critical area that Agility can help you with is setup. This is one of the services we provide, depending on your needs and requirements.

In simple terms, we can set up your website for you, rather than simply handing you our platform and obliging you to rely on your own design and development team. Again, the extent of our involvement depends on your needs, whether you’d like to create your own designs for us to develop, or have our development team design the full solution.

In addition to our development team, we also have a network of partners that we regularly work with, some of whom may help you better achieve your vision. Rest assured that we will always offer you the best suggestions and advice!

 

If you’d like to find out more about Agility, feel free to request a demo and a member of our team will be with you soon!