Why Should You Consider Umbraco?

There are vast numbers of Content Management Systems out there, from WordPress to Joomla, Drupal and hundreds of others. 

However we are finding that Umbraco is a great choice for websites for several reasons. These boil down to: speed, flexibility, user-friendliness. Let's look into it a bit further. 

What is Umbraco?

Umbraco is a free, Open Source Content Management System. It's built on Microsoft's .NET framework. It powers about 500,000 websites around the world, including websites from Microsoft, Warner Brothers, Vogue and Wired Magazine. 

Speed

The trouble with so many CMSs is they are slow. This is because they have been built to cater for a vast number of use-cases. From plain blog websites, to informational websites, to e-commerce stores, everything is catered for. 

With Umbraco, you get the bare bones that a CMS requires. This includes: creating content (e.g., web pages, blog posts), managing images and uploads, managing internal hyperlinks and website security. 

Beyond this, the web designer has free reign (and in fact is forced to) define content types, the site structure (in other words, what content is a child/parent of what content) and the rules for where content can be added within the site. 

All this results in a website which tends to run very fast because it only includes what is needed to run your site, not what's needed to run any site. 

Flexibility

A website is simply a collection of HTML, JavaScript and stylesheet/font files. That's all it is. So a CMS should be easily capable of 

Costs

Because Umbraco is an open-source application it is basically free of charge. However, there are costs associated with running Umbraco which might not apply to other CMSs. For example, you'll need to find a hosting provider who can run Microsoft .NET. Most can. 

A great choice would be Microsoft Azure because it allows you to run Umbraco purely in the cloud, saving money on sourcing Microsoft Virtual Machines.