2 May 2025 Pete Lister
In the technology space, things move fast. It can feel like every day, a new framework, tech stack or tool is being released and that's not to mention all the advancements with AI. Content Management System (CMS) are no different. There are many players in the market, all promoting what they do well, so selecting the right CMS can be overwhelming.
It’s no secret, at Effect, we’re big fans of Umbraco but like most agencies or companies, we’re always evaluating our choice of CMS, to ensure its the right tool for us and our clients, so thought I’d breakdown why we think Umbraco is a great CMS choice!
Umbraco is a commercially backed Open Source CMS. Heaps of articles and blogs have been written around the benefits of Open Source, so not going to get into that - but knowing that Umbraco is commercially backed with a team of 150 maintaining and developing the CMS and a community of 220,000 developers across the world, innovation and advancement is truly at the heart of what they do.
I recently attended Umbraco Down Under Forum (UDUF) and Partner submit in Sydney and hearing directly from the Umbraco Leadership about their performance as business, some exciting plans for the future, really backed this up for me.
This is a big one for me. I love the fact that Umbraco publish a full roadmap, which give us (and our clients) certainty on what features are coming out, when upgrades are due and its detailed out until 2028. The active community I mentioned is super important to the roadmap, with Umbraco regularly asking for RCs (Request for Comment) on new features being developed and being considered.
I recently heard someone say ‘Microsoft is cool again’ and while I might not go that far, its reassuring to know the Umbraco, which is developed on the .Net Framework and aligns to the Microsoft release cycle, gives us certainty around future upgrades. Umbraco also plays very well with Azure, Dynamics and Active Directory, which makes it a great fit for many government clients who have invested in the Microsoft eco-system.
Umbraco offers Umbraco Cloud, a fully managed hosting solution based in Azure (region specific as a nice bonus). This is a great option for those seeking a fully managed Platform as a Service (PaasS) solution.
This gives us certainly around the stability of the CMS and hosting to meet the highest level of security and compliance.
You hear this thrown around a lot, with CMS providers such as Adobe XP. Umbraco is a enterprise DXP and has a suite of products available to scale your solution as you require. The beauty of this is you’re not paying things you don’t need!
This is starting to sound like a fluff piece for Umbraco, and whilst we think Umbraco is a great tool, its not always the right choice! If you’re a small business, have static content or just want something more lightweight option, there are great options out there such as WordPress, Squarespace or Webflow. These are perfect choice if you’re looking for a lighter weight CMS, which still offer flexibility in the templates, easy to use CMS but have less enterprise features and generally will have a lower cost to maintain. You can check our latest build using WebFlow for MartinJenkins.
We also work with clients who have already selected and invested in CMS, a great example of this is the project we delivered for Public Art Heritage, which used Sanity and leveraged the database they had developed, allowing us to build a headless front-end using NextJS. You can check out our case study here: Public Art Heritage Aotearoa New Zealand
Choosing the right CMS boils down to understanding your specific needs. Umbraco offers solid benefits, especially for enterprise-level solutions, but it’s not a one-size-fits-all. For lighter needs, low code options might be better.
Effect are here to help you navigate these choices and find the perfect fit for your digital strategy.If you have any questions or want to evaluate options, feel free to reach out, we’d love to chat!
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