Tech stack - Achieving more synergy with fewer variants
What is a CMS
A content management system (CMS) is software used for maintaining website content. Rather than writing HTML and CSS, an admin backend is provided for creating, deleting or editing pages. Most of them have a WYSIWYG editor in this admin area, which can be used to add links and format text.
Previous status
Apart from this website, I am also responsible for the maintenance of several others:
-
Website of a fruit and horticultural association:
www.ogv-eichelsbach.de
(CMS: CMSimple)
(German contents) -
Website with instructions, keyboard shortcuts and other tips & tricks for various operating systems and programs:
www.techbasics.de
(CMS: Grav)
(German contents)
Reasons
For eight years, CMSimple has proved to be a reliable CMS, with a reputation for being quick, small and file-based (no database required). I started migrating from CMSimple to Grav in January this year. The reasons for this were the following:
- CMSimple cannot update itself; at least, it didn't work for me.
- Compared to Grav, extending the CMS with plugins for new features and themes is not so well supported.
- My other website has been using Grav since 2018, so having two different CMSs means double the maintenance.
I hope the following benefits will result from reducing the number of CMSs I have to maintain:
- Grav can update itself, its plugins and its themes with one click.
- It is easy to modify existing themes.
- The ecosystem provides plugins for a table of contents, breadcrumbs, view counter, tag cloud and more.
[CTOC].