As editors and content managers, you’re busy.

You have many responsibilities, like editing and publishing content, formatting, or auditing and updating content. So it often feels like there’s not enough time to manage your website. Not to mention bringing together different stakeholders to plan the content creation workflow.

Unsurprisingly, many marketers and agencies rely on CMS tools to help their content teams meet their content management needs.

There are dozens of CMS tools available. To help you choose the right CMS tool for you, we’ve compiled a list of six of the best CMS tools. We considered their features, pricing, customer support, and the types of businesses the tool is best suited for.

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Research reveals that while 28% of marketers like the tools they’re using to manage their content operations, 61% argue that they haven’t found the right tools or aren’t using the tools they have to their full potential.

This means that most marketers are either looking for better CMS tools or want to learn more about the CMS tool they’re using.

1. WordPress

Being a free and open-source content management system, WordPress powers 43% of all websites.

WordPress is ideal for bloggers, businesses, and higher learning institutions looking for a powerful platform to manage their blogs, websites, and online stores.

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WordPress is free to download and use. It’s also highly customizable using free and paid themes and plugins.

For example, content managers can use Wordable to help them copy content from Google Docs and publish it on WordPress in a single click, saving time and eliminating publishing errors.

The large community of developers also makes it easy for users to learn about the platform during setup and help them whenever they’re stuck.

Features

• It comes with a customized API and an interface that allows users to customize different elements of their themes, such as colors, widgets, menus, and layouts.
• It also allows you to install and use powerful plugins to optimize your website, create landing pages, sell products, and collect payments, to expand the functionality of your CMS.
• The user interface is friendly for content creation and management. You can edit, format, and add different types of media to your content inside WordPress before hitting publish.
• Since it’s an open-source platform, developers are constantly updating WordPress to keep up with the diverse needs of its users.

The challenge with using WordPress as your CMS is that you need technical knowledge (or hire someone with some tech savvy) to set up and manage your CMS and website.

Some plugins and themes also don’t work well with each other, so you may need to choose your plugins carefully to keep your site functional.

Pricing

WordPress is free to download and use. But additional features and services like hosting, custom domain names, premium themes, and some plugins (including some for monetization) have additional fees.

2. HubSpot CMS Hub

HubSpot CMS Hub is a content management system ideal for small to medium-sized businesses looking for an all-in-one platform for managing their website, blog, and marketing campaigns.

It works with other HubSpot tools, such as HubSpot CRM, to create a seamless user experience.

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Use HubSpot CMS to create your website and establish a seamless content creation workflow. Improve collaboration by granting different team members permission to edit and publish content.

The HubSpot CMS can organize your website’s content into categories and subcategories. This organization improves navigation and search engine optimization.

Features

• It comes with a drag-and-drop page editor that allows you to customize the look and feel of different web pages and align them with your brand style.
• CMS Hub includes free website hosting, allowing you to have and manage several domains in different languages based on your audience’s needs.
• It allows you to build a membership site for your community and secure it using login elements.
• Provides 24/7 live chat and email support for its users who might get stuck mid-use.
• It has built-in SEO tools for written content and videos to improve visibility on search engines.

While these features make the CMS Hub ideal for most marketers, HubSpot can be expensive for small businesses. You must weigh the costs vs benefits when looking for an all-in-one platform to manage your marketing efforts.

For example, when you sign up for the CMS Hub, you might find yourself paying for other tools that HubSpot offers. Thereby increasing the total you spend on your tech stack.

Pricing

HubSpot CMS Hub has three pricing plans‌ — ‌Starter at $23 monthly. Professional at $360 per month. And Enterprise at $1,200 per month.

3. Agility CMS

Agility CMS is a great choice for mid-sized to large enterprises that need a flexible and scalable CMS platform that can handle complex content models, multi-site management, tight security, and compliance requirements.

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Being a headless content management system, it allows users to customize the front end of their website without the restrictions of being tied to the back-end systems.

Headless CMS tools can also handle growing traffic numbers as you deploy content across multiple channels and apps to improve content distribution at scale.

Features

• It allows content managers to create content models, making it easier to manage and reuse the content they create and publish on different channels and platforms.
• It makes managing multiple websites easier by allowing you to view sitemaps in one place and share content and other digital assets without delays.
• It can integrate with tools in your tech stack, such as Ahrefs, Typeform, and Bynder.
• It comes with an inbuilt digital asset manager where you can store your digital assets and deploy them whenever needed.

Headless CMS tools are disruptive and shaping trends in content management. Although the benefits of Headless CMS are significant, this doesn’t mean Agility CMS doesn’t come with its challenges.

Even though the tool is relatively easy to use, you might need some technical knowledge to set it up and customize it to your needs.

The number of third-party integrations is equally limited compared to other CMS platforms like WordPress, meaning you might not expand its functionality beyond what is available.

However, you can connect other tools to Agility through Zapier at an extra cost.

Pricing

AgilityCMS offers three pricing plans‌ — ‌Starter at $1,499 per month. Pro at $2,999 monthly and the Enterprise plan, but you’ll need to talk to the sales team to get a quote.

4. Shopify

Shopify is a user-friendly e-commerce platform ideal for small to medium-sized businesses that want to sell products online and manage their e-commerce store.

Using Shopify, e-commerce business owners can create a website and landing pages, set up payment gateways, manage inventory, and track orders.

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As a CMS tool, Shopify allows e-commerce business owners to create, redesign websites and customize their stores with different themes. They can also create product pages, ‌market their products, set up payment methods, and track orders and inventory without technical knowledge.

It also allows you to use different apps that integrate with social media platforms to help you run your omnichannel marketing campaigns.

Features

• Shopify’s website builder has a drag-and-drop functionality helping you save time when building your website.
• It follows Level One PCI DSS regulations to protect customers’ personal information and secure transactions.
• It provides you with comprehensive analytics and a reporting dashboard that informs you on how your store is performing.
• It can connect with live chat Apps to provide support for the customers smoothly.

Even though Shopify is a popular e-commerce platform with CMS capabilities, it lacks advanced customization options for the templates you get.

The cost of using Shopify can be quite high for some businesses with multiple users and using workflows to manage content creation. Besides, Shopify’s SEO capabilities are somewhat limited compared to other CMS tools. To bridge this gap, businesses sometimes create their complete Shopify SEO checklist or look to other Shopify store owners for inspiration to ensure their online store is optimized for search engines.

Pricing

Shopify pricing starts at $32 per month for the Basic Shopify plan, $92 per month for the Shopify plan, and $399 per month for the Advanced Shopify plan.

5. Webflow

Webflow is an ideal solution for web designers, developers, and content managers looking to build and deploy dynamic websites.

Webflow comes with a “What You See Is What You Get” (WYSIWYG) editor, so you can visualize your website and CMS as you design it.

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Features

• Webflow’s visual editor allows you to create and customize your website’s layout, typography, and style without writing code.
• It allows you to improve collaboration by providing access to your team members and other stakeholders to make changes to content.
• It also allows you to automate edits by ensuring that the changes you make to your content reflect similar pieces across your website.
• Webflow integrates analytics and targeting tools, email marketing, and CRM tools to add advanced functionality to your website.

Although Webflow is user-friendly and makes it easy for you to set up your CMS, there’s still a learning curve involved in mastering the platform’s advanced features.

Pricing

Webflow has a specific CMS plan at $23 per month with 2,000 CMS items. The Business plan costs $39 per month with 10,000 CMS items. If you want to sign up for the Enterprise plan, ask the sales team for a quote.

6. Squarespace

Squarespace is a popular website builder and CMS tool ideal for small businesses, artists, and creatives who want to create ‌visually stunning websites and manage their content without coding skills.

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Features

• Squarespace offers a range of pre-designed templates that you can customize to match the branding and style of your business.
• The user interface is intuitive, and there’s a bot to guide you through setup, making it easier to create your website’s layout and content and add images.
• Squarespace’s e-commerce features, such as payment and checkout options, make it easy for businesses to sell products and services online.
• It allows you to edit metadata, generate sitemaps, and provide SSL certificates. Further, you can create custom URL structures, making optimizing your content and website easier.
• Squarespace has customer support options, including live chat, email support, and a knowledge base.

Compared to other CMS tools (like WordPress), Squarespace is user-friendly and an excellent choice for users who want to set up their CMS without writing a single line of code.

However, the templates with Squarespace offer limited customization options, so you might feel constrained when trying to push the templates beyond their limits, even with premium Squarespace templates.

Using the advanced features presents a learning curve to help you get the most out of the CMS tool.

If you’re looking for a CMS tool that provides advanced features and expands functionality, you might not get value for your money when using Squarespace.

Pricing

Squarespace provides a 14-day trial and four pricing plans‌ — ‌Personal at $16 per month, Business at $23 per month, Basic Commerce at $27 per month, and Advanced Commerce at $49 per month.

Conclusion

The CMS tools on this list aren’t the only ones on the market. However, they’re the best SaaS tools to help you scale your content creation and management efforts.

So, if you manage multiple sites and want to publish your content on different channels and apps, consider using a headless CMS like Agility.

If you’re a marketer using HubSpot tools and looking for a CMS, pick the HubSpot CMS Hub and keep everything under one roof.

If you’re an agency serving e-commerce clients, consider using Squarespace or Shopify to help them manage their content and grow their businesses.

For a simple, intuitive, yet powerful content management system that requires no coding skills, Webflow is right up your alley. If you love coding and don’t want to be on a leash with what a CMS can do, then WordPress is the tool for you.