CMS Benchmarking

Issue created by @Kushneet
Comment about 2 months ago →
🇺🇸United States bruna.sd
Created a spreadsheet for benchmarks (23 areas and 6 CMSs) and an accompanying form that submitters can leverage to submit benchmarking items
Comment about 2 months ago →
🇬🇧United Kingdom Emma Horrell
Noting here that I will do the benchmarking data collection for Contentful
Comment about 2 months ago →
🇺🇦Ukraine yana-karpliuk
I worked on collecting benchmarking data for Webflow.

So far, I’ve completed all tasks except for the following: 12 (publishing workflows), 17 (plugin ecosystem), 21 (professional services), and 22 (privacy and data protection).
Comment about 1 month ago →
🇦🇺Australia skyejohnson Sunshine Coast, Australia
I'm doing some benchmarking for Wordpress.com
Comment about 1 month ago →
🇺🇸United States artinruins
I will begin bench marking SquareSpace
Comment 17 days ago →
🇺🇸United States cellear San Francisco Bay Area
I'm benchmarking Joomla
Comment 17 days ago →
🇬🇧United Kingdom Emma Horrell
Benchmarking data can now be viewed in this Benchmarking data Airtable

Data collected as descriptions, screenshots and screenrecords for these CMS providers:

Webflow

WordPress.org

WordPress.com

Contentful

Wix

Squarespace
Comment 17 days ago →
🇬🇧United Kingdom Emma Horrell
Summary of approaches taken by different CMSs for the different stages:
1. Set-up – initial site creation:

Register for a free or a paid account with email/password (Webflow, Contentful, WordPress.com, Squarespace)
Install using DDEV (WordPress.org)
AI chatbot to get a pre-configured site (Wix)
Start by choosing what your site is about (Squarespace)

Create a blank site or a template one (Webflow)
Setting up a content model and deploy to Netlify or Vercel hosting platforms (after selecting ‘from scratch’ or ‘template’) (Contentful)
Lots of customisation options (including: pre-empted functionality added in based on initial preference selection, option to add appearance customisation, option to use Tools and Settings to customise, checklist on dashboard) (WordPress.com)
‘Setup Guide with options to customise: site structure, site header, branding and SEO (Squarespace)

Starter Workspace Dashboard (with options to set up sites: All Sites, Tutorials, Settings and Open Designer to work on individual sites) (Webflow)
Dashboard appears once template selected – shows content in different stages (Contentful)
Site creation final stage results in dashboard (WordPress.com)
Choice of apps to work with from side menu (Wix)

Content types are labelled CMS Collections – you can create Collection Lists (which are like Views) (Webflow)
Posts and Pages are basic content types (WordPress.com)

Add panel where you can click and drag an image element into the canvas (Webflow)
Media library available into which you can add images from computer or link to Google Photos, add media items to a page with the edit option (Webflow)
Go to ‘Edit’ on events and blog posts to add media (Wix)

Possible to save ‘Collection items’ as drafts (Webflow)
For each CT (Pages and Posts) the UI gives the option to Drafts (along with Published, Drafts, Scheduled and Binned (WordPress.com)

Add relationships between different collections by adding fields - through fields you can link to other collections (Webflow)
Taxonomy manager takes you through stages, explains what a taxonomy is, guides creation of concept types (tags) that can be used to group items (Contentful)
Option to choose ‘categories’ in ‘Posts, and also assign Posts to categories (WordPress.com)
Blog posts and events have a category feature (Wix)

WYSIWYG editor, drag and drop. Add panel on the left to find elements to add. Option to view page structure in Navigation panel and view components available in Components panel (Webflow)
Add new elements to pages with ‘/’ or ‘+’ to choose a block (WordPress.com)

Under ‘Users’ there are 4 types of organisational role – owner, member, developer, admin and owner (Contentful)
OOTB are 4 user roles – Admin, Editor, author, contributor (WordPress.com)

Possible to add a new block by adding a section or elements, and create reusable blocks and components (Webflow)
Create reusable components create block content to reuse (WordPress.com)

Default URLs offered, only customisable on paid plan, however, slugs can be edited for each page (Webflow)
Option to edit slugs through the Settings sidebar (WordPress.com)

Selection of themes offered (under templates) (Webflow)
Themes can be changed through Appearance on the nav bar. Some themes are paid, some free. To customise colours on themes is a paid option (WordPress.com)

Built-in SEO tools: Meta Tags and Descriptions, Auto-Generated Sitemaps, 301 redirects, Integration with tools (e.g. Google Analytics) (Webflow)

Google Analytics can be added through Site settings ->Apps and Integrations (Webflow)

Accessibility features include: Alt Text for Images, Semantic HTML, ARIA labels and roles, Focus and Hover states, Audit panel (Webflow)

Documentation and support help bundled together, free courses to understand platform (Webflow)
Documentation for Users includes: Get Started, Tutorials and guides, Core Concepts and API reference, Join the community on Discord and Contact us (Contentful)

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