Start with the people who publish
The best CMS is the one your team will actually use on a Tuesday afternoon, not the one with the cleanest demo. Before comparing tools, write down who edits, how often they publish, and what they expect to do without calling a developer.
- List the content types and how often each one changes
- Note who drafts versus who is allowed to publish
- Decide what genuinely must be editable in place
Match the tool to the content model
A blog and a product catalogue are different problems. If your content is structured and reused across pages, you want a model you can query. If it is a handful of long-form pages, a visual builder may serve the team better than a bespoke schema.
- Prefer structured content when the same data appears in several places
- Prefer a page builder when editors compose one-off layouts
- Avoid any model you cannot export cleanly
Weigh the exit, not just the entrance
Every tool is pleasant on day one. The question is what happens when you outgrow it, when the pricing changes, or when you want to render the content somewhere new. Content you can export as plain data is content you can take with you.
- Check that content exports in a format you can re-import
- Confirm the API is documented and stable
- Avoid lock-in dressed up as convenience
Keep the rendering yours
We separate the content from how it is displayed, so the platform can change without rewriting the site. Markdown and structured fields travel well, and they render the same whether a page is served by one framework or another.
- Store prose as portable text, not as one provider's secret format
- Keep templates in your own codebase
- Version the content model alongside the code
Decide, then document
Whatever you choose, write the decision down. A short note on why the tool was picked saves the next person from relitigating it, and it turns the eventual migration into a project instead of a crisis.
