This is a tricky one. There are pros and cons to both a custom system and an open source Content Management System (CMS). With a custom system such are ours the benefits are that it’s mostly ‘unknown’ so there aren’t groups of hackers looking to find exploits. It also has the benefit of being something we can tailor to your business and needs. On the other hand, a system like WordPress has a lot more DIY things built in and access to many plugins which can add new functionality to your site. The other factors to consider here are moving your site. If you want the ability to move your site between web hosts, then an Open Source system such as WordPress would be the best bet, whereas a custom system is often locked to the developers hosting, to protect the codebase.
If you are having a corporate website or ecommerce shop, then WordPress is often the best way to go. It offers a number of excellent features that make updating your website really easy. Our team always ensure we structure WordPress to give you access to update as much content as possible in the easiest possible way.
If we are building a more complex system, such as a property database or a recruitment portal, we would recommend our own system. A platform like that would be quite data/database heavy and as such, a lighter code base can often mean significant performance gains over an Open Source system which has to cover a multitude of options.
If you would like more information about either our CMS or how an Open Source system could work for your business, please contact us.