2005 in the web community was as I recall heralded as the year the Content Management System (CMS). Now five years later there really isn't any excuse not to be using a CMS, even if you are just a one person show.
To prove my point I've made a little comparison below:
|
Comparison Point |
Static Website |
Dynamic Website |
| Change content | Only a website designer with the right skills and applications can update the website | Anyone with basic computing skills and a web enabled browser can manage the site |
| Time | You have to wait until your web designer is ready willing and able to make your changes | You can make changes 24/7 365 days a year - for free! |
| Sitewide changes | These can be very costly on depending on how the site was built. Changing something like the menu usually means downloading the entire site, changing every page, checking it all then uploading the whole site again. | Sitewide changes can be done easily on a dynamic site since on a good CMS like Joomla the whole site is based on one 'template'. Changing a menu item can literally take just seconds and is done purely in the admin are on the web. |
| Remote changes | What if you are away from the office and need to urgently change something on your site? You'll have to hope your web designer is available | You can make changes yourself from anywhere with internet access |
| Add functionality | If you need extra functionality for example an online shop it's a tricky long drawn out process to add one to a static site and sometimes not possible depending on your hosting |
If you are using a popular CMS like Joomla adding a shop can be done anytime without much hassle and it will all be within your websites current styling. With Joomla there are over 4500 extensions already made which you can easily add to your website. |
| Expansion | So you need new areas on your websites with a few new pages? oh dear it's going to take a bit of time for sure! | Adding new pages is easy, you can do it yourself or you web designer can do it for you in small amount of time |
| Cost | Cheap to start with depending on the size of the site |
The initial setup cost can sometimes be more although as time goes on dynamic sites are actually faster to setup from the beginning and therefor cheaper. |
| Security | Static website can be more secure since they have far less code - less potential breaking points. Although the benefits of hacking a static site are minimal since a static site is usually very small in terms of content |
All little less secure than a static site due to being very popular. With a little extra effort though this can be easily overcome for most scenarios. |
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