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CMS Comparisons

Last Updated on January 5, 2023

You’re starting up or revamping your company’s online presence. You HAVE to stand out, because web traffic is the source of the majority of your clients. You know you have lots of options, the best of which are generally known to be HubSpot and WordPress, but how do you choose between them? That’s what we’ll help you decide today.

Initial Differences

WordPress was built from the ground up as the world’s best content management system (CMS) and blogging platform. Approximately 70-80 million websites use WordPress.

HubSpot is a fantastic customer relationship management (CRM) platform. US Digital Partners (USDP) has worked with HubSpot for over ten years. We have dozens of clients currently using HubSpot for prospect/customer tracking, email marketing, content development, and analytics. 

Both systems still excel at what they were designed for, so it’s up to you to consider your specific needs.

Considerations

  • Customization
  • Staying Up-to-date
  • Job Opportunities
  • Rights and Data
  • Analytics
  • Support

Customization

How important is customization to you? Do you like to work within an established template or go wild with your own beautiful custom designs? WordPress and HubSpot differ widely on this, with WordPress offering significantly more options for independent design. The entrepreneurial designer finds an open palette for expression in WordPress, if that’s what you like.

 HubSpot uses templates to design its sites: you pick a template and then customize it for your needs. Picking HubSpot CMS is a little like picking Wix.com or SquareSpace.com instead of building a customized site. If you’re looking for a supported and established look to boost your confidence, this is the way to go.

 

USDP developer working at computer

Staying Up-to-date

How important is it for you to update your website? With WordPress, you will always be on the latest version of the platform, and a relatively low-cost, low-effort refresh can feel like a significant design improvement. You will essentially get far better lifetime value from your website redesign investment and avoid the need for another significant website redesign project.
If you frequently need or desire to customize certain areas, HubSpot might not provide the upgrades without the help of a designer. Their in-house designer may even require a full-scale redesign in order to fix a small cosmetic change.

 

Job Opportunities

How do you like to present job opportunities? This relates to staying updated because this is naturally something that you will change often on your site. WordPress can provide an improved integration with Bullhorn data and allow you to present new opportunities in a streamlined and savvy way.

The current method of using Heroku to connect Bullhorn and HubSpot has worked, but the sophisticated points of integration between Bullhorn and WordPress seem to be better supported. There are no software licensing or ongoing support costs for WordPress unless there are costs associated with plugins. 

 

Rights and Data

Do you want to own the rights to your site? How important is access to your data? While both HubSpot and WordPress allow access to nearly all of your data, you will definitely experience more independence with WordPress. You maintain rights and the ability to switch from host to host as you will.

With HubSpot, you will always need a HubSpot developer for any functionality beyond HubSpot’s modules. It is not a fully functional CMS built for you to manage independently. HubSpot is more costly to maintain and develop, and because it is a closed-source platform, you don’t even own your site — HubSpot does. If you’re looking for flexibility without the help of a web developer, HubSpot probably isn’t your best choice. However, if you’re looking for support from a developing or marketing team, HubSpot can provide it.

 

Analytics dashboard on a laptop screen

Analytics

How willing are you to explore plugins to manage your web traffic? WordPress requires the installation and use of further plugins in order to analyze data. They’re easy to download and customize, providing options. However, you also have the option of integrating HubSpot analytics for a WordPress site, which we’ll address below. 

HubSpot definitely has the upper hand on analytics, providing instant data following your website launch. Again, do you want a more customized solution or a one-track solution?

 

Support

We’ve mentioned support quite a few times. How much support will you need? WordPress is an open platform, ideal if you have in-house developers who work in their own brilliance to a creative task. It’s open-source, and you can find many digital agencies that can work on the platform as needed.


HubSpot requires you to find a dependable HubSpot development partner, and a partner that also has SEO, content strategy, and digital advertising competencies. You might, in fact, need to develop support relationships with several different firms to complement your internal team. As mentioned above, simple changes might require contacting your development partner. 

 

Two USDP developers collaborating and laughing

Our Pick

USDP has a team of 29 people that provide all these support services and more. We fully support the use of HubSpot’s Marketing, Sales, and Service Hubs. These are solid tools to support any company’s digital marketing efforts. However, we would recommend building the website on the highly effective and customizable WordPress CMS platform. 

While the HubSpot CMS Hub is effective in streamlining nearly every marketing technique, a lot is sacrificed by building your actual website on the CMS Hub. The Marketing, Sales, and Service Hub tools can also work just as well with WordPress. Many, like this strategy director, claim the HubSpot CRM makes the WordPress CMS even more powerful. That’s been our experience with clients who integrate HubSpot’s strengths with those of WordPress. 

Contact us if you’d like some solid advice on finding the right CMS for your specific business!