Hmm... it seems to me these advantages are not custom CMS advantages over WordPress but advantages of developing your site yourself or hiring someone else to do it.
Because if you hire a programmer to create a site that meets your requirements, they can use whatever tools they think best to achieve the exact same goal (including WP) - a site that looks and works like you want. Even regarding security, you can mask WP well enough so that nobody without back-end access would know it is used.
<declaration of conflict of interest >We write a CMS system: www.flarebox.com</declaration>
Though we write our own system and charge for it - we do also install, and even recommend free options at times - depending on our clients.
The biggest advantage (and Clinton's list is good) of a bespoke system is simply that you can get the website to assist the business - rather than somehow squeezing the business into the free tool you have downloaded.
It always amazes me the weird and wonderful ways in which I see wordpress being used - I have seen numerous businesses changing their business model to suit free software they can download - I have seen businesses choosing not to expand in areas crying out to be exploited - because their free software wouldn't cope...
the problem with free software is that the coders will not build in your bespoke code for you, and while you can contract someone else to do so, next version of the free software and you are back with your coders to re-write the bespoke bit because it no longer works...
It depends how seriously a business needs the code - our CMS is extremely modular to the extent that we do drive a lot of business processes from it - saving companies a lot of money.
But if you are playing at websites / only have content based needs - then free systems are probably fine - if you have process based needs, they are almost never ideal...
Alasdair
Nice post Alasdair, that about sums it up.
Unless the WordPress Foundation changes its ethos dramatically or collapses altogether, that ain't gonna happen - it's against their stated philosophy that all the software they develop "should be freely available to anyone to use for any purpose, and without permission" (and in perpetuity).Originally Posted by Clinton
But I agree with the broader point - if you're using anything provided by a commercial organisation, then you'd be foolish to count on it remaining available on the same terms for ever, unless the terms of your contract with them precludes them changing the licence unilaterally.
And of course it's true that out-of-the-box software is limited in what it can do for you, and may hold you back as a result. So far we've been fine, but virtually all our activities are content-based.
But that's not the problem of the software, is it? You can also find that businesses do the same thing when they get a completely new system created for them. The reason is because they think it's too expensive to create that part of the system.
I don't really see the problem there, on the contrary...
What prevents me from hiring someone to create a bespoke system based on free software? That would save me thousands of dollars as opposed to creating the system from scratch.
Also by getting a completely custom system built you become completely dependent on one company that has built it. It can be hard to find a replacement if they leave unless they've documented the system very well, which is rarely the case.
On the other hand, with free open source software, especially as popular as WP, there are a lot of developers out there who know it inside out. It wouldn't be that hard to find someone else to continue the job. And even if they had to rewrite some of the custom code, that wouldn't cost as much as to rewrite the whole system.
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