It's a question I imagine a lot of small businesses run into: we need to get our business on the web--should we go with a WordPress or Drupal CMS (Content Management System), or should we go with one of those online, out-of-the-box solutions like Wix, or Duda?

For big companies running big budgets, a CMS offers the flexibility to draw outside the lines and chase after custom features and custom branding; whats more, the CMS route offers seemingly endless possibilities when it comes to scaling upwards.

The CMS comes at a not-always-obvious cost, though: despite WordPress and Drupal being open source (read, free*, with an asterisk), they should really be thought of as a subscription--something akin to the "Software as a Service" (SaaS) plan offered by Adobe's Creative Cloud--i.e.; if you want to use our software, pay us a monthly/yearly fee. For Adobe users who can afford it, it makes sense: when software becomes a service, you can be sure that your product is always at the forefront of industry standards; your monthly dues ensure that your product stays secure, bug free (we hope), and compatible with the newest features and integrations. A CMS is no different. By installing one, you (or a qualified developer) commit yourself to keeping your site compatible with with industry standards beyond your control. You'll want to set aside a monthly budget for this. There's a nasty catch, though: If you can't keep up with standards, your site will die; it's just a matter of time.

A Tale of Tragedy:

It's a trap! Some small businesses, not knowing any better, assume that the CMS is a one time install--a one time investment that they can walk away from once it's been built. Walking away is the death of your site, though--and, here's how it plays out: it reads like something out of Shakespeare...

A conventionally attractive college grad with a rockstar social media presence says, "yeah, I can set you up with a site!--it'll only take me a day or two to get you onto WordPress, and I can do it for next to free."

"Score!"--you think. In the blink of an eye, your site is up and you place an elegant check next to the list item for "things businesses should do in order to be business-like".

The site does fine for a year or two, but one day you open up your front-page to find that your Google Maps widget isn't showing anymore. One by one, over the next year or so, your integrations begin to break. You know you need to do something about it, but the college grad dude slithered away to Denver for a full time job with a shady social-media marketing startup and you're paralyzed with fear: "I could try and fix it--but what if I make it even worse?"

It's on the exact day that you finally suck it up and admit you need to hire a professional that it happens: developers call it the "white screen of death". Your site no longer loads.

In the fashion of Juliette, who walks in on her lover dead on an altar, you weep a final tear and resolve to part with the world of content management systems: you decide you'll rebuild your site on Wix.

Thus ends our tragedy.

Was it black magic? No--no, the death of your site was something far more mundane: your hosting company, in keeping with industry standards, retired from your server the only version of PHP your CMS was still compatible with. They probably sent you several notifications regarding the change, but not being a developer you ignored it. You don't know the difference between PHP5.6 and what they use to fertilize the fields across town. Whats more, like Juliette's poor Romeo, your site isn't actually dead. Oh the horror! Here's the kicker, though: the cost to retrieve your site from this altered state may very well be beyond what it would have cost you to hire a developer at the outset and keep your site well maintained.

There are certainly other perils you'd face without a developer (there's more than one way to kill a CMS), but the Romeo & Juliette death is a classic. I see it more often than I'd care to. The moral of the story: set aside a monthly budget for maintaining your site. If you don't, your initial investment can wind up in the toilet.

Is it expensive to run a Drupal/WordPress site? It doesn't have to be. Are Wix/Duda (et. al.) cheaper options? I'll wager a definite "yes".

Doing it on the cheap:

I won’t pretend to know all the in’s and outs of website building platforms like Wix—but they’re nothing new. They look like the modern equivalent of Geocities—a platform meant to fill an obvious void created by an industry that leaves anyone who can’t afford a developer to fend for themselves. They offer increasingly robust templates and integrations, allowing non-developers to deploy some of the same features standard in the CMS community. Where the "servicing" costs of a CMS aren't always visible from the outset, Wix (and others) make no equivocation: they are offering a fixed price service at bargain rates; they get a point for that. Also, by selling their platform as a "service" you can be sure that maintenance will never be deferred; the Romeo & Juliette story isn't an issue, so they get another point for that. That may be where the points stop, though, because these kinds of platforms fall short on some important fronts:

For starters, they'll never be on a first name basis with you.  Each time you send a support ticket, the Bangalore-based developer* addressing your issue will almost certainly be seeing your site for the first time: they will know nothing of your ongoing marketing plans; they'll have no background on site history. You will be a number, and their only focus will be on closing your ticket as soon as they can so that they can get on to the long queue of other issues amassing in their inboxes. Developers aren't the most social animals to begin with: we prefer just the facts, and nothing but the facts. Vague and impassioned tickets reading "OMG! My sales page isn't working!--Can you fix ASAP, Plz! Thnx!" are about as meaningful to us as a free pass to the tanning salon on a mid-summer day in Tuscon. A developer in India is going to look at that ticket, sigh one of those sighs that loosely translates to, "this job is sucking the life out of me one e-mail at a time," and simply send you a long list of questions in reply: "URL? Browser? Browser version? Page element affected? Date affected? Desktop? Mobile?" A local developer who built your site, on the other hand, is likely to know which page you're referring to, and may even know the work history on the page affected such that he/she can anticipate what the problem might be.

* = I don't actually know whether Wix, Duda and others outsource their customer support to India; I do know that the trend is real, though. I also know that our Indian counterparts are tremendously skilled. The point here has nothing to do with ability; it has everything to do with first-hand knowledge of your needs.

Secondly, you'll encounter more limits to your marketing vision with Wix (et. al.) than if you were to invest in a CMS. If that vision is narrow or undefined, platforms like Wix and Duda may be a good fit in the interim. Their platforms are based on deploying generic features, and for vague or narrow needs generic tools can be highly cost effective. As you discover how these generic features can help enable your marketing vision, though, you may reach a point where you can see beyond them. In the long run, features shouldn't determine your marketing strategies; rather, your vision should determine the features you deploy. There's a valid question as to whether a service like Wix/Duda can handle the specifics of your unique vision. Drupal and WordPress have far fewer limits, although the more unique your feature the more you can expect to pay.

So how do you decide? In the end, I think the determining factors are budget and flexibility in relation to your long term marketing vision. It's possible to build and maintain a CMS on a lean budget. The question is whether you can get like services from a website building platform like Wix for a lesser cost. What do you want your web presence to be in 5 years? in 10 years? If you plan to scale upwards, I'd wager the CMS to be a much better investment. But, maybe that's more than you need or want? A good first step is to get a hold of a developer: discuss your budget, discuss your short-term and long term needs. An honest developer will give you an honest opinion regarding what they think fits your vision best.