Ultimately, the decision to use a content management system depends on your budget
and what you require of your website. Simply put, if you’re looking to build an online
brochure that rarely, if ever, changes, a static site will save you time and money. Such
sites, however, don’t take advantage of all the flexibility that the Web has to offer. If you
expect that your site will be updated frequently, interactive and easily maintained, CMS
is the best choice. It will cost moreup front in terms of time and money, but you’ll save
big in the long run over a static site that needs to be updated regularly.

Here’s a closer look at the advantages and disadvantages of each type of website:

Planning & Deployment
To make administration easy and to support customization, CMS sites require more
planning and deployment work than static websites. One or more databases must be
built and connected to the CMS software, which must be installed on the server that
will host your website. Once that’s done, you will have to think about what theme to
use across the site, how users will navigate it and what features will be available. That
initial expenditure in time, thought and money will pay off in the future, however.
Once the site is running, new content can be added easily through an  administration
page. There’s no need for the administrator to know HTML, CSS or any other Web or
programming language.

Static sites are easy to set up, as long as you are familiar with HTML and Web servers.
You can write a page in a basic text editor and post it to the server. The complexity of
the site is dependent on your or your webmaster’s proficiency with HTML and
programming languages (for advanced functionality).
As long as the site is small and unlikely to be updated frequently, the static option can
be a quick,  affordable way to establish a Web presence.

Advantage: Static site for small, simple and infrequently updated sites; CMS
for larger sites that require frequent updates and advanced features

Maintenance
The biggest selling point of a CMS site is the fact that no special knowledge of HTML or
programming languages is required to update the site. If you can type and click your
mouse, you can administer a CMS. You or an employee can easily add new products,
announcements and other types of content that becomes immediately visible to your
site visitors as soon as it’s uploaded. If you decide to change the look and feel of your
site, you can switch the theme from one administration page, and it’s automatically
reflected across all your pages, whether your site consists of a few pages or thousands.

Maintenance of a static site is a challenge. Instead of a friendly interface, users must open
pages and manually adjust the links and text in HTML. If you add a page that you want to
link to across your 500 -page site, that means you must not only create the page but also
make the changes on every page that will link to it. The same is true when you decide to
adjust the overall theme of your site.  The risk of broken links is very high.

Advantage: CMS

Features
Static and CMS sites can support the same features, but there’s a huge difference in terms of
the cost and the effort in implementing them. To add a feature to a static site, a webmaster
must either develop

it from scratch or use existing code. Once it’s ready to be deployed, the server must be
configured to support it as well as every page that will use the new feature. . After that,
the site must be thoroughly tested to ensure no other functionality was broken.

CMS offers a simpler solution. Thousands of modules are available that need only be plugged
into the site. The installation, which can be done with a few clicks from an administration page,
takes care of server-side configurations automatically. If the new feature doesn’t work as expected,
it can be just as easily uninstalled – and everything returns to its previous state. Such modules
are often available at no cost and are developed by a community of thousands of volunteer
developers. If you want a feature that isn’t supported by an existing module, you can tap this
community to get one built.

Advantage: CMS

User Experience
You are building a site for your visitors. Whether the point is to share information or display
products, you want visitors to find what they are looking for and, above all, not be frustrated,
confused or bored.

If you choose a static site, it will be designed to work with the most popular Web browsers
such as Internet Explorer, Firefox or Safari. This “one size fits all” approach can be limiting.
Moreover, problems can arise when your visitors use a non-standard browser or are accessing
your site from something other than a PC.
The solution is to write code that redirects each browser or platform to pages designed for
their browser  or platform. Thistriples or quadruples the amount of work required when
updating the site.

CMS sites, because they are dynamic, can take into account the differences in browsers and
platforms when generating each page. If your visitor is using a tablet, it will be presented in a
way that makes it easily navigated by touch. Smartphone users will see a version that’s optimized
for small screens. And PC or Mac users will enjoy a consistent feel regardless of what Web browser
they are using. All this is done with little or no work; it’s all cooked into most existing CMS software.

Advantage: CMS
Whether your site is a few pages or thousands of pages, a content management system can help
you post your content and present it in a way that will have your visitors coming back for more.