Real Inbound Blog - Close the HubSpot Adoption Gap

Specifically why HubSpot is the Best WordPress Alternative

Written by Mark Hullin | Feb 16, 2022 12:01:00 PM

Choosing a Content Management System (CMS) is one of the first big steps in building your website to distribute content. With so many different ones that are constantly emerging and evolving, it can be difficult to make the right choice. Here we look at 2 popular CMSs - WordPress and HubSpot - and compare their unique technologies and features to help you understand how they each work with greater clarity on your evaluation process.

Overview

WordPress and CMS Hub are exceptional Content Management Systems (CMS), but they are very different from each other. While it’s clear that CMS Hub provides a unique campaign creation platform, we understand that WordPress is popular because it allows users to design custom solutions for digital marketing, eCommerce businesses, and bloggers alike with their plug-ins, plugins, and themes. This is something of an open secret, but we all know that WordPress and CMS Hub are superb ends of the Major CMS spectrum. Whether you're curious about which end is right for you or thinking about creating your own Minor CMS, then let's take a quick look at how these two products compare (in no particular order):

HubSpot

CMS Hub is an online content management system (CMS).  CMS Hub provides marketers and developers with the tools they need to build amazing websites that engage customers. A single platform allows users to create content, optimise their site for conversions, and gain insight into their performance.

WordPress

Using WordPress requires you to install, or configure, it on your server or to use a third-party hosting provider. Besides basic elements like content creation tools, it also has plugins for SEO, analytics, sitemaps, and other features.

Pricing

Let's examine the common expenses associated with building, hosting, and managing a website in comparison with WordPress and HubSpot. 

SaaS vs Open Source

 CMS Hub is a SaaS product that has a recurring monthly or annual fee. The HubSpot CRM platform comes with a wide variety of features for marketing, SEO, social media, and live chat, all included as part of the sticker price. In addition to our content tools, regular maintenance and updates, and chat, phone, and email support are also included. You will hold full ownership over your content and data with our easy export guide, use of GitHub as an API to pull data from HubSpot and leveraging GitHub as part of your developer workflow.

Although WordPress is free on the surface, there are many hidden costs to operating a website that adds up quickly. You should take into account features like hosting, security, plugins, and regular site maintenance when choosing what CMS platform to use.

CMS Software Costs

 

 

HUBSPOT CMS HUB STARTER

HUBSPOT CMS HUB PROFESSIONAL

HUBSPOT CMS HUB ENTERPRISE

WORDPRESS

         

EXPENSE

Fundamental website management applications

£19/mo (source)

£297/mo (source)

£990/mo (source)

Free

Hosting

CMS Hub provides superior hosting for all 3 membership tiers. The price doesn't change dependent on the number of webpages, storage space, or traffic. (source)

 

 

The most prominent hosting platform for WordPress, Pantheon, offers a free plan, a performance plan, and a custom elite plan. Choosing a plan depends on how much traffic, space, and pages you need (Source).

Plugins

CMS Hub, a CRM platform that allows integrations with over 650 apps and integrations, extends the functionality of your website within HubSpot. Additionally, almost 80% of the plugins listed in this article are available out of the box in CMS Hub.

 

 

There are more than 58,000 plugins available for WordPress. By installing 24 of the most popular plugins, you would pay between £210 and £980 per month.

Security

In addition to a standard SSL certificate, CMS Hub provides a web application firewall (WAF) and 24/7 security monitoring. (source)

 

 

Keeping your WordPress website secure and safe is your responsibility as an open-source platform. Depending on the type of security system you have, monthly fees range from £12 to £30. (source)

Maintenance, updates, and support

The backend maintenance and updates of CMS Hub are handled by CMS Hub as a SaaS CMS. Should any customer have questions about their website, their world-class support team is available 24/7.

 

 

You will need to ensure someone is running regular maintenance on your website unless you have an internal team that handles website maintenance and upkeep. An average business website could cost anywhere between £75/month and £3300/month, depending on its size and complexity (source).

TOTAL

Estimated cost for 1 year

£228

£7128

£11880

£4000 - £60000

Capabilities

Websites are your most valuable asset when it comes to offering seamless digital experiences to your customers. Besides assisting customers throughout their buying journey, your CRM system should provide your front-line employees with the tools that they need to improve your business. Comparing HubSpot's CMS Hub vs. WordPress across a number of its most critical features.

Content Creation

Sites like G2 rate CMS Hub as the best CMS for mid-market companies. This CMS lets you build your own themes or choose from thousands of themes. The drag-and-drop layout allows you to add, modify, and create content quickly. With CMS Hub, you can choose from thousands of themes or create your own customised theme. You'll have all the information you need to tailor the customer experience at your fingertips because CMS Hub is built on top of HubSpot CRM, one of the most comprehensive databases on the market. The blogging and landing page tools offered by CMS Hub provide an easy way for your business to grow traffic and generate leads. 

According to recent statistics, about 30% of all websites on the Internet are directly linked to WordPress. If you use WordPress, you can create text-based content, however, you will probably need extra resources or templates to change the layout of your content. To drive your website's success, you will need to create several specialised pages - for some of which you will need technical help. To add other software to your sites, such as A/B testing or live chat, you will have to install plugins or subscribe to additional services. A secure, fast, and functional WordPress website can come with many hidden costs.

Search Engine Optimisation

The CMS Hub integrates a powerful SEO recommendation tool and on-page SEO tools for landing pages, blog posts, and website pages. Additionally, you can organise your content in search-engine-friendly ways using our content strategy tool. Additionally, we have a native integration with Google Search Console, which lets you leverage data directly from Google to inform your SEO strategy.

There aren't any native SEO functions in WordPress, but several plugins are available - some paid, some free - that can help you. If you have more plugins, you'll have to manage more software, pay for more costs, and be more concerned about security.

Blog

Creating a blog is one of the best ways to attract and generate customers. However, many first-timers will decide whether or not they want to become customers after reading your content. After all, one can't forge a relationship without any prior contact. One way that your CMS can help you with this is by making it easy for you to create great, search engine optimised content for your blog so that potential clients who need help find it before anyone else.

WordPress began as a blogging platform but has since evolved into a full-fledged CMS. WordPress themes are a great way to create blogs, but any changes or edits need to be made by a developer depending on the theme selected. Most of the time, a developer will have to be hired for many site changes because of this. You may be required to install plugins if you want your content to be search-engine-optimised, which may create a security risk.

Contrary to this, CMS Hub was built with marketers in mind, and it offers an easy-to-use interface for creating, optimising, publishing, and analysing blogs. HubSpot includes all the features needed to serve great-looking content on mobile and optimise it for search engines. You don't need any plugins or extra software to get started.

Analytics & Reporting

By using CMS Hub, you are provided with all the analytics you need to measure the performance of your website and to calculate its ROI. Additionally, CMS Hub will provide you with more robust insights and actionable data since it is directly integrated with our CRM. CMS Hub, for instance, lets you easily create lists of contacts who visit specific pages on your site, download content offers, or engage in live chats. The reporting will become more advanced as you grow, and we will grow with you.

WordPress comes with limited content reporting, like page views, but any deeper analysis requires a separate solution. WordPress is often used in conjunction with a third-party analytics tool, such as Google Analytics, with each tool managed separately. Using this method, data silos are created that are not connected, resulting in an incomplete picture and less actionable information. HubSpot for WordPress is a powerful plug-in that provides analytics, forms, live chat, and so much more.

Premium Hosting

As a standard feature, CMS Hub has premium hosting and security capabilities. As a SaaS CMS, it provides content delivery, so that you can focus instead on the customer experience. It's easy to stay safe and secure on your website with SSL certificates, a web application firewall (WAF), a Content Delivery Network (CDN), and 24/7 security and threat monitoring. 

Because WordPress is open source, it does not come with any of the security features that CMS Hub provides by default. Rather, you should ensure the speed, security, and reliability of your site yourself. You would have to use several tools, but you would not be able to spend as much time and energy building out an awesome website for your customers. Moreover, WordPress plugins enable bad actors to hack your site via its extensions. Building and maintaining a WordPress website can put you or your customers at risk unless you take extreme precautions. 

A single, integrated platform

CMS Hub is the content management system. A part of HubSpot CRM, it provides content management capability. In a nutshell, you will find all the tools that you need out of the box to create a seamless digital experience that your customers will love. It was designed from the ground up as an integrated toolkit with all facets designed to work together seamlessly, forming one unified and consistent user experience.

The WordPress Software platform, like many other open-source systems, allows you to customise your site with the use of plugins. These third-party solutions were built by different software providers, and it usually takes companies some time to see which ones are right for their needs. While this approach can help WordPress grow, it'll also require custom development to ensure they work together and are valuable to your business. This not only makes WordPress more difficult for your team to adopt but it's also limiting as WordPress is prevented from scaling up with your business in the same way as a solution that was originally designed for a specific set of purposes would be because the other parts have yet to be developed or integrated at this point.

CMS Hub Benefits

Professional CMSs should provide these benefits. Choosing a CMS is an important decision, so professional marketers must choose one that provides a stable, secure, and powerful platform. Let's explore each in more depth.

Speed

Your website load time matters a lot. If your site does not load within 3 seconds, 53% of visitors will leave it. Choose a website hosting company with adequate bandwidth and an infrastructure that is set up in a way that will allow you to succeed.

Security

Your company's reputation and brand are at risk, so protect your users' data. Make sure you speak with many marketers, read reviews, and look into hacking incidents before choosing a CMS.

Stability

Most companies today lose revenue and opportunities when their websites are down. Many prominent CMS companies publish uptime statistics showing their reliability. With 99.99% uptime, HubSpot-powered websites are faster, more secure, and more reliable thanks to its dedicated team of experts.

Imagination is the only limitation.

HubSpot’s CRM platform comes with a built-in dataset and extensive developer documentation, and the possibilities are only limited by your imagination with CMS Hub.