I spend a good chunk of time reading about CMS platforms and I usually find myself amazed at how much organizations are willing to pay for proprietary software and the licenses associated with proprietary software. I’ve worked with .Net based CMS platforms which require a Microsoft SQL Server license along with the CMS license. I’ve worked with Java based CMS platforms which require an additional Oracle license. Once an organization adopts a closed platform they end up finding themselves married to their vendors.
One of the reasons I am such a fan of WordPress is the ubiquity of the platform it runs on. The large majority of hosting providers have low cost PHP hosting. The LAMP stack is most widely supported platform on the web. While this may mean a greater chance of running into an exploit, a solid provider should keep their environment properly maintained with the most stable and secure versions of each application.
Because there are no license fees involved with WordPress you only have to worry about relationships with two vendors – Your developer and your hosting company. If you use a cpanel based hosting solution then picking up your entire site and moving it to another hosting provider that supports cpanel is incredibly easy. If your relationship with your developer turns sour there are many competent WordPress developers out there.
A ubiquitous platform leads to choices and freedom. You don’t have to worry about paying for expensive “enterprise” software. You just hit the ground running and customize your platform and focus on making it the perfect fit for organizations of any size.
