Why Wagtail is a great CMS for modern websites
Wagtail is a great CMS for modern websites, offering all the functionality you could ever need without a ton of restrictions. No matter how big your business is, there’s a real possibility you’d be better served by the enterprise-style features of Wagtail. So today, we’ll dive into the benefits of this platform, the popular organisations that use it and when you might choose it over other popular options like WordPress.
What is Wagtail used for?
Wagtail is a content management system (CMS) that’s used for building content-rich websites, intranets and headless CMS applications. It’s supported by the Python and Django frameworks, and it’s ideal for big, sprawling multilingual sites and complex content workflows. That’s because it’s extremely customisable. Wagtail takes the guardrails off your content. They explain, “With Wagtail, you won’t be forced to accept a template or to rework a blog format. From day one, you get to [customise] how your content is [organised] and how it is displayed. Wagtail can be integrated with any frontend you want, giving you complete control over the design and feel of your website.”
Is Wagtail a good CMS?
Wagtail isn’t just a good CMS, it’s a great option if you want an intuitive admin interface and features like StreamField for flexible content structures. It also has strong accessibility features, including compliance with WCAG 2.1 and Section 508, giving you a safe space to scale and grow. Because it’s open-source, Wagtail has real flexibility and an ecosystem of experts, just like us, who can help you manage any kind of data structure. Just look at what we achieved for Prindex. They had massive datasets to wrangle, but our Wagtail development resulted in a smooth data architecture and a UX that users raved about. Plus, the site ran more swiftly (even with vast amounts of fresh data), showcasing the sheer power of Wagtail with Python.
Who uses Wagtail
It’s no surprise then that government agencies, educational institutions, multi-nationals and charities the world over choose Wagtail when they simply must have a clean, modern and well-functioning website. ASA, Google, the NHS and MIT all use Wagtail, so if you’ve ever visited their pages, you’ve seen the power of this CMS first-hand. It’s great for a range of organisational sizes. You simply need to have big content and data challenges to overcome that are unsuitable for something like WordPress.
When should you use Wagtail vs WordPress?
Wagtail is the ‘big guns’ of CMS platforms. If you’re a small business just wanting out-of-the-box features, then WordPress is the simpler option. It can still be customised enough to look distinctive without the longer process of full front and backend development. Wagtail should be used when you need greater flexibility, total control over the UX, more advanced security features or scalability for complex content structures.
It’s clear that Wagtail is a great CMS for modern websites, and we love it because it’s a robust, developer-friendly one too. Ready to leverage Wagtail for your own environment? Talk to us today about how we can help you scope, design, develop and roll out your own Wagtail project.
