What’s the Difference Between a CMS, a Web Editor and an Online Site Builder?

Often we face this question – What’s the Difference between a CMS, a Blog, a Web Editor and an Online Site Builder? Unfortunately, it’s not as easy to answer this question as you may think. So read on to understand better

First let me take a guess; if you are reading this you’re probably thinking of starting a website. Good wishes for your effort however there is no substitute for experience, skill set and industry knowledge when it comes to the point of building websites. Hire only a professional and reputed service provider.

Let’s get back to the basics – what are CMS, Online Site Builders and Web Editors?

When people create and update websites, they can do it in one of many ways.

Using a Web Editor or a Text Editor – this “editor” program that I mentioned can either be a visual web editor like Dreamweaver or just a plain text editor like Notepad that comes with Windows. In lay language; using this method you run the editor on your own computer and create the entire web page on that computer. Once you are done the page transferred to your website on the Internet.

Using a Standalone Site Builder – the site builders are basically the web editors under another name. You run them on your computer, and when you finish designing your page, you use them to transfer your files to your actual website.

Using an Online Site Builder –  The difference between using such an online site builder and a standalone web editor is that you don’t run any program on your own computer at all. The pages are created directly on the web host’s computer and are automatically placed on your site.

Using a Content Management System (CMS) –  CMS or the Content Management System is the ideal solution for all the sites, which need to update their web contents like events, news, special information or galleries on a frequent basis. The CMS makes it really simple for the business owners to update their sites even without any web development skill and to save the money on website maintenance.

The websites based on CMS look pretty similar to the regular sites but there is no specific guideline. It is possible to get the accurate look that the business owners want in their CMS sites with a custom and unique design or it is possible to select from a wide range of premade designs.

There are numerous benefits that come with the right CMs. Once the service provider delivers the CMS to the companies, any of the staff members of the companies can become the web editor with the non-technical editing and the page templates required for uniform workflow and designs.

So, with the CMS web design the companies can update their contents regularly to attract both the users and the potential customers to the sites.