Deciding on what CMS to use is a decision that can significantly affect your website creation and maintenance experience. So you’ve narrowed the choice down to Umbraco vs. WordPress, but which one is right for you? In this article, our web design team discusses the differences between Umbraco and WordPress, the pros and cons, use cases, frequently asked questions and more.
What is WordPress?
WordPress is a CMS that can be the perfect option to manage a website for beginners and experienced coders alike. It provides the option of using a no-code drag-and-drop page builder like Divi or Elementor which can help you create your website. If you do have technical knowledge and are an experienced developer, WordPress has one of the best open-source codebases in the world, with reams of documentation available.
If you decide to work with an agency or developer to build a custom solution, using WordPress can make for easier management of your website in future.
What is Umbraco?
Umbraco CMS in contrast is an open-source content management system designed for developers, rather than for everyone. It’s build using Microsoft’s .NET framework, ASP.NET and is written in C# programming language, providing developers with large control over their web projects.
Umbraco vs. WordPress: Usability
WordPress is easy-to-use and has a highly intuitive dashboard, making it a great solution for beginners. You can expect a slight learning curve, especially when it comes to installing plugins, but the intuitive interface, and the community support offered makes this simple, once you’ve got used to it.
WordPress does not require any technical knowledge to get started. Technical knowledge can be useful at a later stage in order to make more advanced customisations, however WordPress allows you to make extensive customisations without any technical knowledge through the extensive plugins and themes offered.
Umbraco requires development expertise in order to set up and manage your website. One-click installation is not offered, unlike WordPress.
WordPress allows you to upgrade to newer versions with ease from the dashboard, however Umbraco requires a developer to run specific command line queries when a new update is available.
Implementing new features on Umbraco is difficult to do without a developer, unlike on WordPress where this can be done through plugins.
Umbraco vs. WordPress: Security
WordPress is a highly secure CMS. However, potential security vulnerabilities can appear if you install faulty plugins, or don’t regularly update your site, themes and plugins. Maintaining your WordPress website, creating backups and regularly updating plugins and themes is key to keeping your WordPress website secure. Security can also be largely dependent on your hosting provider too. Due to its large user base, WordPress can be a target for hacking attacks.
Umbraco also offers a secure option. The Microsoft .NET framework offers an additional layer of protection through Code Access Security (CAS). due to the smaller market share, this is less of a target for hackers. This option offers customisable security features. However, with Umbraco there are fewer out-of-the-box security solutions compared to WordPress, and more technical expertise is required in order to implement security measures.
Umbraco vs. WordPress: E-commerce functionality
Umbraco does offer e-commerce functionality, however this may require more development effort to set up compared to WordPress. Through Umbraco, you can build custom e-commerce solutions, and it does offer integration options with third party e-commerce tools such as Ucommerce and Merchello among others.
WordPress offers e-commerce functionality through WooCommerce, a popular e-commerce plugin. This offers a user-friendly interface for managing products and orders, as well as robust payment gateway integrations and scalability as your business grows.
Umbraco vs. WordPress: Customisation
Umbraco offers huge control and flexibility for developers through a powerful API, access to the CMS’s core functionality and customisation of complex features.
WordPress offers extensive customisation through its plugins. More advanced customisations can be more tricky to implement on WordPress, and will require technical knowledge. However, with over 59,000 plugins to choose from, WordPress is an excellent choice if customisation is a priority for you.
Umbraco vs. WordPress: Scalability
Both Umbraco and WordPress are good options for delivering high-performing websites.
WordPress offers plugins such as WP Rocket and Autoptimize so you can improve the performance of your website through caching technology, without needing any technical knowledge, with ease.
Umbraco requires a hands-on approach to performance optimisation and development expertise is required in order to make changes. Caching must be manually set up and code manually optimised. However, Microsoft’s .NET framework which Umbraco uses is known for its performance and scalability. For complex websites, Umbraco may be considered to scale better compared to WordPress, which uses PHP.
Both WordPress and Umbraco can be used as Headless CMS’s.
Umbraco vs. WordPress: SEO
Umbraco offers the opportunity to optimise for SEO, however this requires more work to set up and implement optimisations than WordPress. You will need development knowledge in order to implement even simple SEO optimisations. Google updates its algorithm several times a year, so it’s important your site is able to be reactive and optimisations to be made if needed.
A benefit of Umbraco is it does allow you to create your own site architecture optimised for SEO, without any limitations. However, this can also be done when using WordPress if you work with WordPress developers.
Complex websites may choose Umbraco as from an SEO perspective more flexibility and customisability is offered than on WordPress if you have development knowledge. However, WordPress sites can be highly optimised for SEO and tend to perform well in search engines, so is an excellent option.
Using WordPress, SEO optimisations can be implemented without needing technical development knowledge. If your website requires unique SEO architecture, Umbraco may be your preferred choice.
Umbraco vs. WordPress: Content management
WordPress comes with predefined content types like posts and pages as well as features like categories and tags. The WYSIWYG editor makes for easy content creation, while the plugin options provide extensive functionalities.
Umbraco in contrast provides more flexibility in terms of content structure and organisation, however requires manual configuration of content types and taxonomies, so it’s important this is set up correctly.
Umbraco vs. WordPress: Support
According to W3 Techs, WordPress is used by 43.5% of all websites, whereas Umbraco is used by less than 0.1%.
Umbraco does have an active developer community, and there’s a community discord, X community, and Github repository you can make use of. There’s also various in person events you can attend too.
WordPress has a large engaged community, and a lot of support is available through forums as well as through documentation, resources and tutorials.
Both Umbraco and WordPress have good levels of support that are delivered in different ways.
WordPress offers a great deal of support for non technical users, or those with limited knowledge, which will allow you to customise your site without needing the advanced level of knowledge you’d require to customise your website using Umbraco.
Use cases
Umbraco and WordPress excel in different areas.
Umbraco is a good choice if you have web development knowledge and prefer a custom-built site. It offers a flexible, customisable option for complex websites without a reliance on third-party plugins.
WordPress is a good option for a variety of websites from small to large businesses. WordPress is more user-friendly than Umbraco, and minimal technical knowledge is required to get started. Plugins offered allow you to customise and optimise your website.
FAQs
Why use Umbraco instead of WordPress?
You may prefer to use Umbraco over WordPress if you’d like to have full control over every aspect of your CMS. Select WordPress if you prioritise greater SEO benefits and better ease-of-use.
How popular is Umbraco CMS?
Umbraco is used by less than 0.1% of websites.
Is Umbraco SEO-friendly?
Umbraco can be SEO friendly, if you have the technical knowledge in order to set up and optimise your website effectively.
Is Umbraco better than WordPress?
This depends on your intent. Umbraco is an excellent choice if you want to have full control over every aspect of your CMS. WordPress is the preferred option if you need an easy-to-use CMS, prioritise customisation and if SEO is important to you.
Find out more about WordPress vs. other platforms in our guides: WordPress vs. Wix vs. Squarespace, WordPress vs. Joomla, WordPress vs. Drupal, WordPress vs. Webflow, HubSpot vs. WordPress, and Headless CMS vs. WordPress.
Yellowball has an award-winning team of WordPress website designers to get your ideal WordPress website up and running. Visit our portfolio to see some of the amazing things we’ve been able to achieve with WordPress. Have a vision for your website? Talk to us! We’ll make it a reality.
