Why organizations choose eZ Publish / eZ Platform

If content is or needs to become a core part of your business, choosing a content management system (CMS) is critical. Here's a look at why some of our clients and partners chose eZ.

“When we first started, we didn’t know we needed a CMS,” says Siobhan O’Grady, COO of FindaTopDoc, a doctor search and bookings site run by New York-based International Association of Healthcare Professionals. “We started with a very basic in-house solution consisting of various folders for organizing content, and we thought it would work. Then it started to get hairy.”

O’Grady took several months to research content management systems. After crossing WordPress off her list because it wasn’t robust enough for their content needs, she discovered eZ Publish / eZ Platform. Its implementation by big content brands like The Christian Science Monitor and Elle Magazine was a selling point. “This made me feel confident that it could handle large amounts of content.”

O’Grady also wanted a CMS that could be customized to suit her specific needs. “I didn’t want to be cornered into a system that didn’t fit all of my needs. I wanted a system that allowed for customization. The most important thing for me was not to feel pigeonholed. I didn’t want to build our site around their specs.”

After working with Mugo Web for a couple of years, and with its new CMS in place, FindaTopDoc has become a startup success story - growing its traffic tenfold and nearly doubling its revenue in the last year alone. And now it’s publishing and leveraging more than 1,000 pieces of new content every month.

How to choose your CMS

A lot has been written about how to choose a content management system, including our own take on the CMS selection process, wherein we recommend choosing your development team first, and letting them suggest a system that meets your needs.

It’s a perspective echoed by many of our colleagues as well. “It’s better to select the team you want to work with and let them make recommendations,” says Sebastien Morel of Novactive.

“Some clients come to us and want Drupal or WordPress but they don’t really have any arguments for their choice; it’s just trendy to do it.”

The fact is, most CMSes offer versions of the same core functionality:

• Content structure
• Editorial workflows
• User permissions
• Content scheduling and placement
• Third-party integrations

So the choice of CMS should come down to factors other than a simple comparison of features; questions that relate more to your business strategy and goals.

“We try to take a strategic approach and talk about the content strategy, roadmap, and key performance indicators, and we aim to educate the customer on the long road,” says Bard Farstad, co-founder and head of product innovation at eZ Systems. “If they’re just looking for a simple site, I would suggest WordPress. But for bigger strategic goals, we can talk about that.”

“Most people want longevity,” Morel says. “You can do a project in Drupal, but with Drupal, you cannot migrate, you need to stick with the version you have. They release a new version every two years, but to get it you do have to start over with your website. Most people want something long-term.”

Why choose eZ?

“Everything is much easier with eZ,” said Lyne Gauthier, events manager at Giro, a transportation technology company based in Quebec. “Our main goal was to [have our end users] be able to achieve things as simply as possible without too much programming. Once Espace Courbe [our development team] explained the differences between some of the CMSes, it was obvious that the software to use was eZ.”

If your development team recommends eZ Publish or eZ Platform, it’s probably for these reasons:

• Content is key to your business and you publish a lot of it
• Your web content needs are complex and may include editorial workflows, user accounts, and integrations with marketing automation or fulfillment providers
• You want the support of a great community of developers and partners
• You’re thinking long-term about extensibility, upgradability, and performance

“eZ Publish is a great CMS,” says O’Grady. “As we've had success, our use of the eZ CMS has grown. Every week we meet with Mugo: We always need new functionality, and the system is customizable so we can change things as we go.”

Looking for more reasons eZ could be a good match for you? Here are 7 reasons to choose eZ Publish / eZ Platform if content is key to your business.