Web Design in Oklahoma City

I often get asked questions about how Light, our content management system for designers, compares to Wordpress, the popular open source blogging platform.  The questions usually go a little something like this:

"Why would anyone ever pay to use Light when they can use Wordpress for free?"

Actually, it's a great question and I can tell you right up front that the answer isn't going to be a bunch of fluff about Light blowing Wordpress away.  The truth is that I love Wordpress.  I have used it for several projects personally.  It is a great piece of software and it is, after all, free (well, except for the cost of hosting).

Different Purposes

But Light and Wordpress have different primary purposes.  Light is first and foremost a website CMS platform and Wordpress is primarily a blogging platform.  It is possible to use Light to create a blog-only site, but it wouldn't offer all of the features available from a blog on Wordpress.  Likewise, it is possible to use Wordpress as a full CMS through various plugins and modifications, but that solution is quite a bit more cumbersome than creating a website on Light.

Why use Light?

To get more specific, here are a few pretty good reasons that people are choosing to pay for Light rather than using Wordpress (or any open source solution, for that matter).

1. Ease of use -- Light was designed to cater to the needs of designers and agencies, whether or not they have any knowledge or experience in coding or hosting.  So the experience of using Light, from signing up for an account all the way to the end user managing their website, is designed to be extremely accessible to those without any development skills.  In contrast, unleashing the power of Wordpress requires installing it and maintaining it on your own server.  Granted, they make this process as simple as possible, but still, it can be a bit daunting for those who don't have a background in server and database management.  So, for those who prefer not to spend their time learning about and maintaining servers, software and upgrades, Light offers a definite advantage.
2. Design integration -- When it comes to design, Light and Wordpress offer two different approaches, each with their own pros and cons.  Integrating a design onto Wordpress requires a lot of detailed work with php tags whereas integrating a design on Light only requires you to add a few tags to the code.  So, here's the trade off.  With Wordpress, you get to control every little detail of your page, but it's quite a bit more complicated to use.  With Light, it's a simpler process but you have a bit less control.  So the question is, which one fits you and your project best?
3. More elements -- As mentioned above, Wordpress is primarily a blogging platform, and a very good one.  So, in my opinion, Light is better equipped to provide a complete website management experience through its robust form builder, calendar element, photo gallery tool, and the like.  Light has advanced permission controls, simple SEO features, and page management tools.  All tools on Light are designed to be very self-explanatory and simple to use even the very first time you use them.  Again, the selling point for Light is the simple, out of the box, availability of these tools as compared to the process of configuring Wordpress with plugins or other modification which require a good amount of development know-how. 
4. Support -- Wordpress is supported by a huge community of users who provide documentation and forums.  It is usually possible for a technical person to find the answer to an issue through these venues.  Light, being a retail product, provides direct email support and managed documentation.  Sometimes it can be a little easier to get an answer quickly if you have someone to ask.
5. Reselling -- Finally, Light is setup as a reseller's platform and makes the process of adding new websites super fast and super easy.  Light provides the designer a way to manage all of their client websites in one place and create their own branded interface for their clients to experience.  Wordpress just isn't set up this way so this is definitely one area that makes Light unique.

I hope that you can sense the great respect we have for Wordpress.  It is a valuable tool for many applications.  Yet, I hope you can also see the uniqueness of Light and the reasons that many continue to choose Light over Wordpress and other open source solutions.

I would love to hear your feedback on this topic so please leave your comments below.