Short answer
A content management system is software that lets non-technical staff create, edit and publish website content without touching code. WordPress, Shopify and Sanity are common examples. The trade-off is control against convenience: the more a CMS handles for you, the more its structure dictates what the site can become.
Also called: CMS
The question worth asking before choosing one is who edits what, and how often. A site whose content changes twice a year does not need the same editing machinery as one publishing weekly. Where teams get caught is the middle case — a marketing lead who wants to change a headline without a developer, but a layout that a page builder cannot produce without breaking the design system.
Running costs are the part usually left out of the comparison. A CMS is a live application: it needs version updates, plugin maintenance and a security posture, and neglecting those is how sites get defaced or quietly used to host spam. Hosted platforms fold that work into a subscription. Self-hosted platforms move it to whoever holds the maintenance contract, which is a line item rather than a free default.
Common questions
Do we need a CMS at all?
Only if content changes often enough that waiting on a developer becomes a bottleneck. A brochure site updated once or twice a year usually does not justify the maintenance a CMS brings with it. A site with a blog, a careers page and seasonal promotions almost always does.
Where this comes up in our work
Related terms
Headless CMS
A headless CMS stores content without controlling how it is displayed: editors work in an admin interface, and the content is delivered to a website, mobile app or in-store screen through an API.
Custom Software vs Off-the-Shelf Software
Custom software is built for one organisation’s specific process; off-the-shelf software is a finished product many organisations subscribe to, such as Shopify or QuickBooks.
Web Hosting
Web hosting is the paid service that keeps a website’s files on a server connected to the internet so visitors can load them.
Legacy System Migration
Legacy system migration is moving a business off software it has outgrown, such as an unsupported CMS version or a custom application nobody remembers building, onto a current platform with its data intact.
Reading definitions because you are scoping a project? Skip ahead and just ask.