A Comparison Between Wagtail CMS and WordPress 2024

Each CMS aims to handle your content to benefit you and your company. There are many choices available, ranging from specific requirements to broad needs. One CMS could let you manage SEO and design, while another could concentrate on writing content.

Wagtail CMS and WordPress are extremely popular content management systems (CMSs). Wagtail is the largest and most well-known CMS for using the Python programming language, while WordPress is among the best-known for PHP. WordPress has also been the dominant winner in the general size of the market, with more than one-third of all websites using WordPress.

In this blog, we will help you decide the content management system that would work best for your business.

What is WordPress?

WordPress is a well-known free content management System(CMS) millions worldwide use to build and maintain sites. It was first introduced in 2003. Since then, WordPress has evolved into the most popular CMS and powers over 40% of the websites.

At its heart, WordPress is a software application that lets users create, edit, and then publish digital media. This could include everything from blog posts and articles to multimedia content such as videos and images. Users can design themes and select from pre-designed templates to give their site a professional look.

Benefits of WordPress

The benefits of WordPress website development include a range of advantages, making it a popular choice for website design:

Ease of Use

WordPress offers a user-friendly dashboard and simple navigation, making it simple to manage your website without technical expertise.

Customization

WordPress provides thousands of themes and plugins to make your site more personal. You can also create your own CSS or alter its source code.

Mobile-Friendly

WordPress websites are mobile-friendly and optimized to work on smartphones and tablets.

Security

WordPress is a secure platform with solid security features that ensure your site is safe from cyber-attacks.

Scalability

WordPress sites can handle hundreds of thousands of blog posts and pages without sacrificing performance.

Plugins

Plugins can be used to add features to your website, whether easy or low-cost.

Open-Source

WordPress is an open-source software continuously enhanced by developers of a WordPress community.

What is Wagtail?

Wagtail is a contemporary and free-of-cost CMS built on the Django framework, based on Python’s programming language. It has unique features such as StreamField, a customizable admin interface, and scalability. It’s ideal for businesses or developers looking for a CMS that can manage vast and complex websites yet be easy to use.

One of the main characteristics unique to Wagtail is the user-friendly interface design. The CMS features a minimalist and clean layout that is easy to navigate, even for users without technical knowledge. It also comes with a WYSIWYG (What You See is the Content You Receive) editor that lets users edit and create content using a visual format without the need to write codes.

Benefits of Wagtail

Wagtail is a CMS for content which offers many advantages, such as:

Flexibility

Wagtail is a Django application that can be integrated with various Django or Python applications, making it highly flexible.

Security

Wagtail integrates Django’s security features to defend against the most common attacks. It also complies with Google’s stringent security standards.

Enterprise Features

Wagtail offers permissions reports, workflows, and history monitoring features.

Developer Control

Hire Wagtail Developers that control even the most minor aspects of their website.

Creative Control for Editors

Editors can structure and publish content without the help of a developer.

Future-Proof

Wagtail has been built using Python, the current data science standard.

Traffic Surge Resilience

Wagtail has been designed and built to work at a high level and can handle millions of customers.

Reasons How Wagtail is a Superior CMS than WordPress

Wagtail (a Content Management System) was first introduced in 2014, and since then, it has rapidly gained popularity with developers and content creators. Many businesses choose WordPress development when they redesign their websites, mainly because they are unaware of alternatives like Wagtail and its benefits.

This section will examine Wagtail’s many advantages over WordPress and explain why it’s an excellent CMS for deciding on the best technology for your next website project.

Flexibility

Wagtail is initially built on the well-known Python web platform Django. That means that web developers who are comfortable with Django can quickly adopt Wagtail and begin building websites without the need to learn the framework or language. In addition, the Wagtail integration with Django permits greater flexibility and customization than WordPress’s plugin-based structure.

Developers can have total oversight over all aspects of Wagtail development, from the front-end layout of the website to its back-end databases. Developers can personalize their applications with more complicated features like specific database field types, permissions for users to view their data and other features. 

Additionally, the integrated structure that is present in Wagtail and Django permits seamless integration with third-party services and applications like search engines, payment gateways, and analytics.

On the other hand, WordPress’s plugin-based structure restricts its features and customization since developers are restricted to the capabilities provided by the available plugins. Additionally, integrating third-party applications can be a complicated process for WordPress.

Ease of Use

WordPress is so well-known in the marketplace because of its simplicity of use. However, any user can navigate the editing interface for the content of Wagtail CMS. The interface is easy and simple, allowing users to create modular pages quickly and easily. Content creators can select any content type available to build custom pages while observing live changes via an identical interface.

In addition, considering the significance of mobile devices in people’s daily lives, this interface lets users preview modifications on various screen sizes, including tablet, mobile, and laptop. Without needing to publish the changes or open the page again to see the draft!

Security

Wagtail is also more secure than WordPress. The system is safer due to its design and is frequently updated to fix known vulnerabilities. This means your website is less susceptible to being targeted or compromised. WordPress utilizes a variety of plugins that are developed independently by third-party developers, which makes it particularly vulnerable to attack since hackers typically use these plugins to gain access to the website, as they are often not secured. Wagtail, On the contrary, does not use third-party plugins that make the site significantly more secure.

Wagtail is based on Django, the most secure web framework. Django provides various tools that enable developers to develop secure applications and websites. It is also equipped with protection against cross-site scripting and SQL injections. 

Additionally, Django automatically generates secure URLs and forms. It is secured by default, which is not the situation with WordPress.

Wagtail is a Headless CMS

When you compare headless CMSs such as Wagtail against traditional CMSs such as WordPress, many advantages can be derived from using an entirely headless CMS. These include greater flexibility, less maintenance, rapid development, greater ability to scale, better security, greater control, enhanced performance, better customization, and better integration.

Traditional CMSs can be more restrictive regarding customization and integration, which may hinder their utility in specific applications. Headless CMSs, however, offer greater options in this area, making them ideal for developers who want to develop custom content types and integrate with other platforms and services.

A headless CMS provides a variety of benefits over conventional CMS solutions, such as:

• Greater Flexibility: A headless CMS offers greater flexibility; content can be delivered via any system or gadget, allowing more flexibility in how content is presented.
• Easy Maintenance: The headless CMS eliminates the need to maintain an additional front-end interface, which could be time-consuming and expensive.
• Speedier Development: A headless CMS can speed up development cycles since the content is managed from one location and released across multiple channels or devices.
• Scalability: Headless CMS can be scalable and easily accommodate huge sites with a lot of content.
• Better Security: Because the content is not linked to the front end, headless CMS offers greater security since the content is not available to the general public.

Built-in Features

In terms of features offered, Wagtail offers a more complete set of options than WordPress. It has built-in SEO services support, allowing you to easily improve your site’s performance to be indexed by search engines. It also has an integrated cropping feature that lets users quickly crop and resize images according to their preferences. It also has a compelling integrated content search feature called Elasticsearch that lets users quickly locate the information they require within milliseconds.

Another benefit of Wagtail is the integrated capability to handle multilingual content. WordPress plugin development is required to support multilingual content, whereas Wagtail comes with this feature built-in. This makes it much simpler for global companies and businesses to manage their website and be available to a larger public. A/B testing is another incredible, built-in feature of Wagtail, which is extremely helpful in marketing, something WordPress doesn’t have.

Scalability

Its flexibility and capacity make it an ideal solution for big, complex websites that must manage large quantities of content. With the capability to integrate with other systems, like the e-commerce platform and analytics tools, Wagtail provides a comprehensive and reliable solution that can cater to the requirements of websites of any size. 

Furthermore, the CMS is built to be scalable according to your website’s requirements and will easily expand as your business grows. This makes it an excellent choice for companies searching for an efficient and feature-rich CMS that can manage content

Active Developer Community

In addition, Wagtail is an open-source CMS, just like headless WordPress. That means anyone using Wagtail can benefit from the available resources and support and quickly locate experienced developers working on this CMS.

The platform constantly changes through a network of skilled users and developers, giving users access to the latest developments and capabilities that allow them to use the CMS fully and develop unique websites.

Wise Technological Choice

Ultimately, Wagtail is an incredibly versatile and robust Content Management System (CMS) with numerous pros over WordPress. The choice to use Wagtail instead of WordPress is easy. This seamless integration to the well-known Django web platform, the user-friendly interface, multilingual support built-in, scalability and A/B testing features, advanced security features, and active and vibrant user community make it a fantastic option for any website or app.

With its highly customizable features, developers, marketers, and content creators can easily produce and manage content, making it an ideal option for projects that require content. Additionally, with a broad range of plugins and modules to expand its capabilities, Wagtail is a much more robust tool than WordPress that can be utilized to create robust and dynamic sites and software.

Difference Between Wagtail CMS and WordPress

Here are some differences between Wagtail and WordPress, check it out below.

Cost

• Wagtail: Wagtail is open-source software and doesn’t have licensing costs. The costs for starting up vary, but they are likely to include the cost of Wagtail development company or developer for developing the website.
• WordPress: WordPress is open-source software that doesn’t require licensing. It is very affordable to set up and then launch.

Language

• Wagtail: Python
• WordPress: PHP

Framework

• Wagtail: Embraces Django, a contemporary web framework designed to improve effectiveness and safety.
• WordPress: WordPress does not include a Web framework.

Customization

• Wagtail: Wagtail is extremely customizable and can be tailored to meet the requirements of your project from the beginning, whether you’re developing a blog, an application, or a web-based service.
• WordPress: WordPress was designed for blogging. Additional modifications are necessary to use it for projects other than blogging.

Extendability

• Wagtail: It is flexible to expand. It can be extended with packages or even custom Python code. Creating custom SQL (or database) code is not typically required, reducing the security risk.
• WordPress: WordPress is a platform that can be augmented by utilizing plugins. The code for plugins can manipulate SQL and databases in ways that may pose security risks

Scalability

• Wagtail: The Wagtail platform is highly flexible. Most Wagtail websites can handle a large amount of data without significantly impacting performance.
• WordPress: WordPress works best for smaller or mid-sized websites. The sheer number of plugins available can impact the performance

Required Technical Skills

• Wagtail: The skills of a developer are required to create and maintain a Wagtail website.
• WordPress: WordPress developer skills are optional to create and manage a WordPress website

Enterprise-Level Features

• Wagtail: Contains workflows, permissions, comments reports, history tracking, and accessibility features usually required by large corporations.
• WordPress: WordPress plugins or custom development is needed to add advanced features for enterprise to WordPress

Security

• Wagtail: Provides Django’s most advanced security features and protection from the most common threats.
• WordPress: WordPress alone is secure. However, plugins can pose security risks as well as performance problems

Support and Services

• Wagtail: Wagtail Community Support provides Free and paid support for organizations and a global agency network to work with.
• WordPress: WordPress Support for community members is free, but there is a vast collection of paid services, including agencies, self-service, and choices.

WordPress offers a lot of power without the need to write code. But it has certain disadvantages. While Wagtail has enterprise-grade features, it requires a developer to set up your site.

Conclusion

In the end, there are a few key aspects you might need to consider before selecting your next CMS.

• Wagtail utilizes a world-class framework named Django. WordPress precedes many frameworks.
• It is more flexible because you have a professional to help. WordPress will require a variety of plugins to make the site quick as it grows.
• Wagtail has a fantastic security record, and WordPress is also secure. However, some of the most popular plugins have experienced security issues. Always review your third-party code.
• Wagtail CMS and WordPress both allow the reuse of content, which is known as Snippets along with Taxonomies.
• The Wagtail website does not include themes. WordPress has a huge selection of lovely themes.
• Wagtail requires a developer. WordPress doesn’t need a developer.
• The Wagtail platform is very flexible, and with assistance from a developer, you can accomplish anything you’d like. WordPress is also a flexible platform thanks to its ecosystem of plugins.
• Wagtail offers free enterprise-level features like multilingual support workflow groups, permissions, and reports. WordPress can do this as well, but it requires numerous plugins. Usually, they are costly.