Processwire as the choice for small businesses (starting a dev shop)

[mikeuk]

I'm looking at setting up a development 'shop' that is something along the lines that some Drupal dev companies are offering large enterprises, but focused on small business clients and a complete service (development, marketing, e-commerce potentially, administration and support). I'd like to base it on one CMS platform. I know Drupal and Joomla pretty well (as a developer), and basic knowledge, growing, with Processwire and see no barrier there.

As a system, if it was for me only, I would go with Processwire. However, the main objective here is a service that will both produce quality websites (which I'm confident I can do with this) and also a business that will work and be attractive.

So the question is, do you think Processwire is the right tool? The obvious disadvantage is the brand recognition, strongest with Joomla, stronger with Drupal (in my experience, most passively interested business owners have heard of Joomla). It seems in the wider field, currently ModX and Concrete5 have slighter better brand recognition that this. Interested in your thoughts on this.

I've added a poll for a quick way to give an opinion, but would prefer comments

[fbg13]

I don't think this is the place to ask which cms you should choose. It's PW forum and i doubt there will be people who'll tell you you should use another cms.

I doubt there is something you can't build with PW, or the others cms too, the questions is which one is the easiest to work with.

[LostKobrakai]

There are various forum topics around no how you can convince customers to use ProcessWire even if it's less known and it mostly boils down on showing the ease of management even for the (most often) unexperienced customers. 

[pwired]

Does it really need to be from scratch with a cms ? Time is money so consider a webshop system.

[mikeuk]

5 hours ago, LostKobrakai said:

There are various forum topics around no how you can convince customers to use ProcessWire even if it's less known and it mostly boils down on showing the ease of management even for the (most often) unexperienced customers. 

Thanks, I will look for those.

5 hours ago, fbg13 said:

I don't think this is the place to ask which cms you should choose. It's PW forum and i doubt there will be people who'll tell you you should use another cms.

I doubt there is something you can't build with PW, or the others cms too, the questions is which one is the easiest to work with.

Fair point. There's not a forum I know where there is expertise and it not linked to a specific system. Maybe stackexchange......  But the question is about specific use case area, rather than is is good or not.

4 hours ago, pwired said:

Does it really need to be from scratch with a cms ? Time is money so consider a webshop system.

Probably not. Not sure where I will start or exactly what will offer. The main concern right now is if I'm potentially losing opportunities by not going with a more recognised name.

That topic is not meant to negative at all towards Processwire, I'm sold on it's potential. I'm just thinking very practically about this business idea and assuming other developers have hit the issue. I've made mistakes before by not asking such questions first

[mikeuk]

Interestingly, from what I've read around the forums, a number of people have suggested Processwire is idea for large data sites or where a great deal of customisation is needed (both of which make sense based on what I know about PW), although at the same time those same people did not specify they wouldn't use it for small businesses

 

 

[LostKobrakai]

ProcessWire is going to cost more on initial development than setting up things in a prebuild and bought wordpress theme and just doing some editing. But as soon as any amount of serious customization is needed you should be fine with ProcessWire as well. I mean you can still use prebuild html templates, but it's not a drop in thing like in other systems. If you need more than just styling or basic-content customization, but also custom business logic you'll probably have a better time in processwire than in other cms systems. Depending on the projects scope it might even be easier to set up than using a full-on framework like laravel or others (e.g. you get the backend basically for free).

[mikeuk]

2 hours ago, LostKobrakai said:

ProcessWire is going to cost more on initial development than setting up things in a prebuild and bought wordpress theme and just doing some editing. But as soon as any amount of serious customization is needed you should be fine with ProcessWire as well.

Thanks for the comment. Just to clarify, that is not where I am coming from at all. I'm not thinking at all about making development easier for me (and Wordpress is not on the table for me). I'm looking at this from the clients perspective. Maybe some more background will clarify.

I tried (mostly unsuccessfully) to attract clients to a static site generated set up, with additions of easy content adding / editing through me or an online admin interface (with some limitations). I am 100% convinced it is a better option over a CMS for small businesses that are not regularly updating content, but it was almost impossible to sell. Every business owner had CMS expectations due to Wordpress and Joomla. So I learnt a lesson there.

I don't want to repeat a similar mistake by going in with a CMS I believe is better, but not be able to sell it. So from this point of view things that really matter could be if I can sell it to business owners who know or have heard of Wordpress, will the admin look and feel good and meet their expectations, will PW provide a base which makes small business websites practical.

For example, I'm very familiar with Drupal and believe it not to be suitable at all for small businesses. It has been and still is growing into an enterprise focus system. In my opinion, Joomla is not as good as Drupal, but is a better choice for small businesses, if we are only talking about those two.

[adrian]

Whether it is actually meaningful or not, it might help convince your clients - ProcessWire won the best small business CMS for 2016: https://www.cmscritic.com/awards/

[apeisa]

I'd say that if your small business can afford week or more development time (high quality and/or unique look and feel, some custom processes, integrations or just big site), then ProcessWire is excellent option. If they just need lot's of bells and whistles out of the box, then some high quality WordPress themes or SaaS offerings (wix, squarespace etc) would be best.

Due the nature of ProcessWire, it is actually also very nice for pretty static websites, where only few places are editable (maybe news, menu or price lists etc).

[benbyf]

On 09/12/2016 at 6:34 PM, apeisa said:

I'd say that if your small business can afford week or more development time (high quality and/or unique look and feel, some custom processes, integrations or just big site), then ProcessWire is excellent option. If they just need lot's of bells and whistles out of the box, then some high quality WordPress themes or SaaS offerings (wix, squarespace etc) would be best.

Due the nature of ProcessWire, it is actually also very nice for pretty static websites, where only few places are editable (maybe news, menu or price lists etc).

Pretty much exactly what I offer as a web designer -> look at wix or sqaurespace and if you want to do something more interesting in functionality or design then come to me and I'll make up a PW site with the extra requirements.

I like working on new and interesting projects not just banging out the same site again and again, so PW works well for me. Plus the community are super helpful! I never enjoyed the swamp of wordpress and drupal modules and forums

Edited January 3, 2017 by benbyf
additions and spelling corrections