Common Questions about Craft CMS

What is Craft CMS?

• Craft is a self-host­ed, con­tent-first con­tent man­age­ment sys­tem (CMS) that aims to make life enjoy­able for devel­op­ers and con­tent man­agers alike.

How does Craft CMS com­pare to oth­er con­tent man­age­ment sys­tems like Word­Press or Drupal?

• While Word­Press and Dru­pal are more wide­ly used, Craft is known for its flex­i­bil­i­ty, cus­tomiz­abil­i­ty, and focus on con­tent. It might require more ini­tial set­up but offers a more tai­lored expe­ri­ence, and can act as a web appli­ca­tion frame­work that is high­ly exten­si­ble and customizable.

Is Craft CMS free?

• Craft CMS has a free ver­sion called Craft Solo, but there are also paid ver­sions that offer addi­tion­al fea­tures and capa­bil­i­ties. The free ver­sion is only avail­able for per­son­al use. Com­mer­cial use requires a Craft Pro license.

How do I install Craft CMS?

• Craft CMS can be installed via Com­pos­er, a depen­den­cy man­age­ment tool for PHP. You can also down­load and install it from a zip file but that is not the rec­om­mend­ed approach.

Does Craft CMS sup­port e‑commerce?

• Yes, with the Craft Com­merce plu­g­in, Craft can be turned into a ful­ly func­tion­al e‑commerce plat­form. Com­merce sup­ports dig­i­tal prod­ucts, sub­scrip­tions (via Stripe), and sync­ing of Shopi­fy products.

Is Craft CMS secure?

• Craft is built with secu­ri­ty in mind, but like any soft­ware, it’s essen­tial to fol­low best prac­tices, keep it updat­ed, and mon­i­tor for any poten­tial vulnerabilities.

What kind of sites is Craft CMS best suit­ed for?

• Craft is ver­sa­tile and can be used for a wide range of sites, from blogs to e‑commerce to com­plex cor­po­rate sites. Its flex­i­bil­i­ty makes it espe­cial­ly suit­able for cus­tom projects. It is most pop­u­lar with com­plex con­tent sites, like uni­verisites, news sites, and mar­ket­ing sites.

Can I migrate my cur­rent site to Craft CMS?

• Yes, but the com­plex­i­ty of the migra­tion will depend on your cur­rent plat­form and the struc­ture of your data.

What lan­guages does Craft CMS support?

• Craft is writ­ten in PHP using the Yii web appli­ca­tion frame­work. For tem­plat­ing, it uses Twig. For the front-end, you can use what­ev­er frame­work you’d like. Craft is agnos­tic about front-end tem­plates, as long as you use Twig to ren­der the con­tent pro­vid­ed by Craft.

How cus­tomiz­able is Craft CMS?

• One of Craft’s strong points is its cus­tomiz­abil­i­ty. It offers a pow­er­ful tem­plat­ing engine called Twig, and devel­op­ers can cre­ate plu­g­ins and mod­ules to extend its func­tion­al­i­ty. There is also an offi­cial plu­g­in store avail­able where you can find and pur­chase plu­g­ins for your project.

How is the per­for­mance of Craft CMS sites?

• Craft itself is opti­mized for per­for­mance, but the over­all speed of a site will also depend on the host­ing envi­ron­ment, opti­miza­tion of assets, and oth­er factors.

Is there a strong com­mu­ni­ty around Craft CMS?

• Yes, the Craft com­mu­ni­ty is active and grow­ing, with a Dis­cord serv­er, Stack Exchange serv­er, and a pres­ence on social media.

Where can I find plu­g­ins for Craft CMS?

• The Craft Plu­g­in Store is the offi­cial repos­i­to­ry where devel­op­ers can find and pur­chase plu­g­ins to extend Craft’s functionality.

How often is Craft CMS updated?

• Craft CMS receives reg­u­lar updates, usu­al­ly a few times per month for minor updates and almost annu­al­ly for major releas­es. You should keep your Craft instal­la­tion updat­ed for the lat­est fea­tures and secu­ri­ty patches.

Can I use Craft CMS for head­less con­tent management?

• Yes, Craft offers a GraphQL API, which makes it suit­able for head­less or decou­pled setups where you might use a dif­fer­ent fron­tend tech­nol­o­gy while man­ag­ing con­tent in Craft.