Creating a Production-Ready CMS in Less Than 4 Weeks

In today's fast-paced digital world, it doesn't matter if you're a small startup with just a mobile app or a public company with lots of digital tools like marketing pages, web platforms, and apps. What's most important is the content your users see. Good content combined with a great user experience can hugely increase your revenue (by 100x times based on this research).

But to make sure your content is strong and easy to manage, you need a content management system (CMS) that takes away worries about performance, scalability, and if your content team can be productive with it.

We've seen many companies try CMS like WordPress for their first CMS and end up not liking them due to performance issues, restricted features and more. If you ask your content team to imagine the perfect tool for their job, they'll probably tell you about a system where they can easily find and change content, preview changes before they go live, collaborate with their teammates and review their changes, schedule when content goes out, use the same content in different platforms and more. Trying to make a system like this from scratch would take a lot of time and work. And in the end, you might still worry about whether it will work well for all your millions of users.

Here's the good news: In the last year we did a lot of research to explore different CMS, compare what features they give us out of the box, how customisable they are, their performance and how easy it is to use them. In the end, we've made “custom” content management systems with all requested features, all in under 4 weeks. After showing their content teams how to use it, they were amazed. They loved how easy it was to use, how fast it was, and that it had everything they needed to do their jobs well today.

During our comprehensive research into modern CMS platforms, we had several critical criteria in mind: impeccable performance and scalability, the flexibility of customisation to accommodate our client's unique needs, ability to write once and use the content on multiple platforms, intuitive usability, and an enriching developer experience. This investigation led us to two standout contenders: Sanity and Contentful, both widely regarded as pioneers in the headless CMS arena.

Based on the requirements, we don’t want to couple with any front-end framework, that’s why regular CMS like Wordpress just fell off the shelf аnd we concentrate our research in modern headless CMS.

Both platforms are leading headless CMS that prioritize flexibility and adaptability. Both offer a centralized content infrastructure, allowing businesses to manage and distribute content effortlessly across multiple platforms and devices. By decoupling the content layer from the presentation layer, they enable developers and content creators to work in harmony, ensuring a consistent and scalable digital experience.

In the end, we chose Sanity primarily because of its Sanity Studio - a feature that offers an unparalleled level of customisation. This made it significantly easier for us to tailor the CMS exactly to our project's specific needs.

When deciding on a CMS, businesses often weigh up whether to build their own or to use established platforms like Sanity.

Building your own CMS sounds good in theory. But in reality? It's tough. Maybe if you have lots of developers and a whole year to spend on it, it might make sense. But even then, it's hard to think of something that Sanity doesn't already offer. If there's a special unicorn feature you need that Sanity doesn't have, it's easier to craft that singular feature as a plugin and integrate it seamlessly into Sanity's Studio environment rather than build an entire CMS from the ground up.

And let's not even get started on how much work it is to make sure a custom CMS runs smoothly, scales up when needed, and gets the right support. With Sanity, you get all that sorted out for you.

Sanity embodies the best of both universes. It's flexible like a custom-built CMS, but without all the wasted development time and headaches. It's ready to grow with your business and doesn't come with a one-size-fits-all approach.

Let's dive deeper into what Sanity offers:

Sanity Studio: At its core, Sanity Studio is a dynamic, fully customizable content workspace crafted to reflect your business's operations. It's where you can tailor things to fit your business. You can edit and manage content in real-time, work together with your team, and make sure images look great no matter where they're viewed.

API: This is the techy part that makes sure everything talks to each other. With Sanity's API, you can connect to other tools and services. It's like a universal language that ensures your content is seen everywhere you want it.

Content Lake: This is where all your content lives and is managed. It's stored safely, is easy to find and use, and can be sent out to wherever it needs to be seen.

The best part? All these tools and features are ready from the start, so your developers can focus on other important stuff.

Our story began when we were finishing building a new design system for our client. During our discussions about implementing the design system, we discovered they were in the midst of developing their own custom content management system (CMS). Yet, after half a year, they had only a handful of features to show for their efforts, and they began questioning the other company's progress and the chosen approach.

Noticing their challenges, we proposed an alternative. We offered to introduce them to modern CMS solutions – specifically, Sanity and Contentful. Our aim was to provide a hands-on demonstration of what these platforms could offer.

We promptly organized a demo, followed by a workshop for their content team. This workshop was crafted to replicate a real production environment, allowing the content team to modify content across various platforms and truly experience the benefits of working with Sanity.

The result? Our client was deeply impressed. Feedback from the content team was overwhelmingly positive and was the final push our client needed. They realized the inefficiency of trying to create a new solution from scratch and chose to focus on value-driven tasks instead. In less than a month from our initial conversation, they decided to adopt Sanity as their go-to CMS. They saw its potential and how it could help them manage their content more efficiently.

• A CMS, especially one that's robust and scalable, is indispensable for modern multi-platform businesses.
  
• With platforms like Sanity, you don't need to reinvent the wheel. Production-ready solutions can be achieved in a matter of weeks, not months or years.
  
• Choosing the right CMS can save costs, time, and ensure content consistency across all digital products.

In a world where agility and efficiency are paramount, leveraging tools like correct CMS can propel businesses forward in their digital journey.

At PrimeWeb, we know content management inside and out. Whether it's crafting "custom" CMS solutions using industry-leading platforms like Sanity, Contentful, or other modern headless CMS options, we've got you covered.

Our guiding principle is simple: we prioritise our clients. We're deeply committed to delivering real value, and that often starts by thoroughly auditing your current systems. Our aim is to transition you to more modern, intuitive, and high-performance solutions that truly align with your needs and bring value to your business.

Interested in revolutionising your content management approach? Let's have a conversation. We'd love to discuss how we can collaborate to elevate your content strategy.