Unless you are offering your client some amazing functionality, ease of use, or purpose geared towards productivity or profits, then developing a CMS or any system from scratch is an absolute waste of time and money – for the CLIENT.

Why on earth would anyone in their right mind pay a developer to create a functioning CMS system when there are literally at least 10 very popular, very feature-orientated systems already out there on the Open Source market?

Security-wise, Open Source has proven its worthiness time and time again over its closed-source counterpart. I’m not even going to comment on the difference between having hundreds (if not thousands) of developers coding and bug-tracking, compared to having one web-developer (and maybe in some cases three or four) doing that immense amount of work.

In essence, what I’m trying to say is that by using something like WordPress as a basis for your websites, you’re saving your clients time and money. You’re giving them fantastic value by not having to charge them for “from the ground up” development.

And lastly; why reinvent the wheel anyway?

Open source software has so many benefits, I mean anything that allows you to give your client a quality product whilst keep costs down for them has to get the thumbs up.

Bearing in mind as well that the open source software have huge numbers of people working behind the software updating, plugging security holes etc. How many custom CMS’s will get that attention after they have been done.

As with the other comments, why give yourself the stress of building and all singing and dancing custom CMS when a WP install will do the job.

Learning to use the right tool for the right job can be a skill in itself and one that any decent web designer should be able to do with ease.

Good stuff!!

I too have built custom CMS sites and reverted back to tried and tested software because I know it’s being constantly worked on and updated. I see absolutely nothing wrong with using open source products if they are right for the job, as you said, Why re-invent the wheel?

Open source allows costs to be kept down which can only be a good thing for the clients? Imagine if every job needed it’s own hand-coded system – no one would be able to afford a website!

We have had clients request a site be built on WordPress so if they have no problem with it, why should we argue with them? Tell them no, that they have to go with a bespoke system!?

And usually this IS the result of someone more interested in playing with technique (i.e. showing off how smart they THINK they are) rather than meeting the needs of their customers.

Using the RIGHT tools for the job rather than the flashiest is clearly the mark of a true professional.