What CMS do DC Based Organizations Like for Web Development?

Washington DC being the capital of the United States, has a broad business landscape covering sectors like government, nonprofit, education, healthcare, professional services, hospitality, and more. The government sector is the largest dominant industry in the region, followed by nonprofits, professional services, healthcare, and education. 

So, as DC is a hub for businesses of all sizes to expand and thrive with their operations, as they intend to serve widescale user base. They cater to donors, grant makers, international stakeholders, media, researchers, and other user groups. So, strong public trust and user engagement are non-negotiable for them! 

Therefore, most of the DC-based organizations seek a high-performance CMS for building their website, establishing security, facilitating easy collaboration, and managing the content. So, if you are planning on starting your new business in the DC area, you must also craft a high-performance and future-ready website to be the face of your business, and that begins with choosing the right CMS platform. 

Every organization chooses its CMS based on whether it aligns with its business objectives, manages its cost, and is ideal for long-term sustainable growth. To help you make the pick, here are some of the popular CMS platforms that a lot of DC-based organizations with a footprint in the US and across the globe are now actively using.

1. Drupal

Drupal is an open-source CMS platform with developer-centric features and utmost flexibility for web development. It is favoured by the government, larger nonprofits, and enterprises. It is best for organizations that seek highly customized and complex websites built by expert teams. It has a highly customizable API-driven architecture and supports advanced caching. Following that, Drupal also has structured content that can decouple the data from your site’s front-end presentation.

• Globally, Drupal powers around 1 to 2% of all websites that use CMS platforms, and that accounts for around 0.9% of all websites. It might seem like a small-scale adaptation, but Drupal is mostly preferred by high-traffic websites, large-scale non-profits, or government portals in the DC area. 
• Several federal agencies prefer using Drupal for web development, considering its enhanced security and workflow flexibility. 
• When compared, around 50% of the federal agencies’ websites are built on Drupal, highlighting the platform’s popularity for handling large-scale and content-heavy platforms. 
• Drupal has a library of 3000+ themes and 50,000+ modules, enabling extensive customization for web development. 
• In a study involving 8,143 US non-profit and charity websites, Drupal powered 9.3% of them all. However, when you compare just the top 100 non-profits in the country, Drupal is being used by 46% of those websites, which showcases its leading capacity. 

2. WordPress

WordPress is among the most popular open source CMS platforms built for simplified web development. This platform enables even non-technical users to easily build and deploy a basic site. WordPress has an intuitive interface, backed by an extensive plugin library. It is best suited for blogging platforms or small-scale business websites in DC. Beyond that, simple websites that use static pages and standard content types also consider WordPress for web development.

• It is a go-to choice for new DC-based startups, large-scale content publishers, and small businesses all across the United States. 
• A large community of WordPress makes it easier to find skilled developers quickly. 
• It is preferred by small to mid-sized nonprofits in the area due to lower cost and more developers available.
• Many government agencies may not use it for their main sites, but they use WordPress for their subsites and smaller projects, which are not very business-critical. 
• There are more than 70,000 plugins (free+paid), 14,000 free themes, and 12,000 paid themes for web development, listed in the official directory. However, there are tens of thousands more themes and plugins made available by the third-party vendors. 

3. Adobe Experience Manager

AEM or Adobe Experience Manager is one of the premium enterprise-grade CMS platforms that allows you to not just manage your website, but also the digital assets. You can deliver personalized and omnichannel experiences to your site visitors. Several large-scale DC-based companies use AEM for their websites. AEM has focused its CMS to establish robust enterprise security with features such as cloud hosting, SSO, encryption, and more.

• Around 64.29% of all websites using AEM as their CMS are from the United States, making it the largest country of use. 
• AEM is primarily designed for large-scale organizations, not the broader web, which is why it holds only 0.8 to 1.1% of the global CMS landscape. 
• DC-based organizations such as large public institutions, educational institutions, enterprises, federal agencies, and non-profits prefer AEM for its enterprise-grade content management, multi-channel deployments, strong security, and other such features. 

4. CivicPlus

CivicPlus is a dedicated CMS designed for the DC-based government websites, offering dedicated tools for counties, public sector organizations, and municipalities. This CMS focuses on embedding features like citizen engagement, compliance, and accessibility, making it a preferred choice for local governments. CivicPlus also offers a plethora of built-in features such as agenda management, emergency notifications, online payment systems, and more, which eventually reduces the need for third-party integrations.

• CivicPlus has built-in tools for enabling your website to host public meetings, service portals, citizen requests, and government operations for DC-based federal agencies or government organizations. 
• From the smaller DC-area local government websites to special service portals, CivicPlus is notably used for most of them. 
• Dedicated modules are available for government websites to expand their functionality whenever needed. 
• The built-in alert feature of CivicPlus has notably been leveraged by DC-based government agencies for communicating urgent updates to the citizens. 

5. Sitecore

Sitecore is a digital experience agency that specializes in deploying personalized and seamless user experiences to global customers. It is also a .NET CMS, powered with AI-based personalized, high-level security, and scalability features. Thus, Sitecore becomes ideal for websites that deal with high traffic and need strong analytics, CRM integration, and content management. It comes with composable modules for delivering omnichannel experiences to customers, such as Content Hub, Sitecore Discover, Sitecore Personalize, and Sitecore Send.

• Sitecore has a strong presence among companies and organizations in the DC area that are on the .Net stack. 
• The CMS is capable of delivering custom content to users based on their behavior and demographics, which will boost overall engagement. 
• Sitecore is ideally preferred by global brands, content-heavy websites, and enterprise-level organizations. Moreover, it also suits the B2B and B2C companies across finance, healthcare, and retail sectors as they require an advanced level of personalization and omnichannel marketing. 

Conclusion

This was a brief overview of all the popular and powerful CMS platforms powering thousands of DC-based websites. However, before you decide on what suits your needs the best, do take into account the project complexity, security needs, budget, expected ROI, and integration demands. 

To help you make an even more insightful and data-driven decision on the right CMS, we have a team of experienced CMS-based web developers to guide you in the process. Simpalm is the leading web development company in DC area, offering a comprehensive suite of CMS-based solutions, starting with initial ideation to deployment and post-launch support. 

Let us know your project requirements and the industry you are targeting, which will help our team conduct thorough market research and build your website on the most relevant CMS that meets your business objectives.