How to Choose the Right Platform for Your Website (Without Guessing or Getting Overwhelmed)

A designer’s guide to making confident, strategic platform decisions — no tech jargon required.

Most people think choosing a website platform starts with picking between WordPress, Squarespace, Webflow, Shopify, or whatever someone who once built a website recommended….
But in reality, platform selection doesn’t start with the platform at all.

It starts with clarity!

Before you ever compare features or pricing tiers, the real question is:

“What does this website need to do… and who needs to run it after launch?”

Once those two things are clear, the decision gets a lot simpler.

Start by Asking the Right Questions

Choosing a platform is a strategic decision, not a technical one. I always walk clients through eight core questions:

1. Purpose:
   Is this a simple marketing site, a content hub, an e-commerce store, or a full product?

2. Ownership:
   Who will maintain it? A marketing team, a designer, a developer, or the business owner?

3. Content complexity:
   Are you managing a handful of pages, or a growing library of posts, events, products, or resources?

4. Design requirements:
   Do you need lightweight customization, or full, brand-precise control?

5. Integrations:
   What systems does it need to connect to (CRM, email marketing, payments, memberships)?

6. Scalability:
   Will this site remain small, or does it need room to grow?

7. Budget & timeline:
   Are you bootstrapping with speed in mind, or investing for the long term?

8. Longevity & ownership:
   How important is portability and full control? Or are you okay with an all-in-one ecosystem?

These questions turn a vague “what platform should we use?” into a clear profile of what your site actually needs.

Match the Need to the Platform

Once the requirements are defined, the platforms essentially sort themselves into four families:
All in One Builders, Content Management Systems, Ecommerce Platforms and Custom/Application Builders.

1. All-in-One Builders (Squarespace, Wix, Webflow, Framer)

Great for small businesses, portfolios, marketing sites, and teams that want to easily update content.

Pros: fast, beautiful, easy to maintain
Cons: limited portability and custom backend logic

2. Content Management Systems (WordPress, Craft CMS, Drupal)

Ideal for content-heavy sites, growing blogs, and organizations needing flexible content types.

Pros: powerful, customizable, integrates with almost anything
Cons: requires ongoing maintenance and sometimes technical help

Those that work in traditional content management systems know you can’t just select the platform, you also need the page builder.

Choosing the Right Page Builder Inside a Traditional CMS

Once you’ve landed on a platform like WordPress or Craft CMS, the next critical decision is how you’ll build and manage page layouts. Traditional CMS platforms give you enormous flexibility—but that also means there are dozens of page builder options, each with different strengths.

Here’s how to think about choosing the right one.

Start with Your Content Model, Not the Builder

A common mistake teams make is selecting the page builder before understanding what types of content they need to manage.

Instead, ask:

• Do we need reusable blocks/modules?

• Will there be multiple authors?

• How structured does the content need to be?

• How often will layouts change?

Your content model should determine the builder — not the other way around.

Know the Different Page Builder Styles

Most page builders fall into three categories:

A. Visual Drag-and-Drop Builders (like Elementor, Beaver Builder, Divi)

Great for marketing teams who want visual control and the ability to design landing pages quickly.

Pros:

• Easy for non-technical contributors

• Lots of templates and modules

• Fast iteration

Cons:

• Can create inconsistent layouts if not governed

• Heavier code output → potential performance impact

• Harder to scale in large organizations

Best for:
Smaller teams, landing-page–driven marketing sites, or projects with frequent layout experimentation.

B. Block-Based Builders (like Gutenberg in WordPress)

Gutenberg has matured a lot from where it started. While it still is the most limited builder option when it comes to customized design elements, It allows teams to use structured blocks that can be styled and governed through design systems.

Pros:

• Lightweight

• Natively supported by WordPress

• Blocks can be locked down for consistency

• Great for design systems in CMS environments

Cons:

• Less flexible for highly custom layouts

• More setup work to define reusable block patterns

Best for:
Organizations that want the ability to manage content cleanly across dozens or hundreds of pages.

C. Custom Field Builders (ACF Flexible Content, Craft Matrix Fields)

These aren’t “builders” in the traditional sense…they’re structured content modules that allow authors to assemble pages with predefined components.

Pros:

• Cleanest code output

• Extremely flexible for developers

• Perfect for design systems

• Reduces layout chaos

Cons:

• Requires more upfront thinking

• Authors don’t get drag-and-drop visuals

• Best paired with a well-defined component library

Best for:
Teams that want full control, scalable content governance, and predictable design across an entire ecosystem.

Match Your Builder to Your Governance Style

Different teams operate differently, and your page builder should support that.

• High governance teams (brand teams, house of brands) → choose block-based or field-based builders.

• High iteration teams (startups, marketing-heavy orgs) → visual builders like Elementor or Beaver Builder.

• Developer-supported teams → ACF or Craft Matrix for component-driven, scalable builds.

The builder should support your workflow, not fight it.

Don’t Forget Performance and Maintenance

Performance is the hidden cost of the wrong builder.

Ask:

• Does it add bloat?

• Are updates stable and secure?

• Is the builder widely adopted (and still supported)?

• How does it perform with complex layouts or lots of plugins?

If you need a fast, scalable, long-term website, prioritize lean builders or structured content systems.

The Simple Rule

Use visual builders when you need speed.
Use structured builders when you need scale.

Both are correct… it just depends on the long-term reality of your content and team.

3. E-Commerce Platforms (like Shopify, WooCommerce)

Perfect when selling products/subscriptions is the core experience.

Pros: strong checkout, inventory, payments
Cons: may feel restrictive for non-store content

4. Custom / App-Driven Builds (like Next.js, React, headless CMS)

Best for SaaS, dashboards, login-based products, and anything that behaves like an app.

Pros: unlimited flexibility, great performance
Cons: higher cost + requires development support

The Rule Most People Overlook

There’s one piece of advice that consistently saves clients time, money, and future headaches:

Choose the platform based on who will maintain it…not who builds it.

A custom-coded site that only a developer can touch will age fast.
A platform your team can confidently use will stay alive much longer.

Bringing It All Together

Good platform choice isn’t about trends or template, it’s about context.

• What you’re building

• Who it’s for

• Who will run it

• How it needs to grow

When those are clear, the “right” platform becomes obvious.

If you’re navigating a redesign, evaluating a CMS, or planning a new digital experience, I’m always happy to help teams map requirements and choose the right platform before a single pixel or page goes live! Let’s work together on your new website.