Craft CMS: Undeniable Reasons Why We Love This Developer-Friendly Platform

Remember the days of wrestling with clunky content management systems that seemed designed to make your life difficult? Those dark times of compromising your vision because your CMS just couldn't handle what you wanted to create? 

If you're nodding along, you're not alone. That's precisely why Craft CMS has developed such a passionate following among developers and content creators alike.

Craft CMS emerged as the rebellious solution to the frustrations many felt with traditional content management systems. It's the platform that makes you wonder, "Where have you been all my professional life?" Let's dive into why this flexible, intuitive CMS has developed a cult-like following and continues to win hearts across the digital neverland.

Remember that sinking feeling when you realize your CMS can't handle the content structure your project actually needs? With Craft's Matrix field system, that nightmare becomes a distant memory. Unlike other platforms that force your content into rigid templates (looking at you, WordPress!), Craft lets you create complex, mixed-content layouts without begging a developer for help every time.

Need a page that combines text blocks, image galleries, product features, and testimonials in a specific order? Matrix fields make this not just possible but surprisingly intuitive. You can build exactly what your project requires rather than compromising your vision to fit the CMS's limitations.

The field type selection is almost comically comprehensive: rich text, images, tables, maps, code blocks, and pretty much anything else you can imagine. And when those dozens of built-in options somehow don't cover your needs, custom field types can be created through plugins. It's like having an endless LEGO set for content structures. And, just like Wordpress, Craft CMS has its own plugin store as well.

Perhaps most impressive is how Craft handles relationships between content. Want to connect products to categories, authors to articles, or events to locations? These connections feel natural to establish, making even the most complex data structures manageable without developing a migraine.

Craft CMS offers a suite of SEO advantages that stem from its architecture and philosophy, setting it apart from traditional content management systems like WordPress and Drupal.

Superior Performance by Design

Craft CMS is built with a "content-first" and "generate nothing" approach. Unlike platforms that output large amounts of default code, Craft gives developers complete control over the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript that is rendered. This results in Cleaner, Minimal Code Output: Developers can build templates from scratch, ensuring only essential markup and scripts are included. This minimizes page bloat, directly improving page load times-a key ranking factor for Google.

The "Generate Nothing" Advantage

No Unwanted Markup or Scripts: Unlike WordPress or Drupal, which often require developers to override or clean up auto-generated code, Craft CMS starts as a blank slate. This allows for, Custom HTML structures tailored for SEO best practices. Fine-grained control over meta tags as well.

Reduced Security Risks: With fewer plugins and no auto-injected modules, there are fewer potential vulnerabilities. This reduces the risk of search engine penalties due to security issues.

Measurable SEO Benefits

Lightning-Fast Page Speeds: By including only what’s necessary, developers can achieve excellent scores on metrics like Largest Contentful Paint, First Input Delay, and Cumulative Layout Shift-all of which are prioritized by Google’s ranking algorithms¹

Mobile Optimization: Craft’s flexibility enables developers to create responsive designs that perform well on mobile devices, improving mobile usability scores

Custom SEO Fields and Schema: Craft allows for custom fields for meta titles, descriptions, and keywords, and supports schema markup for enhanced search result listings.

Efficient Redirect and Sitemap Management: Built-in tools and plugins like SEOmatic make it easy to manage redirects, XML sitemaps, and robots.txt, ensuring optimal crawlability and indexation

Cost-Effectiveness for Clients

Reduced Maintenance and Optimization Costs: Since there’s no need to fix bloated, CMS-generated code or patch vulnerabilities from unnecessary components, clients save on ongoing development and security costs.⁷

Focus on User Experience and Content: Freed from technical debt, budgets can be allocated to creating high-quality content and user experiences that drive organic traffic.

Craft CMS delivers a development experience that might actually make you smile and not want to throw your computer out the window.

Built on modern PHP frameworks, Craft's codebase is clean, elegant, and refreshingly logical. The Twig templating language strikes that perfect balance between simplicity and power, letting you create complex functionality without writing code that looks like alphabet soup. The documentation deserves special mention.

The documentation deserves special mention.

like the marketing-disguised-as-documentation that plagues many platforms, Craft's docs are genuinely helpful, comprehensive, and, dare we say, occasionally entertaining. You'll spend more time building and less time Googling obscure error messages.

For those venturing into headless territory, Craft's API-first approach makes implementation straightforward rather than an exercise in frustration. And the plugin architecture extends functionality without turning your codebase into spaghetti code that future developers will curse you for.

Enterprise-Grade Performance Without Enterprise Complexity

High-performance websites shouldn't require an engineering degree to implement. Craft delivers robust performance capabilities without the complexity that typically accompanies enterprise systems.

For example, The platform's efficient database queries don't collapse under heavy traffic like a house of cards. Built-in caching mechanisms significantly improve load times without requiring complex configuration or third-party services.

Image handling is particularly impressive: Craft's transformation tools optimize assets without turning your beautiful photos into pixelated messes. The GraphQL implementation provides efficient data delivery to front-end applications, making your site feel snappy even with complex content structures.

Perhaps most importantly, Craft scales gracefully. Whether you're running a simple blog or managing a complex multi-site installation for a global brand, the performance remains consistent and reliable.

We've all seen the look of despair on content editors' faces when they first log into a complex CMS. Craft flips the script of that experience on its head with an interface that actual humans can understand.

The clean, intuitive dashboard can be mastered without extensive training sessions or thick manuals. The Live Preview feature shows exactly how content will appear on the frontend as you're creating it. No more publish-check-edit-republish cycles that waste everyone's time.

The draft and revision system prevents content disasters, allowing teams to work confidently without fear of accidentally publishing unfinished work. User permissions can be tailored to specific team roles, giving people exactly the access they need without overwhelming them with options.

It's also worth mentioning that for organizations managing multiple sites, the ability to control everything from a single dashboard is a game-changer for global content operations.

Nothing ruins a project faster than security breaches. Craft takes security seriously, with regular updates and transparent communication about vulnerabilities.

The robust permission system prevents unauthorized access, while CSRF protection, secure cookies, and other security best practices come built-in rather than as afterthoughts. Their track record for addressing security issues promptly is excellent, and the community's vigilance helps identify potential problems early.

In our humble opinion, the greatest of Craft CMS lies in its vibrant community. The active ecosystem of developers regularly shares solutions and best practices, ensuring you're never truly stuck on a problem. The high-quality plugin marketplace offers tools for nearly every use case imaginable, while regular meetups and conferences like Dot All foster community learning and collaboration.

When roadblocks occur, the Craft team's responsive support helps get you back on track quickly. Their transparent roadmap and development process actively incorporates community input, ensuring the platform evolves in ways that actually matter to users. In a world of compromised CMS experiences, Craft stands out by delivering on its promises without the usual caveats and limitations. It might just be the last CMS you'll ever need.

Brilliance is a 5 star rated and certified SEM Rush Agency partner that specializes in web development, SEO and Digital Marketing. We have bright and talented people dating back to the 90's when the internet first became a thing.

No project is too complex. We love to tackle new challenges and equally we love making our clients happy and want to believe that in one way or another we have increased the quality of their business and their professional lives.