HubSpot CMS vs WordPress: Technical Review & Comparison [Updated 2022]

Category: Common Questions
Written by: Jacob Lett
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One of the most critical decisions for a business is where to host its website, and a CMS or content management system is a crucial component. Some companies with an internal IT team prefer to self-host their CMS using open-source software like WordPress because they require higher-level security or business integrations. However, a growing trend is towards using a SaaS (software as a service) CMS software because you can leverage a shared hosting platform with hosting benefits like security, a content delivery network for images, fast servers, customer support, etc.

WordPress has long been the CMS leader for business websites, but now there are more CMS platforms to consider, like Webflow, Squarespace, Spotify, Bigcommerce, and the HubSpot CMS platform (formerly called HubSpot COS). This HubSpot vs WordPress article will introduce you to the HubSpot CMS and how its features compare to WordPress CMS.

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What is HubSpot CMS Hub?

HubSpot is primarily a free CRM customer relationship management software to help companies manage their customers throughout their customer journey. The HubSpot CRM is the bedrock of the core of the business. As time passed, HubSpot added additional Hubs that could stand alone as separate products but can be bolted on for added functionality. This gives a company one relationship, one CRM, and a centralized hub for marketing, sales, operations, and customer service.

The CMS Hub is one of the newest hubs and provides businesses an opportunity to build their website, landing pages, and blogs using their drag and drop page building platform. One of the great features is using your CRM data to personalize website content using smart content logic on your websites. HubSpot CMS is cloud-based and not an open-source platform to build websites.

WordPress vs HubSpot CMS Features Comparison

For this review, I am going to look at some of the main features when considering a content management systems for your business. Each component is given a grade of 1 through 5. 5 being the best and 1 being the worst score possible. I provide a comparison table with a total score at the end of this section.

What makes me credible to write this review? I have used WordPress for more than ten years for my sites and as a developer. I have also used HubSpot CMS for about seven years and have seen significant improvements to the platform. My opinion is skewed towards the benefits of using a CMS for a business vs. a personal blog.

Drag & Drop Page Builders

By default, WordPress recently added blocks which makes adding content a lot easier but it isn’t an actual page-building experience similar to what you might find in WebFlow or Squarespace. You have to install third-party plugins like Beaver Builder, Elementor, Divi page builder, or SiteOrigin builder.

HubSpot has a page builder built into its CMS. So you benefit from solid documentation, customer service, and product feature updates coming from the same place.

HubSpot CMS: 5 winner
WordPress: 3

Content Translation

WordPress has plugins you can use for translation, but from my experience are visually clunky and look like afterthoughts, and are not seamless with the CMS. HubSpot CMS has localized translation built into the product, which makes it extremely easy to use.

HubSpot CMS: 5 winner
WordPress: 2

Ease of Use

Imagine asking a room of people to design their ideal car. You would get a wide variety of designs, some being cars and other trucks. This inconsistency would make making piles of similar vehicles very difficult and time-consuming.

This visual sorting example is one of the critical components of website usability. Consistency. The repeated patterns make it easier to use because you can assume one behavior will be the same in a different application section. In HubSpot CMS, this is the case because it is designed and developed by one company master at website design and usability.

Since WordPress requires plugins designed and developed by different people with different skill sets, you will have different usability patterns for various plugins. This can cause confusion for content editors and makes things feel clunky.

HubSpot CMS: 5 winner
WordPress: 3

Security & Speed

If you use WordPress, you can decide if you want to self-host it or use a hosted option. Security and speed will be comparable to HubSpot CMS if you use a hosted option. Self-hosted WordPress has an edge in security if you have a very skilled server admin. Since you have control of the server, you can set up things exactly as you need them and block countries and IP addresses you do not want access to. HubSpot makes adding a brand domain name easy and also provides an SSL certificate. This makes setting up a website a lot easier for many people.

HubSpot CMS: 5 winner
WordPress: 3

Server Control

WordPress wins this category because you can self-host on your server, which will give you total control because it it isn’t proprietary software. HubSpot CMS requires a CNAME DNS record in your name to point traffic to their servers. Also, HubSpot CMS uses HubL language, which is limited in functionality compared to the open source software PHP WordPress uses.

HubSpot CMS: 2
WordPress: 5 winner

SEO

WordPress has a lot of SEO tools & plugins like yoast seo you can add to help with search engine optimization. HubSpot CMS has an advantage here because it is built-in. Also, they provide SEO features like recommendations to monitor the results of a popular SEO technique called pillar and hub content model.

HubSpot CMS: 5 winner
WordPress: 4

Customer Support

If you use a WordPress-hosted solution like Kinsta or WPEngine, you will benefit from customer support. Still, you may run into roadblocks if you ask for support with a plugin compatibility issue. Since many functionalities found in standard plugins are built into the HubSpot CMS, customer support knows how to help you with everyday issues.WordPress support can also be found in their community forums and the core software product is actively being updated. But since it is open source, a 1-1 reply isn’t guaranteed and its possible you may not get an reply back.

HubSpot CMS: 5 winner
WordPress: 3

Extensions & Plugins

WordPress will probably always win this category because it is open-source software and has long and established WordPress community-building WordPress plugins. You can build pretty much any website with WordPress. A WordPress website can become an e-commerce website, LMS, blog, or portal because there is a deep collection of solutions built for this CMS platform.

HubSpot CMS has a lot of great native app integrations. Also, if your extension is javascript based, you can create a lot of the functionality you need using a custom module. A custom module is a component you can add to a page that has data fields, HTML, CSS, and javascript. If you have ever used Advanced Custom Fields in WordPress, it is similar to this but more portable.

HubSpot CMS: 3
WordPress: 5 winner

Ecommerce support

WordPress has a popular plugin for eCommerce called Woocommerce. There are also a lot of services like Shopify and Bigcommerce that are exclusively for eCommerce. So if you are looking to be primarily an eCommerce site, I would use one of those solutions.

You could use HubSpot CMS for eCommerce, but it would require more work to stitch together your need like payments, sales reporting, product feed creation, email automation, shipping, etc.

HubSpot CMS: 2
WordPress: 5 winner

Forms & marketing

HubSpot has a feature-packed marketing automation tool. If you plan on having email workflows and lead generation, HubSpot is a great option.

WordPress has plugins, but they are not seamless, and the form builders are hard to use.

HubSpot CMS: 5 winner
WordPress: 2

Files & media management

HubSpot CMS file manager makes hosting images, videos, PDFs, and documents accessible. Some WordPress hosts limit the file types and sizes you can host.

One feature I like with HubSpot CMS is the ability to upload and replace a file and automatically redirect all links to the new file.

HubSpot CMS: 5 winner
WordPress: 3

Data migrations

Moving sites and data to HubSpot is pretty straightforward, and if you have a large area, they also offer a site migration service. Moving sites out of HubSpot CMS to WordPress can be done, but it is a pain and more of a manual process.

Also, since WordPress is so prevalent, most hosts and developers know how to work with these files and site migrations.

HubSpot CMS: 3
WordPress: 5 winner

Blogging

WordPress was originally created as a blogging platform, and so is a strong platform for business blogging. But HubSpot is continually making updates to narrow the gap. The main difference between the two is HubSpot has analytics built. HubSpot helps you use your blog posts to drive new traffic, invite subscribers, build trust in your brand, and even nurture your leads.

HubSpot CMS: 3
WordPress: 5 winner

Website Analytics

Imagine you want to view how well a landing page is performing. You click on the page, and then you are presented with a traffic report and how many form submissions it has. This at-a-glance report is provided by default inside HubSpot. This makes it really easy to digest and see what is working.

With WordPress, you either have to leverage plugins or view data in outside tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and then merge them together with your form submission data.

Your website needs to be optimized for search engines, and HubSpot understands this and so provides help with a solid site structure, site speed, mobile optimization, structured metadata, and topical keyword usage to optimize your SEO.

HubSpot CMS: 5
WordPress: 3 winner

Theme Development

If you are used to building WordPress themes, moving to HubSpot CMS will feel very contrived. Developers have way more control of their development workflow and management because WordPress uses PHP and doesn’t care too much about what you add to it as long as you have the core functions in place.

HubSpot CMS, however, requires developers to follow their rules and often runs into limitations. The limitations I have faced have been rare, and I remind myself my frustrations are less critical than the frustrations of the end-user. Themes are products for a marketer to use to build pages, and they don’t care how they are constructed as long as they do what they need them to do.

I create and sell HubSpot themes in their marketplace, and the majority of first time customers do not ask me support questions on how to build and use the CMS. This speaks volumes about how they have perfected the experience for their customers.

HubSpot CMS: 4
WordPress: 5 winner

CMS Features	HubSpot CMS	WordPress
Page Builder	5	3
Content Translation	5	2
Ease of use	5	3
Security & speed	5	3
Server control	2	5
SEO	5	4
Customer Support	5	3
Extensions and plugins	3	5
Ecommerce support	2	5
Forms & marketing	5	2
Files & media management	5	3
Data migrations	3	5
Blogging	3	5
Website Analytics & Reports	5	3
Theme development	4	5
Total score	62	56

Overall winner is HubSpot CMS – But it really depends on your business needs. HubSpot is more of a business tool vs just a website builder. Its a piece to a very large and valuable puzzle for a business.

HubSpot CMS Pros and Cons

HubSpot CMS Pros

Simplifies hosting and maintaining a website (SSL, CDN, security, user permissions, backups, redirects, translations, split testing, analytics, image assets, CRM) – less reliance on a developer and IT
Scales for large global teams creating hundreds of marketing assets like landing pages, emails, CTA’s, etc.
One login – convenience for marketing and sales to be on the same page
Site analytics and reporting tied to your CRM helps your marketing and sales team know what’s working.
Theme development is a lot easier because you don’t have to worry about installing WordPress and managing the settings
The ability of a marketing or sales department to work autonomously from their IT department

HubSpot CMS Cons

Less control. You can’t adjust the server settings or write custom server-side code
Site and HubSpot content migrations outside of HubSpot or to a different HubSpot account are difficult or not possible
Ecommerce support is lacking…. which might be a pro because it keeps the CMS simple. If you are doing B2B eCommerce I would suggest using Bigcommerce
Theme development has a learning curve. It does take some time and understanding to start using the HubSpot CMS development workflow
Harder to find a HubSpot developer to make website themes and custom modules

HubSpot CMS Examples

It is often helpful to look at how others have used the HubSpot CMS for their websites or landing pages. Below are some places to find examples.

HubSpot CMS Design Inspiration

HubSpot landing page examples

HubSpot CMS Pricing

Below are the pricing options currently available. I recommend the professional plan if your marketing budget has room to cover $360/month and you are serious about online marketing,

Plan Type	Would Be A Good Fit If…	Main Features	Monthly Cost
Free	Trying out the CMS to see if it is a good fit for your business. The Free version is limited and has HubSpot branding so it is best used in limited form prior to upgrading to one of the higher plans	Up to 25 website pages. Does not include dynamic content. Includes HubSpot branding. 20 Simple Landing Page Templates with HubSpot branding	Free
Starter	1-10 employees	50 web pages. Does not include dynamic content. Remove HubSpot branding on website pages but not landing pages. URL Redirects 20 Simple Landing Page Templates with HubSpot branding	$23/month
Professional	10-200 employees	CRM Personalization Password Pages CTA Fields Content Staging 10,000 Coded Landing Page Templates without HubSpot branding	$360/month
Enterprise	200-2,000 employees	Custom Objects Memberships Multiple Root Domains	$1,200/month

Is HubSpot CMS worth it? My HubSpot CMS Review

HubSpot doesn’t make sense for micro or solo businesses unless you have the revenue to cover the expense. But if you have a larger team and need to invest in creating a marketing machine it is a perfect solution. Below in my opinion are use cases for using HubSpot CMS vs WordPress + HS plugin. Here is another good list of HubSpot CMS benefits.

You have more money than time. Will one new customer easily cover the cost of HubSpot?
Your marketing and sales organization has more than 5 people and you are generating a lot of marketing assets.
Will your business benefit using HubSpot marketing tools and HubSpot analytics reports?
Does your business marketing strategy leverage inbound marketing and email marketing?
You don’t have access to an in-house developer or marketing company retainer to maintain your site.

HubSpot CMS Decision Tree Checklist

Is your site primarily public-facing content, and does nothing need to be private or require high levels of secure access?
Do you have a global team of marketing and sales?
Do you need to translate content?
Do you need the ability to create hundreds of landing pages and email campaigns?
Do you have a developer to maintain your WordPress site hosting and security regularly?
Would you like to split-test web pages to optimize lead generation?
Do you see the benefit of having one login for your marketing and sales efforts?
Would you like to use personalized pages with CRM data to increase conversions?
Do you need SEO features like recommendations and topic cluster management?
Do you see the value of having access to a support team to ask questions when things are not working?
The WordPress editing experience is clunky and confusing using third-party page builder plugins?

If you answer yes to many of the questions above, I would consider HubSpot CMS.

Summary and Recommendation

Both WordPress and HubSpot CMS are great options for building a business website. Any CMS will make building and managing a website a lot easier. Before you decide, I suggest you write down a list of all of the needs and all of the nice to have. Try and identify deal-breakers.

One deal breaker I have seen others face is the server control issue. If you need complete control of the server, you are best to use WordPress. If you are a business with 50+ employees and want an easy-to-use website and work autonomously from your IT department, I would give HubSpot CMS a look.

Do you need help choosing a CMS? Contact me

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What is HubSpot Used For?

Originally published on December 19th, 2020, updated on November 25th, 2022

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