Statamic, a powerful and scalable CMS

What is Statamic

Websites are ideally good for visitors and administrators. When you want to choose a content management system (CMS), you think about things like easy, secure and scalable. Statamic is a flat-file CMS based on Laravel. Created for developing beautifully designed and fast websites. For the seasoned CMS user, it looks a bit like WordPress, but more powerful.

A new way of building websites, which we at Van Ons can do for you.

For content creators

A CMS that is easy to use, but flexible enough to publish your content the way you want. What we find very important is that, as a content creator or site administrator, you enter a pleasant-looking environment that immediately makes it clear where you need to be. Statamic has such a clear dashboard and hierarchy. You don't need any knowledge of HTML and you don't need to be able to write code to use it.

A number of elements that Statamic characterizes for content creators:

• Live Preview – A live preview screen while you write/edit. Very useful if you want to immediately see what your page will look like with the correct layout.
• Work simultaneously – With Statamic you can edit the same page at the same time as other content editors. This way you no longer have to leave the page to have someone else adjust something.
• Focal point editor – A useful feature when uploading images. By choosing a “focal point” you will always display the correct content when your website is displayed at other resolutions.
• Simple video embedding – With Statamic you can easily integrate YouTube or other video platforms.
• Drag and drop navigation – The site navigation that you use drag and drop can adjust easily. Main, side and footer navigation can be easily set up in this way.

For Developers

Statamic is therefore part of the Laravel ecosystem with the associated benefits. By default it is file based, but it has database support. It is dynamic, but it can be converted to a static site. It can be a front-to-back CMS, but it can also be used as a headless CMS.

A headless CMS is a back-end content management system (CMS) built from the ground up as one large repository of content (technical term: content repository) that makes everything accessible via a RESTful API or GraphQL API for display on any kind of device .

In addition, Statamic makes no assumptions about what your content looks like. By comparison, WordPress, for example, assumes that you will always at least have pages and posts that have certain fields. Within Statamic you have the option to configure all content types completely dynamically, i.e. which content types there are and exactly which fields these content types have.

• Runs on Laravel;
• GraphQL;
• Flat file system – This reduces the chance of database errors.

Statamic or WordPress?

From our perspective, both CMSs are well-developed products that can lead to the same result. However, there are a few points where the two differ significantly.

• Built-in functions. You can do everything on both CMSs, but the main difference is that Statamic does not require plugins for most sites. A lot of integrations within Statamic are part of the core functions. That means you're less likely to have to use and buy third-party plugins.
• Coherence. WordPress has of course been around for years, which has not improved its simplicity. There are a lot of ways to create a platform with WordPress, and that often makes it unnecessarily complex. Statamic platforms are all structured in the same way. This benefits future sustainability and transfer.

Do you have more questions about Statamic web development and are you curious about what we can do for you? Then take a look at our services. Want to know more about Statamic itself? Then check here.. Or contact us.