Frequently Asked Questions

Craft CMS is a flexible, developer-friendly content management system created by Pixel & Tonic in 2013 and acquired by Microsoft in 2016. With its customizable fields and templates, intuitive interface, and modern web development advantages, Craft enables teams to build fully customized digital experiences tailored to their specific needs. 

It's user-friendly and and allows full flexibility to allow any idea or project to be editable and scaled whilst being secure. 

Craft provides efficient tools for rapid website development, eliminating the need to struggle with predefined themes. It empowers users to write and design their own HTML, construct custom templates using clean Twig-powered code, handle multiple sites seamlessly, utilize Craft as a content API, and exercise full control over content forms, categories, and relationships.

You might not know this – but Craft CMS is used by top global brands like Netflix, Adidas, IKEA, Wrangler, and Ideo. Craft CMS is trusted by brands and agencies alike. 

Yes. Craft CMS's powerful multisite capabilities simplify managing large networks of sites through centralized control, reusable templates and assets, shared user permissions, and simplified maintenance. It enables efficiently administering many complex, interconnected sites from one unified dashboard. Multisite streamlines workflows when operating at scale.

Craft CMS shines when flexibility, customization, and developer experience are paramount. For complex sites where WordPress may become unwieldy, Craft provides a leaner alternative true to modern web principles. Its focused approach pays dividends for the right projects.

Craft CMS is available in four editions suited to users with different needs - Solo, Pro, Business, and Enterprise.

The Solo edition is designed for individual developers, freelancers, and hobbyists creating personal projects. Priced at only £42 per year, it provides a low-cost way to explore Craft's capabilities.

The Pro edition adds capabilities for using Craft CMS in a professional setting. Priced at £299 annually, Pro allows up to 5 user accounts for authors and administrators. This makes it feasible for small teams and agencies to collaborate.

The Business edition takes Craft's collaboration and integration capabilities to the next level. With unlimited users and environments, Business supports larger teams and organizations. Business pricing starts at £849 annually for 5 users then adds £85 per extra user. Volume discounts are also available. This plan suits mid-size agencies or marketing teams managing a portfolio of sites.

Craft CMS Enterprise caters to global organizations with highly complex web presence needs. Enterprise provides customized licensing, solutions, and premium support tailored to each company. Pricing for Enterprise is established on an individual basis factoring in aspects like a number of properties, users, and geographic reach. Enterprise ensures companies get the precise configuration, integrations, and resources their unique requirements demand.

Free Craft CMS plugins offer quick solutions for basic needs, but when it comes to more complex and crucial functionalities, it's often worth investing in paid plugins for their robust features. For instance, free SEO plugins might be okay for basic meta tag management, but if you need advanced marketing-focused capabilities, the Pro versions are the way to go. The same goes for contact form plugins – free ones might lack spam protection and other essential features that you get with paid tools like Sprout Forms. While free plugins are good for common needs, businesses looking for reliability, support, and professional features might find premium solutions more suitable. Understanding the exclusive benefits of paid plugins helps developers make informed investments based on project requirements.

Craft CMS promises a slick content editing experience, but it does have a few limitations in extensibility, performance and collaboration. 
Craft CMS does have a steeper learning curve as it requires coding. 

Craft CMS is built on top of the modern PHP 7 programming language, the Twig templating engine for frontend markup, and the Yii2 PHP framework for the underlying MVC architecture. This provides a fast, secure, and extensible foundation.

Craft CMS is fully open source software licensed under the GNU GPLv3. This grants users the freedom to use, modify, and share Craft CMS and derived works under the same open source terms.

The transparency and flexibility of Craft's open source model fosters community involvement and customizability. Key benefits include enhanced security from crowd-sourced code reviews, deeper integration capabilities via code customization, and a thriving ecosystem of open source plugins/themes.

Access the Plugin Store in the Craft CMS control panel. Browse or search for free and paid plugins. Install free plugins directly or purchase commercial ones first. Configure and test plugins after installing. Keep them updated on the Plugins tab. Troubleshoot issues via logs and developer support. Uninstall unneeded plugins whenever.

Download Craft CMS from crafted.com or GitHub. Upload files via FTP to your server. Set proper permissions. Connect to database and configure site settings via the installer. Create admin account. Finalize configuration like email and security post-install.

Optimize images before uploading to Craft CMS by resizing for max dimensions, compressing with tools like Photoshop, and converting to web-ready formats like JPEG and WebP. Enable Craft's ImageOptimizer plugin for automatic lossless/lossy optimization on upload. Manually tweak critical above-the-fold images. Output properly sized image transforms in templates. Enable caching and use a CDN for faster delivery.

Channels in Craft CMS act as organizers that group together related sections and their entries. This provides structure and consistency by separating different content types into their own categories. Channels don't hold content directly, but provide organization by bundling associated sections and defining the overall content type.

To transfer a Craft CMS license, the current owner logs in to locate details like the License Key, enabled domains, and expiration date. They initiate the transfer by entering the recipient's email. The recipient then logs in to accept the transfer request, which completes the process. Both parties should update records to reflect the new license ownership.