Perch, A Brilliant Little CMS
As a web designer, I’m often asked to build websites with some form of content management system, but there’s a slight problem – I’m not a coder, I’m very much a designer. Solutions to this problem such as WordPress are great, they allow designers to create content management systems without the headache of creating the back end. There are plenty of options out there too Joomla, Drupal, Expression Engine and TextPattern to name but a few.
The problem I have with a lot of these systems is that they’re very bulky. Sometimes you need a solution that is much smaller and won’t be daunting for your client the first time they log in to the admin area to edit their website. That’s where Perch steps in. Perch ‘the really little content management system’ is aimed at sites that don’t need a huge CMS. It’s quick to install, very designer friendly and has a nice price too (£35+VAT).
There are a couple of reason why I like Perch so much. Firstly, it’s very quick to install and setup – I recently converted a small 6 page static html website to being fully content managed in an afternoon (and that was the first time I’d ever used it!). Secondly, the admin area is a breath of fresh air. It’s simple, intuitive, brandable and very user friendly, there’s no need to give clients a walk through of the system which makes my job that little bit easier.
Of course, there is room for improvement with Perch. At the moment, as it’s fairly new to the market the support is still growing and it doesn’t have the large community that some of the larger CMS’s have. That said, the responses I’ve had from the support team have always been very quick and helpful. It would be great to see some more tutorials on the Perch site to see how far it can be pushed.
All in all, I would definitely recommend Perch to anyone looking for a simple content management system to add to a small website!
