Technology · 13 CMS & Site Builders
From WordPress and Shopify to Webflow, Drupal and headless stacks pairing Sanity or Payload with Next.js, we match the platform to your content, your editors and your budget of change, then hand you the keys to all of it.
Updated September 2026 You own everything Reply within one business day
OlDevs, a full-stack studio in Vancouver, picks the CMS around the people who will edit the site, not the other way round.WordPress is our default for content sites, Shopify for retail e-commerce, Webflow for design-led marketing sites, Drupal for large multilingual estates, and headless options like Sanity or Contentful with Next.js when content feeds more than one channel. Whatever we build, the client owns the site, hosting and every account.
Key facts
13 · CMS & Site Builders
These are the platforms we build on and migrate between, each with the honest case for choosing it and the cost that arrives later.
Our default for content-led sites. The block editor handles most layouts now, with Elementor or a custom theme where the design calls for it, and WooCommerce for smaller shops. The later cost is upkeep: plugins, core updates and a managed host that takes patching seriously.
The right choice for retail e-commerce, where checkout, payments, taxes and fraud tooling matter more than page-level design freedom. It largely runs itself operationally. The later cost is app subscriptions that stack up and platform conventions you work within rather than around.
Strong for design-led marketing sites where visual polish is the point and content types are modest. Designers can ship without a developer in the loop. The later cost shows up as the site grows: content model limits, and logic that eventually wants a real back end behind it.
Genuinely fine for a small organisation that needs a presentable site, a form and a blog with minimal upkeep, and we say so when that is all you need. The limit comes with growth: structured content, integrations and bilingual workflows get awkward, and moving off later is a project.
Built for large public-sector and institutional estates: strict permissions, editorial workflows and multilingual content handled in core. It rewards scale and punishes casual use. The later cost is specialist developers and disciplined upgrade cycles, so we reserve it for estates that need it.
Sanity, Contentful, Strapi or Payload behind a Next.js or Astro front end, for content that feeds a website plus an app, screens or other channels. Editors get a clean workspace and the front end gets full freedom. The later cost is two systems to host, secure and keep in step.
Stack
Concrete tools, current at the time of writing; confirmed for your project at scoping.
WordPress builds
Hosted platforms
Headless CMS
Headless front ends
Hosting and migration QA
What changed
What moved in this area and what it means for your build.
Jan 2025
Drupal shipped a packaged product with sensible defaults aimed at marketing teams, built on the same core. For public-sector clients it shortens the path to a compliant, multilingual Drupal estate.
2025
WordPress full site editing and the block editor matured to the point where many builds no longer need a heavy page builder. Fewer plugins means fewer updates and a smaller attack surface for your site.
2025
Payload 3.0 made the CMS run natively inside a Next.js application, so a headless build can ship as one deployment instead of two. That trims hosting and upkeep for teams comfortable in code.
2025
Shopify continued moving customisation onto its checkout extensibility model and grew its B2B and multi-market features, which keeps more retail requirements on-platform than a few years ago.
2026
Webflow has kept building out its localisation features and content capacity, which makes bilingual EN and FR marketing sites practical on the platform where they once forced an early move off it.
2026
WordPress, Webflow, Shopify and the headless vendors have all been adding AI-assisted drafting and image tooling inside the editor. It is useful for first drafts; we help clients set review rules so nothing unedited ships.
How we choose
The best platform is the one your actual editors will use confidently. We look at who updates the site, how often and with what skills before we recommend anything.
Sites that change weekly need different tooling than sites that change quarterly. We weigh how much editing, redesign and feature growth you expect over the next few years.
Where the platform can host matters, especially for public-sector work that needs Canadian data residency. Some site builders decide this for you, and we flag that before you commit.
Plugin licences, app subscriptions and platform fees accumulate quietly. We compare what each option asks of you in year three, not just what it takes to go live.
Every recommendation has to support WCAG 2.2 AA and, where you need it, bilingual EN and FR content with a workable translation workflow rather than a bolted-on toggle.
We check how hard each platform is to leave: whether content exports cleanly, whether the design travels, and whether you would own everything on the way out. With us, you always do.
Who it's for
Whether the audience is a customer, a member, a citizen, or your own team, the choice has to hold up under real use.
A CMS that fits your governance: roles and approval workflows, locked templates that keep pages on brand, single sign-on where IT requires it, and clean connections to the CRM and marketing stack you already run.
Accessibility and bilingual EN and FR content are requirements, not extras. We build to WCAG 2.2 AA, plan both languages from the content model up, and reach for Drupal or well-governed WordPress when permissions and documentation matter.
One brand, many locations. We set up multisite or templated structures so head office controls design and messaging while each location edits its own hours, team and offers, without the ability to break the layout.
Speed first: a Webflow or WordPress marketing site your team can edit from day one, structured so the content survives a later move to a headless setup when the product, docs and app start sharing it.
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ExploreFAQ
It depends on who edits the site and what the content feeds. WordPress is our default for content sites, Shopify for retail e-commerce, Webflow for design-led marketing, Drupal for large multilingual estates, and headless for multi-channel content. We put the recommendation in writing, with reasons, before any build starts.
Yes, if the migration is planned. We map every URL to its new home, ship one-to-one redirects, carry over titles, metadata, structured data and media, and watch Search Console closely after launch. Some movement in the weeks after a migration is normal; losing rankings outright is a sign the redirect work was skipped.
Only when something concrete justifies it: content feeding more than one channel, a front end that needs real application logic, or performance targets a traditional platform cannot hit. For a single marketing site with a small team, headless usually adds a second system without adding value, and we will tell you so.
Yes, when it is run properly. Most WordPress incidents trace back to abandoned plugins, stale installs and weak hosting rather than core. We keep plugins few and reputable, use managed hosting with automatic patching and offsite backups, and lock down accounts with strong authentication and sensible roles.
You do. The site, theme code, content, hosting account, domain and every connected service sit in accounts registered to your organisation, with our access granted and revocable by you. That has been our standard since 2014, and it means you can change agencies later without a hostage negotiation.
That is the goal of every build. We shape the editing experience around your team: locked-down blocks and templates so pages stay on brand, roles and permissions matched to your workflow, and a training session before handover. If your editors still need us for routine changes, we consider the build unfinished.
Yes, and we work in both languages ourselves. WordPress handles it with mature multilingual tooling, Drupal has it built into core, Webflow has added localisation, and headless CMSs model languages as structured fields. We plan the translation workflow, not just the language toggle, so both versions stay current.
Let’s connect
Tell us what you’re building. We’ll reply within one business day with recommended platforms, structure and a tailored quote — no obligation.