I have helped dozens of small and medium-sized enterprises build websites, and the most frequent question they ask is: 'We are just starting out and have a limited budget, what kind of website is most suitable?'
My answer is usually: use open-source CMS, do it myself.
Not to let them write code themselves, but to find a free open-source CMS, install it, change the template, fill in the content, and go online.Savings of tens of thousands of dollars on outsourced development, as well as annual fees of several thousand dollars for SaaS website construction.
In open source CMS, I recently recommended a lot of AnQiCMS. The reason is very simple: free, open source, enough features, and low server configuration requirements.
The core needs of small and medium-sized enterprise website building
Let's take a look at what small and medium-sized enterprise website building really needs. I've compiled a list of the most common requirements:
- Company website display (company introduction, product/service display, news, contact us)
- Basic SEO capabilities (title, keyword, custom description, static URLs, sitemap)
- Mobile optimization (now over 60% of traffic comes from mobile devices)
- Multilingual support (if there is foreign trade business)
- Easy content management (no need to learn code, it can be handled on the backend)
- Secure and stable (don't get hacked every other day)
- Cost-effective (low one-time investment, low subsequent maintenance cost)
These requirements can be met by AnQiCMS, and there is no additional charge. There is no paywall for the 'Professional Edition' or 'Enterprise Edition'; all features are unlocked after downloading.
AnQiCMS feature list (available in the free version)
I list the actual features used:
Content Management
- Article publishing and category management, supports custom fields
- Image and file management, with automatic thumbnail generation
- Single page management (pages like About Us, Contact Us, etc.)
SEO tool
- Each page can be independently set TDK (title, description, keywords)
- Automatically generate sitemap.xml
- URL static, can customize URL rules
- Baidu active push
- Friend Links Management
Multilingual Support
- Manage multiple language sites from one backend
- Independent content, categories, and templates for each language
- Languages can be interconnected (similar to WPML, but no extra fee required)
AI editor
- You can use AI to assist in generating content when writing articles
- AI image generation
- Automatically generate article abstract
Security protection
- JWT user authentication
- Prevent SQL injection
- XSS filtering
- CSRF protection
Template System
- Support custom templates
- Rich template tags, can retrieve various data such as articles, categories, navigation, etc.
- Template changes take effect in real time after modification, no need to restart the service
Performance
- Page loads quickly (compiled in Go language, no need for PHP interpreter)
- Low memory usage (40-50MB when idle)
- Supports high concurrency (measured QPS of about 5700 per node)
cost comparison
Let me calculate the account, compare the total cost of three website construction plans for two years:
| Project | Outsourced customized development | SaaS website building (such as some praise) | AnQiCMS open-source solution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Initial cost | 1-30,000 | 0 | 0 |
| Annual fee/maintenance fee | 2000-5000 | 3680-9800/year | 0 |
| Server (2 years) | 0 (usually outsourcing does not include server) | 0 (provided by the platform) | About 1200-2400 |
| Domain (2 years) | 100 | 100 | 100 |
| Template cost | 0 (included in development costs) | Some templates require payment | 0 (official free templates available) |
| Total cost over 2 years | 1.4-4 ten thousand | 7500-20000 | 1300-2500 |
The AnQiCMS plan for two years is less than 2500 yuan, saving more than half compared to SaaS website construction and one-tenth compared to outsourcing.
Of course, building a website requires time to learn and maintain. However, AnQiCMS has a low learning cost, and if you have a little knowledge of HTML and CSS, you can modify your own template in half a day.If you don't understand, just use the official template, change the text and images.
Actual operation process
I helped a friend who does foreign trade set up a multilingual corporate website using AnQiCMS, which took me an entire weekend.
On Saturday morning:
- Bought a 2-core 4G lightweight server on Tencent Cloud (98 yuan/month)
- Installed CentOS and MySQL and Nginx
- Downloaded AnQiCMS and extracted it to run
- Basic configuration completed on the back-end (website name, Logo, contact information)
Saturday afternoon:
- Official default template selected
- Created two sites in Chinese and English
- Added the company introduction, product display, news center, and contact us pages
- Published 10 product articles
Sunday morning:
- Configured pseudo-static and TDK
- Submitted to Baidu SiteMaster tool
- Uploaded SSL certificate, enabled HTTPS
- Configured contact form
Sunday afternoon:
- Hired a designer to make a simple banner
- Adjusted the homepage layout
- Test all pages, go online after confirming there are no problems
The entire website building process took two days, the cost: server 98 yuan + domain name 60 yuan (for one year).No other expenses. His station has been running for more than half a year without any problems, and it has a stable flow of dozens of natural traffic from Baidu every day.
What kind of small and medium-sized enterprises is suitable
AnQiCMS is suitable for the following types of enterprises:
- Budget-sensitive, do not want to spend too much money on website building
- Need multilingual foreign trade website
- Website traffic is moderate (daily PV within 100,000)
- Hope to maintain independent control, do not want to be bound by the platform
- Have certain technical ability or willing to spend time learning
If your situation meets the above conditions, an open-source CMS solution is more cost-effective than outsourcing or SaaS.And AnQiCMS is a type of open-source CMS that is 'feature-rich, high-performance, and free', suitable for small and medium-sized enterprises that have website needs but have little budget.