: Even if the client isn't asking for a CMS, I still install one. Partially, it's for consistency. I've been refactoring and improving my CMS for 5 years now, so I've got it to the point

@Caterina187

Even if the client isn't asking for a CMS, I still install one. Partially, it's for consistency. I've been refactoring and improving my CMS for 5 years now, so I've got it to the point where it works for me (and my clients) really well. I know that it's a matter of one button click and a few text box answers to install the back-end, and my front-end code to integrate the content is consistent across all my client's sites. When I do layout and cutup, I've got a standard strategy I follow to get the content into the design. When doing maintenance, every site looks visually similar, so there's no learning curve to do maintenance on older sites.

The biggest reason, though, is that if I'm handling content for the client it's just faster to update content in a CMS. So, in the end, I come out ahead. And, if the client decides that they want to "upgrade" to a CMS, I simply double check my settings, collect my check, and they're on their way. Everyone wins!

I would caution that if you're a developer who's tied to a CMS like Joomla or Wordpress, you've just opened a can of worms following this method. Open source needs CONSTANT updates to maintain security. Flaws open up all the time--it's the reason that people are constantly asking how they got Javascript Injected on Stackoverflow. In my case, I have a common codebase, so one update fixes nearly all. With the others, you'd be doing an update for every site you have installed, which can get very old in a hurry.

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