T3 Templates
I know that you have certainly read various blog articles that describe TYPO3 as particularly complicated and time-consuming to maintain.
I've seen articles in which TYPO3 was portrayed as an outdated content management system.
In my opinion, these are outdated or even completely wrong statements. In reality, TYPO3 is one of the most modern PHP frameworks ever. All modern design patterns and technologies are present in TYPO3.
However, these outdated beliefs about TYPO3 persist and lead to the impression that TYPO3 is particularly expensive to develop and operate.
In the following I try to refute all arguments from my point of view and hopefully I can convince you that TYPO3 can be a very modern, fast and inexpensive CMS.
Is TYPO3 complicated?
The short answer is: No.
TYPO3 is not complicated. TYPO3 is only very extensive, because you can do so much with this CMS. The emphasis here is on can and must not.
The installation process is very simple in TYPO3 and not much different from WordPress or Joomla. You can also install TYPO3 in the classic way by downloading the source files as ZIP and uploading them to the web server.
Then you have to create a few symlinks and then you can follow the rest of the installation process via browser.
The only new thing here are the symlinks. A symlink is a reference to a file or folder. TYPO3 has a specific setup here, which has 2 main advantages.
The first main advantage is that you can have the core files outside. This makes it difficult to change them and increases security. The second main advantage is that security and bug fix releases can be made without downtime and in near real time.
On my YouTube channel I show you how easy it is to install TYPO3 using wget.
The basic setup of domain, languages and site is also done in a few minutes - if you know how to do it.
Setting up the domain and languages can be done in a few minutes via the site administration and without programming or TypoScript knowledge.
Setting up the page to deliver HTML pages including template is a bit more extensive. But only if you want to program the template yourself.
In the other content management systems, you also have to adhere to conventions such as the directory structure and the creation of specific files with a specific configuration.
TYPO3 is no different, you just have to follow the TYPO3 conventions. But they are not more complicated, just different.
I will create an empty template extension or theme for you in a few minutes. You wouldn't get it done faster with WordPress or Joomla.
In TYPO3 there are also ready-made templates where you only have to install and configure them. There you don't have to write TypoScript yourself or program an extension.
In this blog I have already introduced you to several templates and shown sources where you can find paid and free TYPO3 templates.
The selection is not yet as large as with WordPress or Joomla. However, the market will move there - also thanks to T3 Templates.
If you want to learn more about creating TYPO3 templates, then visit the T3 Campus. There you will find numerous free tutorials on the subject of TYPO3.
Is TYPO3 expensive?
The short answer is: No.
Any normal web package from a modern hosting provider such as Hetzner or Ionos is sufficient to host TYPO3 with high performance.
TYPO3 is now even one of the fastest CMS ever.
So you don't have to spend more for hosting than for a WordPress or Joomla website.
TYPO3 offers all the features one needs for a website without installing third party extensions.
You can create and manage pages of any size in any number of languages in TYPO3. You can create an editing workflow and set the rights of your editors in detail.
You can also manage multiple websites in one TYPO3 installation.
All of this can be done without even having to install an extension. And thanks to the intelligent backend, you always have the best overview.
Try to create a website with 100 individual pages and 3 languages with an editing workflow in WordPress. You won't get far without plugins.
With WordPress or Joomla you also get into the situation of having to spend money for paid plugins much faster than in TYPO3.
Due to the still relatively bare landscape of TYPO3 template providers, the templates for private end customers are still relatively expensive compared to WordPress.
This is the only screw point where you can say TYPO3 is more expensive than WordPress or Joomla.
The reason why TYPO3 is expensive for many people is experiences that are far behind TYPO3 10. Or because the previous agency or TYPO3 developer made it particularly complicated. Because with TYPO3 10 it no longer has to be complicated.
Another reason for the higher costs for TYPO3 projects is that TYPO3 projects are often much more complex than WordPress projects. Because with TYPO3 you can do much more.
However, if you compare the costs, you would have to take a comparable WordPress project. And WordPress or Joomla will fare much worse there.
Especially in maintenance and support.
Unfortunately, many are blinded by WordPress and Joomla. You buy a theme for $70 and install a plugin for all your needs:
- Multilingualism
- SEO
- Optimization
- Cookie Consent
- Google Analytics
- Security
- etc.
In the end you have a system with dozens of plugins, a theme including a page builder.
The customer can place everything in a sexy way using drag and drop. Can he really?
Customers who can use the wealth of configuration options of a page builder well can also use TYPO3 without any problems. Of course, it's not as sexy as drag-and-drop like Elementor. But at least you don't use plugins to break all content creation with a plugin. And nobody seems to be bothered by the fact that functions such as the history in WordPress have simply become unreadable and unusable.
In development, you might have saved 25-30% of the budget. Of course, that's good if the customer can save money.
However, the customer only notices later that you have to invest significantly more time and money in support and maintenance.
It is particularly nice when there is no longer a new version for the theme used and you then have to switch to a new theme.
So TYPO3 is not per se more expensive than WordPress and Co.
When should you use TYPO3?
I wrote a detailed article about this on the T3 campus, which I would like to recommend to you at this point.
In summary, I can give the following rules of thumb.
WordPress is suitable if your planned website meets the following criteria:
- monolingual
- no more than 20-30 single pages
- if your main project is already fulfilled by a plugin. Example: WooCommerce
TYPO3 is suitable if one of these criteria is met:
- multilingual
- multisite
- more than 20-30 individual pages
- Editorial workflow necessary
Conclusion
TYPO3 is a very modern, fast and above all easily scalable and secure content management system.
Since TYPO3 10, websites can be created at least as quickly as for WordPress and Co. Only with TYPO3 you have a mature premium CMS that is suitable for every website size.
I hope I was able to arouse your interest in TYPO3 and give you a few arguments why you shouldn't always use WordPress blindly.
Because of the size of WordPress, many believe that WordPress is the answer to all questions. There are many areas of application in which WordPress is not the best solution.
