Thanks to Florian Schmitt from SkillDisplay for sharing!

Building your platform on an enterprise CMS can have a lot of reasons and advantages, and which ones apply depends vastly on individual scenarios and situations. As a platform owner we want to highlight how building on TYPO3 supported our project getting from concept to a viable product fast and in a sustainable and scalable way. 

Basing your website on an open-source CMS of course allows for using its built in (content) administration tools and a variety of extensions developed for it by an extensive community - cutting time by integrating instead of developing for a multitude of use-cases. TYPO3 and its extension repository offer much here, but we want to focus on two less apparent aspects that accelerate your way from idea to viable product.

Backend standardization and enabling

Building on an enterprise CMS nets you a complete toolkit for content and user administration out of the box. This cuts development and testing times opposed to a proprietary solution, but with TYPO3 there is another advantage attached. TYPO3 offers a well documented backend that also integrates custom components. 

This comes into play when training editors, and especially external contributors, to work with your platform. Contributors with prior TYPO3 experience can get to work immediately with little additional training. For enabling editors without TYPO3 background there are plenty of resources for both autonomous and guided learning, without you having to provide training or documentation of your own.

The extensive documentation, a wide selection of books and other publications provide ample ways to sink your teeth into learning material, with the added possibility to turn to the TYPO3 community for support on top of that.

As an enterprise solution TYPO3 offers exams for editors to attain TYPO3 CMS Certified Editor certification, covering all aspects of content and user administration for a TYPO3  site. As a result you can find professional training and courses for certification preparation where necessary, providing valuable know-how beyond your platform’s scope. And of course already certified colleagues are able to immediately get to work with your site. 

So building on TYPO3 helps you get productive fast with a standardized backend backed by a wide array of enabling tools applicable to your site. Finding people already proficient with your tools is easier, and enabling those who aren’t is supported by a rich environment.

LTS offers more than security

The necessity and meaningfulness of regular security updates for any software solution is beyond discussion. And having access to them for an open source technology within a professional framework like TYPO3 is an advantage in itself. 

Data security is an important topic for us. Thus using a basis backed by an external security team and regular update releases (assuming their timely installation) nets us, as a small enterprise, both an otherwise not attainable security standard and the reputation of a secure technology.

As a result building on TYPO3 helps us not only to build a secure platform, but also to communicate security standards to our customers and partners, being able to refer to TYPO3 Security Advisories and their application in a reputable and believable manner. 

Or in short, TYPO3 LTS helps building trust with our customers faster than we could on our own.