It always starts innocently enough.
A new plugin to add social sharing.
A widget for SEO scoring.
A third-party integration to track user behavior.
Next thing you know, your CMS backend looks like a cockpit designed by someone who hates pilots. You’re navigating 14 tabs, six update warnings, and a mysterious “deprecated” label on your most-used tool.
Welcome to feature creep. Population: everyone.
More Features, Less Clarity
CMS platforms love to show off laundry lists of features. And yes, flexibility is important. But too often, vendors mistake “more options” for “more value.” Spoiler alert: they’re not the same.
A bloated CMS doesn’t just slow you down. It actively gets in the way. The more buttons, checkboxes, and hidden settings you have to wade through, the harder it is to do your actual job, like getting content live.
How You Know You’ve Got Feature Creep
- You need to Google what half the settings do
- Training a new editor takes longer than onboarding a full-time hire
- Every update breaks something unexpected
- The CMS support forum feels like a cry for help in progress
Let’s be honest. You shouldn’t need to attend a webinar just to figure out how to schedule a blog post.
Minimalism Is a Power Move
Simplicity doesn’t mean lack of power. It means power without friction. A CMS should be intuitive enough that new editors feel confident right away. And it should scale with your needs — not overwhelm you with every possible feature from day one.
Concrete CMS takes this seriously. You get powerful functionality like workflows, permissions, and structured content, but with a UI that doesn't bury them under five layers of “advanced” settings. Editors see what they need, when they need it. Developers can extend what matters, without bloating the base.
Tips for Keeping It Clean
- Start with use cases: What do your teams actually need to do? Focus on that. Ignore shiny extras until you’re solving real problems.
- Audit your plugins regularly: If you don’t know what it does or why it’s there, uninstall it. If it broke something once, it will break again.
- Choose a CMS that respects defaults: You shouldn’t have to reconfigure everything just to get started. Smart defaults save time and sanity.
- Prioritize usability over optionality: If a feature adds five options and no clarity, it’s not helping.
- Talk to your editors: They’ll tell you which parts are working and which parts feel like a maze. Believe them.
Simple Isn’t Boring. It’s Efficient.
A clean, streamlined CMS helps your team move faster, publish better, and stay sane. More features should never mean more frustration.
If you want a platform that gets this right, explore Concrete CMS. It’s powerful where it counts, and invisible where it should be.