How HubSpot's Improved CMS Hub Results in Happy Developers

In this HubSpot CMS Hub series, we are reviewing how marketers, developers, and IT teams can benefit with the platform's improved Professional features and it's all-new Enterprise tier!

Last week we explained why marketers are going crazy for it; this week, we'll discuss the top reasons it's also a powerful set of tools for website developers.

Are you a developer that wants to build websites using tools you're familiar with AND help marketing to edit websites anytime they'd like? Then you'll love HubSpot's improved CMS Hub.

Why Developers Have Been Frustrated With Content Management Systems

Prior to content management systems like WordPress, Drupal, Joomla (and yes, HubSpot), developers were the sole source of expertise if you needed a website for your business...and rightfully so.

They were the only ones that knew how to create and read code like HTML and CSS, and frankly, the only ones that wanted to!

Then came the CMS...

On a positive note, it's allowed marketers and anyone else with minimal coding knowledge to build, edit and manage a website, but on the negative side, this has created a friggin' headache for developers.

What once they had complete control over, they now have inherited 'fixing' and 'hand-holding' since non-technical folks try to do stuff they aren't qualified to do. In addition to that, developers have been frustrated with CMS issues like:

Security issues
Non-flexibility
Can make simple tasks more complicated
Doesn't allow for the ability to create structured source code
Can increase page load time and negatively effect performance
Typically not SEO-friendly right out of the box
Design and user experience suffers

In an ideal world, the purpose of a CMS would be to make it easier for designers, developers, and content managers/marketers to design, develop, and manage websites. In reality, that hasn't always been the case until now.

HubSpot's new and improved CMS Hub aims to solve all of these problems for developers.

Since HubSpot handles things like security, reliability, maintenance, and more, developers can now focus on what they do (and want to do) best—writing code and creating engaging user experiences.

The HubSpot CMS allows developers to build websites using their preferred tools, technologies, workflows, and use templates and modules to create flexible, user-friendly designs for content creators to work with.

This then gives marketers the ability to create pages and publish and edit content, while freeing up developers to do more of what they love and less of what they don't.

Developers can now build robust websites that allow marketers to easily edit and manage content, which is made possible by the following top 6 reasons.

Top 6 Reasons Why HubSpot's CMS Hub is Powerful for Developers

Local website development
Serverless functions
Website themes
Developer docs & community
Dynamic content with HubDB
Code alerts

Local Website Development

Local development allows developers to write code using the tools and workflows they prefer, then easily sync files to the CMS.

They have quick access to HubSpot CMS accounts through a simple set of command line tools and can easily get access to tools like GitHub to handle version control, and make changes to web assets whenever needed.

This ultimately enables developers and allows them to create a tailored workflow for building anything you want on CMS Hub.

For more details about local development, check out this tutorial on the Designers HubSpot website where you can start a developer account, and learn everything you need to know about building apps, integrations and websites on the CMS Hub.

Serverless Functions

Have you ever wanted to add interactive elements like event registrations, guest books, and calculators, without configuring an external server, SSL certificate, or data transfer processes?

Now you can.

Run no JS to run server side code without having to worry about buying or configuring extra servers or services. These functions can then interact with APIs that require authentication and aren't accessible with client code.

Learn more about how serverless functions allow developers to easily build web applications that automatically respond to user inputs, all without the pain of managing servers.

Website Themes

Content management and website development tasks are finally separate!

Like we mentioned in our previous post about how the CMS Hub is great for marketers, with website themes, marketers can focus on content, so developers can focus on the technical aspects of creating and maintaining a website.

Website themes are comprised of modules and templates a developer builds, so marketers can then easily create and update content using intuitive drag and drop page editing and global content and style editing tools.

By building these themes or 'guardrails' that empower content creators to take ownership of managing sites, developers no longer have to make every minor update and can focus on coding solutions to complex problems.

For example, developers can focus on utilizing HubSpot’s extensive APIs to integrate CRM data and provide highly personalized user experiences.

Developer Docs & Community

To support developers even more, there is extensive documentation and an active support community that allows you to get answers and ideas quickly and easily.

Some of the highlighted documentation here includes:

The new-to-HubSpot, quick start guide to developing on the HubSpot CMS (includes a free CMS developer sandbox account).
The HubSpot CMS Developer Community Slack where 4,000+ HubSpot CMS developers and members of the HubSpot product team collaborate.
The CMS Developer Forum, where you can ask questions, learn from fellow developers, and submit ideas.

Dynamic Content With HubDB

HubDB stores relational data like rows, columns, and cells in a table, similar to a spreadsheet.

This feature can be found in:

Marketing > Files & Templates > HubDB

Data in a table can be gathered differently depending why you need it. It might be externally via the HubDB API or you can use HubSpot Markup Language or HubL (pronounced “Hubble”) to put data into the CMS.

As a developer, HubDB allows you to build data tables that can be updated to push global site updates for content that appears on multiple pages. A great example of when this could come in handy would be for:

Calendars
Product catalogs
Pricing data

Code Alerts

Code Alerts allow developers and IT managers to have a central place to view issues in CMS Hub.

This helps you to keep your website optimized and performing at its best. Issues you might find here could be related to:

Identify infrastructure or design bug
Failing pages
Slow speed
Errors in syntax, HubL, or missing tags

*Please note this is only available in Enterprise level subscriptions.

Conclusion

That wraps up our post on HubSpot's new and improved CMS Hub and why it's making developers happy.

If you found this article helpful, check out all our HubSpot CMS blogs below and keep an eye out for our next post about why IT teams can't get enough of the platform either.

If you are a HubSpot user and want to master the platform, feel free to contact us with any questions and book a Free Chat with one of our HubSpot experts.