How To Let Clients Edit Their Sites [CMS]

If you go the Wordpress route then learn Wordpress inside/out and sell your services as a specialist Wordpress developer, you dont really need any other website editor. Be aware though that Wordpress attracts everyone and anyone who can produce plugins for it, a lot are free and poorly written, some are paid for. Just be careful of which plugins you choose as these plugins might not be updated or compatibile with the next version of Wordpress, which you will need to upgrade to to keep security as tight as possible. Wordpress attracts attention from hackers, moreso than other workflows, because its popular amongst a wide group of users.

The other issue with Wordpress is its a bit of a bloated monster. The UI is quite confusing and your client may bulk at such a complicated UI. I think there are ways in which you can disallow your client access to some of the Wordpress UI which you would not want them really editing.

Perch used to be a nice CMS, easy to install and uncomplex, quite extendable. Not much has been said of it in recent years but a Google search seems to indicate its still around:

https://grabaperch.com/

EDITED. Whilst Perch seems to be still available, nothing much seems to have happened to it since 2019 so its most likely a 'dead' project and has been replaced by a more expensive solution from the same company:

https://perchrunway.com/

On account of this finding I think Worldpress would be your best option, as its open source, free to use.

Whatever you choose YOU WILL need to deploy a server-side language to achieve interaction with a database. If I were starting over I'd probably bite the bullet and learn Wordpress inside and out and concentrate on being a dedicated Wordpress developer. Although I dont have a great liking for it, I think we are moving into a different era of web-developement where you need to focus on one workflow and be at the top of your game when it comes to knowing the workflow rather than using it and not really knowing what you are doing, which probably accounts for the majority of users.

HTML, CSS and Javascript alone wont be enough in this day and age.

Personally I wrote all of my own CMSs specifically for the projects I worked on. These CMSs allowed the client to update only specific areas of the website. I wouldnt allow complete access to the client to update everything as you then need to take a simpler approach which can compromise the design PLUS in no time at all your carefully crafted layout will fall into a state of ruin, generally clients don't care, especially those with a low budget, what their website ends up looking like, its a battle I fought until the end and didnt win it. I can say this as I came from a graphic design background and know how 'precious' we can be when it comes to the visual experience, it can be a disadvantage at times.

Almost every single client I built a CMSs for came back to me to process the major updates as they didnt have the time or after a few months never updated anything for years.

@Martin23313377qhnk I agree with @BenPleysier, that Wrappler can help you manage all or almost all of your expectations (I do, however, have a few caveats depending on the magnitude of your expectations)... but hey... why not? .

But I'm afraid you'll have to learn PHP/MySQL, or JavaScript/Mongo/Node to support the server-side management of your application, as much in terms of application ergonomics, security, as many elements of functionality that will result from it....

i.e , taking into account the imagery and formatting if your client sends images that are too small, too large, badly oriented, needing cropping, or what ever... not to mention if tomorrow in the new version, you have to add a caption, or a link, or a mini text, or a longer text than what was envisaged, etc... etc... 

from experience that the most complicated sites or applications I have had to make have often been those that were advertised as very simple and basic from the start

The only way to achieve what you describe is to use server side code like PHP or Node, and a database. Wordpress seems to be a way to go for those looking to implement a CMS system. I find Wordpress to be bulky and not very secure. Because of the latter, Wordpress comes with frequent security updates making it a pain in the proverbial to maintain the sites.

Edit: To sidestep an irrelevant argument, I have crossed this statement out, mainly because it was based on my limited knowledge of Wordpress. A whopping 60% of CMS sites use Wordpress so there must be a reason for this.

Dreamweaver does have 3rd party extensions, the main ones

• WebAssist
• DMXZone

For my CMS creations, I use Wappler which is a low code IDE which can be likend to Dreamweaver with all of the DMXZone extensions already installed. I have started on a YouTube playlist 

Just found DMXZone. Any thoughts/experiences?