Have you ever started a new project or business idea, only to feel overwhelmed by the time and cost of building a website? Personalised templates might seem like the perfect solution—they promise a quick, affordable start. But are they always the right choice? Let’s explore their pros and cons from both the business owner's and developer's perspectives, so you can make an informed decision.
PRO
1. Quick Start
With just a few clicks —view, add to cart, checkout, boom! You’ve got yourself a template. You can quickly run it on your local device and start personalising from there.
2. Preview your Website
Imagine it's 3a.m., and you're scrolling through Facebook marketplace, scouting the price of a used Corvette you're never going to buy, and then eventually settling on a Corolla instead. It's a similar feeling here. You get the ability to window shop for the exact template that aligns with your business offerings and includes the features you need.
3. Development Speed
Let's say you find a template that matches 90% (e.g., design, layout, or some basic features) of your needs, now all you have to worry about is the remaining 10%. Ordinarily, the project could take a several months or even years to reach 90% but you've just sped up the process with the click of a button.
4. Cost
Using a template is more cost-effective. It will always be the cheaper option. But remember, cheaper doesn’t always mean better. I’ll discuss this further down the article.
CONS
1. Poor Scalability
You’ve gotten your template and have applied your customisations. As the years go by, you now want to scale the project due to the growth of the business to account for the increased workload. This is where you begin to see the limitations of such templates. Templates often lack the flexibility to add advanced features like custom dashboards or robust user management systems, making scalability difficult as your business grows.
2. Legacy and Dead Code
Imagine dealing with a template where the entire styling is compiled into a single stylesheet. An edit on line 3,000 could inadvertently affect styles on lines 17,500 and 24,200. Yes I know, just thinking about it feels like a chore. Cleaning up and determining what’s useful becomes another major task.
3. Redundant Packages and File Bloat
Some templates use multiple frameworks unnecessarily—for example, a dashboard styled with Bootstrap while the authentication pages use Ant Design. This mix of frameworks can lead to unnecessary complications. Additionally, many templates include styling packages as local files, overcrowding the template folder and increasing the overall application size. These redundancies can bloat your project and make maintenance more difficult by increasing performance lag or slower build time.
4. Limited Customisation
You can customise and fine tune a Honda civic to be a hell of a car but you know deep down there are some structural limitations that would prevent you from going all out. And if you decide to bypass them, the time and resources used would far exceed that of if you just bought the current model. This applies here when you're hiring a developer later to fix issues.
5. Time
The initial idea was to get the project online and running by the end of winter. But currently you're stuck on fixing and adjusting to accomodate new features you want. You thought a template would save time, but here you are, three months in, with only about 10% progress beyond the initial 90% the template provided. Now you’re wondering whether hiring a developer, who might have delivered a custom solution in a couple of months would have been the better choice. Well we'd know if we made the right choice sooner than later.
6. Complexity
Is there ever good complexity? When you’re working on a navbar component and encounter countless hooks and functions just to make it run, you start questioning the purpose of it all. Most codebases in templates are an intricate web of interconnected strings, where cutting one creates ripple effects far beyond what you can see.
Major Considerations
Cost: Cheaper doesn't always mean better. While the initial price of a custom-built site might seem high, understandably, think about the long-term implications. Upfront costs for custom builds might translate into long-term savings in maintenance and scalability. Carefully consider your needs and prioritise accordingly.
Scale of the business: How big does your business want to grow? Ask yourself this, If I'm aiming to be the next Facebook or Airbnb, would I want to start out with a template? Customising a template down the line could be more time-consuming than building a site from scratch. On the other hand, local services or small e-commerce stores might not face these challenges and could benefit from a template.
Conclusion
Templates can be powerful tools for businesses that need a fast and affordable start, but they come with trade-offs that might not suit long-term goals. By carefully weighing your needs and resources, you can set your business up for success.
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