Why Google Sites is not recommended in this comparison:

Google Sites is in a period of transition between website creation products, and classic site users will be required to move to the new system in the near future. As time goes on, Google promises to enhance the capabilities of the new sites offering and provide information about migration paths. Since people may need to move away from their classic sites at an unknown time and the new sites features are not yet fully developed, Google Sites is not being promoted as an active offering at this time by Technology Services.

Service name	Publish.Illinois.edu aka PIE	SitePublish	WebTools Blogs	cPanel Self Service Hosting
Service description	Publish.Illinois.edu is a multi-site WordPress installation maintained by Technology Services offer semi-customizable templates to choose from.	SitePublish is a Web Content Management System (WCMS) for hosting websites at the University of Illinois System. SitePublish was developed by Intrafinity and is supported by AITS as an Enterprise Service.	The WebTools Blog service allows University members to create blogs or lightweight websites.  These can then easily integrate with other WebTools such as calendars, newsletters, forms, surveys, and more.	cPanel Self Service Hosting is a simplified but powerful web hosting environnment with a range of popular web hosting, database, and programming offerings available through one-click installers or shell access.
Best used for...	Popular blogging and microsite publishing service. Used to create webpages of usually less than a couple dozen pages. Once created, the site content tends to become static.	SitePublish is available for hosting websites for System Office units, major projects and initiatives, colleges, departments, and units within the University of Illinois System.	University-related sites with news or other time-sensitive contents.  Faculty, staff and other types of profile pages.  FAQs and documentation management and organization.  Any simple need for publishing content.	Sites that need more flexibility and customization in their choice of web systems. Easy to install one-click options include WordPress, Drupal, and more. Custom development enviroment options include PHP, Python, Ruby, mySQL, and more.
Eligibility	Students, staff, faculty, departments, research groups, and registered student organizations	System Office units; Cross-campus or cross-unit projects and initiatives; Colleges, Departments, or Units on any of the three campuses of the University of Illinois. Not available for faculty or student sites.	Students, staff, faculty, departments, research groups, and registered student organizations	Students, staff, faculty, departments, research groups, and registered student organizations
Cost	No cost for basic sites, additional costs for DNS or SSL configurations.	No cost	No cost	No direct cost unless you choose a third party option that charges a fee.
Custom URLs available?	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Help available?	Technology Services Help Desk or via ticket at consult@illinois.edu for technical issues. Limited help documents located on KB.	Hosting, maintenance, monitoring and other professional support services are provided by AITS Application Administration; software, site administration and design assistance provided by AITS Web Content Management Services; and help desk support provided by the AITS Service Desk.	Overview video (1 hour) and information update posts	Technology Services Help Desk or via ticket at consult@illinois.edu for technical issues. Campus-specific cPanel documentation is a supplement to cPanel's own documentation.
Content interaction	Publish.Illinois.edu aka PIE	SitePublish	WebTools Blogs	cPanel Self Service Web Hosting
Web based edit window (WYSIWYG)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes (depending on the CMS / system selected)
File manager /WebDAV-type asset management	No	The WYSIWYG editor has a file manager option used to upload files but it is not connected to Dreamweaver.	No	Yes
Command line upload/edit options	No	No	No	Yes
Version history	Some (previous editions of posts and pages; no file history)	Yes	No	Yes
Workflow options	You can review before posting,  but cannot work in separate development and test instances.	Edits can be saved and not published immediately. SitePublish has publishing approval workflows and rules that can be set up. Each site has dev, test and prod/live instances.	You can save unpublished drafts and either manually publish them or schedule them for future release. There is no test or staging environment.	Drupal and WordPress options allow custom workflow modifications. Other non-CMS web hosting and database hosting options can be run on web.illinois.edu; their workflows depend on the system selected.
Add-on options	Publish.Illinois.edu aka PIE	SitePublish	WebTools Blogs	cPanel Self Service Web Hosting
Site look and feel	There are some preconfigured themes that can be applied to the sites. Otherwise the content is completely user controlled.	SitePublish offers almost total control over the look and feel of the site.	You can use a preconfigured WebTools skin, choose a color palette, or design a new WebTools skin.	As customizable as the system you select.
Page templates	The Illinois Theme is the default look and feel option. Site content templates are provided with the Site Template and Conference Template plugins. Additional page models can be created by the user and copied with Duplicate Page.	Basic templates are provided with a new site as well as training and support in building customized templates for units.	WebTools skins are available.	Wide range of template options available for CMSes like Drupal and WordPress. The Illinois Theme is the default option.
Calendar plugins	Google Calendar, Webtools	SitePublish has a calendar feature as well as the ability to publish external calendar feeds via iCal.	WebTools	Flexible - specifics depend on the system you select
Cloud storage plugins / widgets	No	Yes. Google, Box, OneDrive and several others are supported.	No	Flexible - specifics depend on the system you select
Social media widgets	Yes	Yes via JavaScript/iFrame	Comments, RSS	Flexible - specifics depend on the system you select
Other provided plugins / widgets	See the Publish.illinois.edu plugins list.	Blogs, Calendar, Forms, News, CRM, Workflow etc. See SitePublish documentation for more.	Image carousel, video embedding	Flexible - specifics depend on the system you select
Build-your-own plugins / widgets	No, only curated plugins are allowed.	No. We do not allow local developers to develop on this vendor-provided, enterprise-level application.	No	Flexible - specifics depend on the system you select
APIs, database access	No	Some (REST input, RSS output)	No	Yes
Security and access control	Publish.Illinois.edu aka PIE	SitePublish	WebTools Blogs	cPanel Self Service Web Hosting
Public / private pages?	Content is world readable by default. If you restrict access, the only people who can see the page are the site staff; there is no access equivalent of "all University members but not the world at large."	Pages can be public or restricted to individuals or groups controlled locally or via campus AD groups.	By default, blog posts are public after being published. You can choose whether to make the entire site public, University secured, or private, but can't change individual posts' settings other than publishing or unpublishing them.	Your choice
Patching and maintenance responsibilities	Managed service through Technology Services. No user patching or maintenance required.	AITS.	System development, patching, and maintenance provided by the Office of Public Affairs.	You can configure some systems to automatically self-patch. If you choose not to automatically patch your systems, you will be responsible for manually patching them.
AD group / AD class roster-based access management	No	Yes.	No	TBD
HIPAA / FERPA	No	No	No	No
Scope and scale	Publish.Illinois.edu aka PIE	SitePublish	WebTools Blogs	cPanel Self Service Web Hosting
Individual sites	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Departmental sites	Yes	Yes	Some	Yes
Enterprise sites	No	Yes	Some	Yes
Setting up the service	Publish.Illinois.edu aka PIE	SitePublish	WebTools Blogs	cPanel Self Service Web Hosting
Time to provision	Minutes	Two days	Minutes	Minutes
Time to configure	Hours	Two days	Minutes	Hours