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Open source content management systems will help you to easily and quickly create and manage your website. Open source management systems are available that require no licensing fee, which makes the aspect even more appealing. With the many that are available however, it often becomes confusing to choose the one that will give you the greatest advantage. You want your website to be updateable and to contain a good design that will appeal to your visitors or customers. You likely also want to be able to get your website up and running quickly and smoothly, make changes when you need to and add new content as often as you wish. This is where a content management system provides you with the greatest advantage.
Your content management system should help you to quickly put your site up, promote good website practices and allow you to make quick and easy site updates even if you are not typically technically inclined. Content management systems allow you these benefits and are an excellent choice for those who possess little to no knowledge of websites and their creation/management. First, it is important to note all the similarities that the available content management systems possess. Most of the available applications are written in PHP and use the MySQL database and most are system-independent. They can be used to create blogs, events calendars, contact forms, image galleries, online newsletters, guest books and search engines. Most also have online communities where you can find free support via community forums, themes and templates the update the page design of your site, syndication of site content in RSS/XML feeds and search engine friendly URLs that are also human readable which makes for a much better search engine optimization. While there are many similarities, it is important to note the differences in content management systems in order to help you to choose the best one for your individual needs. CMS Made Simple
CMS Made Simple contains a workflow engine that allows for process management that goes beyond the basic approval of content. It has a very straightforward interface and allows you to easily create your site’s navigation features. Simple websites can be created and launched very quickly with CMS Made Simple. The theme templates will help you to update your site’s layout quickly and easily and the modules extend the functionality of the CMS. However, CMS Made Simple has no support for creating forums and discussion boards, tests and quizzes, Wiki sites, email verification or system-wide content versioning. The documentation for CMS Made Simple is not near as comprehensive as what you will find with other content management systems, so visiting the help forums is quite necessary. Drupal
Drupal is also built in PHP and can be hosted in a basic shared hosting plan. Drupal provides users with a multitude of tools that allow those who are technically challenged to set up and maintain websites with ease. It does require more of a learning curve that what is required with Joomla but the upside is that Drupal provides more functionality for complicated websites and a richer platform for programmers to extend. Drupal provides a large variety of nonprofit-centric plug-ins. Email newsletters, event registration and an online donation function are all included with Drupal. This system is fairly easy to begin and if you do happen to possess technical knowledge, you may be able to install and begin customizing Drupal yourself. Although it is not quite as easy to set up a simple site with Drupal as it is with Joomla, experienced and technically savvy users should have not problem. Included with Drupal are powerful and extensive tools that allow content editors or web developers to create their websites without having to probe into the code. The workflow makes it much easier for content editors who may require a multiple level approval process. If you are planning to build a complex custom application, however you may feel that Drupal, particularly when compared with other systems such as Plone, is not as widely deployed and proven with complicated applications and larger institutions. Although, Drupal does have a sensible and incorporated approach to functionalities that are not typically a central part of content management systems. Email newsletter and the online donation functions are both good selling points for Drupal. While Joomla boasts an approach that involves incorporating specialty tools such as DemocracyInAction and Salesforce, the CivicSpace distribution that Drupal offers gives you a set of not-for-profit specific add-ons that cover a wide number of common requirements. Joomla
Joomla was designed to work very well in based shared hosting aspects. Based shared hosting means the least expensive hosting package, which not surprisingly is also the most popularly chosen. The Joomla installer is very simple and resembles those installers used for common desktop software. The administrative interface, in which you or your editors will use for content, also resembles a desktop program. There are very few barriers associated with Joomla. If you are technically inclined, you will be able to get your website up and running in no time. Joomla is also written in PHP, which is a very popularly used scripting language that is very well suited for developing websites and content. While Joomla can be a wonderful choice if you want to create a website that contains multiple pages, good navigation and news or event content, it has a very limited functionality in the out-of-the-box aspect when you need to consider more complicated and dynamic content structures. For example, the site navigation included with Joomla is limited to two levels of hierarchy. You also can only link one page to another based on free-form page tags as opposed to metadata and rules. With the release last year of Joomla Version 1.5, programmers found it much easier to extend specific functions and to organize underlying frameworks. The newer version did not, however, change much concerning how content editors can interact with the Joomla platform. Finally, Joomla is fully integrated with CiviCRM and integrates fairly well with more common packages such as DemocracyInAction and GetActive. Wordpress
While Wordpress is great for some things, if you need a powerful content management system, then you may be better off with Drupal or Joomla. For instance if you are creating a site that you may want to extend later, then Wordpress is probably not your best choice. There seems to be more themes available for Wordpress than other content management systems. This may be due to the fact that .8 percent of internet sites are run by Wordpress. The interface is easy to use even for those who have never dabbled in website creation. There are also multitudes of online resources for Wordpress plug-ins that you can download to extend the functionality. There are a few high traffic sites that have reported a slower performance using Wordpress, but you can by-pass this problem by installing the WP-Cache plug-in and by doing some work on your wp-config.php file. You can then enable your caching to help increase the load times. Again, many online documentations and tutorials address this issue in case you have problems with it. Xoops
Xoops is a very customizable content management system that allows you to control the layout of your content blocks. The modules are very easy to install, although not quite as numerous as you will find in other CMSs. Xoops has a template engine that will aid you in customizing your page design while still keeping the presentation code separated from the functionality. However, Xoops and Drupal give you the ability to display your product information and manage your inventory, which makes them both good choices if you are building an e-commerce site. Xoops has a global popularity and there are wide varieties of translations for the software and user documentation. If you are an English speaker however, this is not quite such an advantage as there is less online support for Xoops than for other systems. Plone
Plone is a highly powerful content management system. However, with power comes complexity. Plone is written in Python and has specific server requirements. It is not near as easy to extend as Drupal and the number of people who know Python is far less than those who know PHP. Plone is probably not best if you are a hobby web developer. The barriers to entry for smaller projects are much higher in Plone than in Drupal and Joomla. Plone requires a unique and more expensive hosting environment and the learning curve is much steeper than most systems. Configuration is done in many different layers in this system that will require more understanding of the structure in order to simply set up a basic site. Documentation, training classes and books are all widely available for Plone, although you should still posses a fair knowledge of working with Python for this system. While Python is very powerful, it is much less common than PHP. If you need extensions, it may be difficult for you to find a programmer that can work with Python. On the pros list however, Plone is the most robust and proven of the content management systems listed here. It provides you with powerful functionality and highly customizable features and gives you a strong ease-of-use so that you can easily train any non-technically inclined staff members to use it once you have it set up. It provides accessible pages that are standards-compliant out of the box and offers a strong support for your administrative workflow. With Plone the investment and more specifically the learning curve is higher, but if you need a powerful and flexible platform to create websites that are excellent then this one is the perfect choice. So how do you know which content management system would be best? Well, first you will need to take into consideration your personal requirements. Your own circumstances will be much different from those of others users. Just as most websites are different, most users are different. You will need to decide if you are going to install and configure the system yourself. If you are planning to enlist the help of a web developer then you can use the more complicated of the two. You also need to take into consideration your budget for setting up and hosting your website. There will likely be a tradeoff of price versus features. You will need to decide if you want a system that is less expensive and focuses more on getting your basic website up and running quickly or if you want a system that puts more emphasis on powerful features, extensibility and stability. All these systems are good choices, depending on your individual needs. You may actually need to hire a web developer to get your site exactly how you want it to look, particularly if you have little or no knowledge of website creation. However, all of these systems provide features and a reliable core for helping you to create an attractive, secure and highly useful website. Either one will help you to easily post images, design your site with a clean and consistent look and allow you to update the content any time that you want. They will both also allow your visitors to access your site and interact with your organization with ease. Overall, all these open source content management systems provide users with virtually every tool needed to setup, operate and maintain websites much easier than other more complicated and expensive systems. The real comparison lies with the user. You will definitely need to determine just what your individual needs are with regards to functionality, ease of use and other aspects before you make the ultimate decision on which of these two systems will provide you with the biggest advantage. Knowing what you need versus what you want are two different things. You may want the more attractive version, while what you need is actually the one that provides you with the architectural interface to set up your website with a more complicated structure. Be sure whenever you are making a decision of this caliber that you keep your own individual needs in mind. Many people will tell you that one is better than the other. This may be true for those people, but not everyone is the same. Along the same lines, not every website is the same. What works for other websites may simply be completely wrong for your website. Be sure that you fully understand what aspects of your site you need help with. You can speak to web developers if needed to understand what you need, particularly if you are not web development savvy. Understanding is the best way to choose the content management system that will ultimately prove to be the absolute best for your online venture.
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