What
is A Content Management System?
"A content management system (CMS)
is a computer program that allows publishing, editing and modifying content on
a web site as well as maintenance from a central page. It provides procedures
to manage workflow in a collaborative environment. These procedures can be
manual steps or automated cascade. The core function of Content Management
Systems is to present information on web sites. CMS features vary widely from
system to system. Simple systems showcase a handful of features, while other
releases, notably enterprise systems, offer more complex and powerful
functions."
OK, that's Wikipedia's version of
content management system and yes, I have to agree that it's a pretty good
definition. There are a lot of CMSs available both commercial and non
commercial. And really you can do a whole lot of things by using a free or non
commercial content management system. Take a look at the list below and some of
these might be familiar to you (Joomla, WordPress) and some might not. I'll try
give a comprehensive analysis of each and every CMS and It's up to you to
decide which is best. Please don't forget to give us your opinion about the
article and let us know if there are any more free content management systems
that you think should be in this list and why?
WordPress
This was introduced as a PHP-based
blogging platform but now it has evolved in to a state-of-the-art publishing
platform. WordPress is easily the most accessible and probably the most
commonly used content management system out there. It is free and userfriendly
and easily understandable at the same time. The best thing about WordPress is
that it takes simply seconds to get it installed and up and running. And with
the huge user community itay of plugins, widgets and themes for free.
Joomla
Joomla is an open source solution that
is freely available to everyone. Most probably the best overall content
management system out there.It is simple - it is extremely customizable,
suitable for pretty much anything. Millions of websites are running on this
simply because of its ease-of-use and extensibility. Joomla is often used by
small and medium businesses, large organizations, non-profits and individuals.
Joomla has an admin section which is highly user friendly and this too has a
huge community so that this too has a large set of options from templates and
styles to adding feeds, content blocks, menu management tools and more, Just
take a quick trip to Joomla site and you'll see why this is a popular choice.
Drupal
Another popular free and open source
CMS, And like many of the other content management systems listed here, Drupal
can be scaled for personal blogs or enterprise mega-sites, and like WordPress
or Joomla this also has thousands of modules that can be added to increase
functionality. And this too has a huge and active community.
Drupal is probably the most technicaly
advanced pure content management system since both worpress and Joomla are blog
centic.. But that doesn't mean Drupal doesn't have those cool blog functions
such as profiles, user blogs, forums and comments.
The best thing about Drupal is that it's
ACL capability, stability, scalability, and reliability. And it can be
installed remotely on any server.
The drawback of this is that it has
relatively low number of plugins, including templates, so that it restricts
both appearance and functionality for a certain level. And again the admin
section is not that userfreindly if you doesn't have some IT background. So if
you are an IT professional and if you still like to add some codings to your
website, this is the best solution for you.
SilverStripe
SilverStripe is again a well modularised
PHP5 flexible open source Content Management System. This is quit new but it's
getting a lot of attention lately. SilverStripe has a simple and rich feature
set for content editing. Silverstripe has a framework called Sapphirewhich is a
Model View Controller (MVC) framework. With that the developers can extend the
functionality and to customize the base in a straight forward manner. The
content editing is so user friendly that even a novice can easily understand
how to use it.
The problem with this is the lack of
available learning materials. But I believe that it will resolve with the
time.But for the time being, I will not recommend SilverStripe for a large web
site with a huge amount of content.
CMS Made Simple
This is another Simple and free content
management system which has a recursive acronym, and it's extremely easy to use
and learn. Featurwise this is not that comprehensive and I can't compare this
with some popoular CMS such as as WordPress, Joomla or Drupal, but it's a very
good alternative for small scale business. You can install this CMS Made
Simple, and have your website up and running in a matter of minutes.
MODx
TYPOlight
dotCMS
dotCMS is a java based content
management system.Originaly this was developed to compete with the popular PHP
based content management systems the market, as well as to provide a
counterpoint to high cost, enterprise applications. In October, 2007 dotCMS 1.5
was the runner up for Packt Publishing's "Best New Open Source CMS"
award, followed in 2008 by a second place finish for Packt's "Best Other
Open Source CMS (best non PHP CMS)".dotCMS was runner-up in the 2009 Packt
Publishing category, "Best Other Open Source CMS."
In May of 2012 they released version 2.0
which is a The fully functional GPL version of dotCMS, and it provides one the
most scalable, powerful and easy-to-use web content management platforms in the
marketplace today.
Expression Engine
Radiant CMS
Radiant is a no-fluff, open source
content management system designed for small teams that was built on Ruby on
Rails. It gives an endless list of awesome features and is definitely worth
checking out.
This is a Ruby on Rails based content
management system which is more suitable for smaller organizations to manage
their content. And unlike most other content management systems out there, this
requires the designer to have programming knowledge there for normally this is
used by professional Ruby teams. So if you are a web developer and if you are
managing the website for your client, then this is a great tool. But if you are
letting your client to manage the content, I suggest you to check for another
CMS.
concrete5
This is an open source content
management system that focuses on ease of use. It has a file manager which
supports bulk upload, an good market place for resources and a really good user
friendly layout editor.
The best thing about concrete5 is that
inline editing. That is every piece of content and every UI element on a
concrete5 website is editable in place. There for you can view your site as the
visitors see it in the same time you can edit it. (How cool is that!!). But I
have to warn you, this is not as advanced as WordPress, Joomla and Drupal, but
that lack of complexity makes it the best solution in some cases.
Dot net nuke community edition
Actually this is the first CMS I ever
used and it is an open source web content management system based on
Microsoft.NET. Original it was written in VB.NET, but it has shifted to C#
since version 6.0.[4]. While the more comprehensive and functionality wise rich
CMS is the commercial Professional and Enterprise Edition, it has a free
community edition which provides almost all the frequently used functions for
free.
Conclusion
The main intention of this article was
to introduce you some free content management systems other that Joomla or
WordPress. Now, I know that most of you are using Joomla or WordPress (as I do)
for your blogs or web sites. But didn't it crossed your mind that there might
be some less popular but functionality wise excellent content management
systems out there. Don't you like to have a go and try out some of those? So if
you are thinking about that, then I might, just might have achieved my goal. So
let me know what is (are) your favorite? Why are you using it? Is there any
other CMS that I should include? Don't hesitate to leave a comment.
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