Picking The Right Content Management System

There are dozens if not hundreds of different Content Management Systems (CMS) in existence. Many of these are free to use and are built using Open Source principles; that is, many different developers contributor their time and expertise to the particular project for free and the code is there for all to use. All these CMSs are created using dynamic server-side development languages, with PHP being the most common followed by http://ASP.NET, Python and Ruby.

But don't worry, you don't need to have any working knowledge of these languages in order to use them, although a knowledge of HTML and CSS is very useful if you really want to get to grips with designing and developing your own site that is built with a Content Management System. I create websites for people all the time with different CMSs and I often build them so that the user doesn't need any knowledge of web design at all in order to update it. Perhaps first it may be worth noting what Content Management Systems you should avoid. PHP-Nuke and many of its forks such as Postnuke were once the most popular CMSs, but today few serious users would go near them as they have lagged behind new innovation for years.

Dragonfly CMS though, one fork from PHP-Nuke, has a band of loyal, dedicated followers - and the same goes for XOOPS. The two most popular CMSs in existence are Drupal and Joomla. It's hard to know how many websites are built with either Drupal or Joomla, but many hundreds of thousands would be a fair estimate. Both are quite easy to download and install, and if you rent server space that has Fantastico as a feature in the control panel it's as easy as clicking a few buttons in order to have a full working website up and running. Joomla tends to attract the less experienced website creator as the administrator interface is more user-friendly and there are thousands of free and paid template themes.

In contrast, there are a great deal less ready-built themes for Drupal. The documentation for Joomla is more thorough than the equivalent guides for Drupal, but both have extremely large online communities where you can seek advice. Drupal forums have over 500,000 members, while Joomla has over 250,000 - it's always best to use the search function first to see if your query has been asked before as 90% of the time you'll find that it has. The biggest problem for the novice Drupal user is getting to grips with the administration back-end section.

This can be very confusing for those new to Drupal, however this situation should improve by the time Drupal version 7 is released as they are spending a great deal of time and money in fixing the poor usability aspects of the CMS. A recommended book to help you understand Drupal better is Building Powerful and Robust Websites with Drupal 6 by David Mercer (Packt Publishing). This starts at the basics and is easy to for anybody to read and follow. Drupal and Joomla is fine for most small to mid-sized concerns, however for large, popular sites that will see a lot of traffic it may be worth looking at eZ Publish or ExpressionEngine.

Don't let the name fool you - eZ Publish, from the Norwegian company eZ Systems, is far from easy to learn! The robust CMS, ExpressionEngine, created by EllisLab, has won over a lot of professional web designers in recent years. ExpressionEngine offer a free limited core, with a full paid version if you intend to use it for commercial reasons. eZ publish is free and released under the GPL licence but there is a paid supported version called Publish Premium.

So here are some ideas for picking the right Content Management Systems. Often, website creators find their own personal preference after trying out a number of different CMSs - it's good to try out as many as you can to see if they fit your needs and requirements.