Best CMS Software
Creating a successful website is now easier than ever due to the Content Management System (CMS). With CMS you can create and publish web content, present it to your audience, and archive it safely.
A CMS helps you
- keep your website well organized and comprehensive,
- reduce the site maintenance costs,
- increase your data security.
In this manner, a CMS is an outstanding solution for your small or middle sized business as well as for your intranet or community websites.
What is a CMS and how to start your CMS site?
CMS is a multifunctional application. It is capable to create a powerful portal website in a matter of minutes and it has wide supporting community. The CMS portals offer intuitive administration and dispose of detailed tutorials. CMS consists of a content management application which enables the management and modification of content without advanced webmaster knowledge, and a content delivery application, that uses new information to update the website.
To run a successful website powered by a CMS tool, you will need a reliable hosting provider, offering CMS-optimized servers and expert support assistance for CMS tools, in case you need it. SiteGround.com specializes in hosting CMS website and you can learn more about our offer here.
The first three, WordPress, Joomla!, and Drupal, are pretty unarguably the best CMSs out there
Joomla!
Free, PHP-based [Joomla! - award winning website software]
Joomla! is one of the best and most widely used CMS applications. It is suitable for creating corporate websites or intranets, online magazines, community-based portals and more. It has numerous build-in features as well as a large selection of extra modules and components which will enhance the value of your website and will enrich your visitors' experience.
With SiteGround Joomla hosting package you get free installation of Joomla and you can start working on your site in 15 min! The company also maintains the largest collection of freeJoomla 1.6 templates and detail tutorials how to create and manage your website with Joomla.
Strengths
Weaknesses
WordPress
Free, PHP-based [ not just a blog, but an all-in-one web publishing platform]
Strengths
Weaknesses
Drupal
Free, PHP-based
Strengths
Weaknesses
ExpressionEngine
$99.95 to $299.95 depending on license, PHP-based
There are a ton of great websites built on ExpressionEngine, and they’ve set up a showcase site,
, specifically to share them. Some sites built on EE include A|X Life, the Canon Ixus site, and LivingSocial Adventures.
ExpressionEngine doesn’t have as many add-ons and plugins as many other CMSs, with only 22 add-on modules and a little over 100 official plugins. But, the plugins and add-ons they have are some of the most likely to be used, and include a wiki, discussion forum, member manager, mailing list, e-commerce, statistics, and more. There are also community plugins, if you can’t find what you need in the official plugins. The core feature set of EE is impressive, too.
Strengths
Weaknesses
TextPattern
Free, PHP-based
TextPattern doesn’t have the huge variety of themes or templates available for WordPress, Drupal, or Joomla!, with only a little over 120 front-end themes readily available. They also offer back-end admin themes, for customizing the user experience for content creators.
There are nearly 700 plugins for TextPattern, and another 50+ mods. Plugin categories include image galleries, integrations, e-commerce, custom fields, archives, articles, admin features, navigation, and more. The mods and plugins available greatly increase the functionality of TextPattern and can make it a much more powerful CMS.
Strengths
Weaknesses
Contao (formerly TYPOlight)
Free, PHP-based
It also includes a number of common built-in modules. The calendar module supports multiple calendars, all-day and multi-day events, open-ended events, and syndication via RSS or Atom. The built-in newsletter module supports double opt-in emails in either HTML or plain text. You can import recipients from a CSV file, and even personalize
being sent. The build-tin news/blog module includes support for multiple categories, archives, featured posts, comments, and RSS or Atom syndication. Tons of additional modules are also available, to further extend Contao’s functionality.
There are a few premium theme marketplace for Contao, though there appear to be even fewer free themes available. This isn’t really an issue for designers who plan to create all their sites from scratch (and Contao includes a built-in CSS framework to make this easier).
Strengths
Weaknesses
SilverStripe
Free, PHP-based
SilverStripe also has powerful content authoring tools. You can set up your own content approval process, as well as publish or unpublish content on specific dates, and have differing permissions levels for different parts of the site. That can be very useful if you have multiple editors or authors who only need access to a specific part of the site.
SilverStripe has been downloaded over 350,000 times and there is a robust development community. SilverStripe LTD. manages the development of the code, so there’s always someone you can call on if you need help. At the same time, though, they have partners in over 30 countries, meaning you’re not locked into a single vendor like you are with many enterprise-level and commercial CMSs.
Strengths
Weaknesses
Umbraco
Free, .NET-based
On the content-creation side, Umbraco makes it easy to manage content by using a tree-based view of your site. It allows for user-defined presentation of information about your content, so you only see what you need to. It supports versioning, scheduled publishing, and previews. One advantage Umbraco has over many other CMSs is that it works well with content created in Microsoft Word, which can be a huge advantage to users who are used to dealing with Office products. (How many times have clients sent you documents with detailed Word formatting that they expected you to recreate perfectly?)
Umbraco has support for developers and designers to customize the back end with custom applications. It has an open API so that developers can easily access every aspect of Umbraco that can be accessed via the back-end. This opens up a ton of custom application options for developers.
Strengths
Weaknesses
concrete5
Free, PHP-based
One advantage concrete5 has over some other CMSs is the in-context editing. They’ve attempted to replicate the functionality of a word processor, while also making it simple to edit pages as you view them. It makes it very user-friendly for non-technical users, who may be the ones managing the site’s content.
According to the 2010 Open Source CMS Market Share Report, concrete5′s developer community is the fastest growing among any open source CMS. They have a very active community, with how-tos geared toward designers, add-ons and themes with actual support, and even support ticketing if you run into an issue that can’t be solved on the forums. The community and support surrounding concrete5 make it a very appealing CMS for users at the beginning and intermediate levels.
Strengths
Weaknesses
CushyCMS
Free – $28/month depending on feature set, hosted
CushyCMS is the only hosted CMS on this list. There’s a limited-feature free version that includes an unlimited number of sites, pages, and editors, but doesn’t let you use your own logo or your own domain name for the admin panel, or customize the admin experience. If you don’t care about your own branding in the admin panel, it may work for your business. The paid version, which is $28/month, has many more features, including branding support.
The main thing that sets CushyCMS apart from most others is that it’s specifically meant to make it easy for your clients to edit their own content. You design the website however you want, and then add it to the CushyCMS account. From there you can define which parts are editable and give your clients access.
Because of the nature of CushyCMS, there are no plugins or pre-defined themes. But for designers who might not be used to working with a CMS, or who design a lot of basic sites that don’t really need a full-featured CMS, but do need to be editable by their clients, CushyCMS is a great option.
Strengths
Weaknesses
|