CMS stands for Content Management System which is
a software program used in managing a website. You
often don't need any knowledge of html code or web
languages in order to use a CMS. This method of creating
a website is sometime called "wysiwyg" or
"What You See Is What You Get" because the
content during editing appears to be very similar
to the final product.
There are many CMS system to choose from and some
of the most popular CMS are open source or free. All
but one of the top rated CMS systems I have included
are from winners of the CMSWire contest and the top
hits from opensource.com.
1. Joomla
Joomla is a free, multifunctional content management
system or cms. Due to it's ease of use, it has an
ever growing community of more than 40,000 users and
developers. It's simple, browser-based interface makes
it easy to add content pages to your website. For
many people, Joomla's attraction is it's ability to
be modified with the many hundreds of component addons
and plugin that can be added to the website system
framework. This way your website can be made to fit
your needs. Also, Joomla does a good job of managing
the web content needed to run the website.
2. Drupal
Drupal is an open source CMS that is written in PHP
and requires a MySQL database. It is an excellent,
lightweight, flexible system which can be used to
making a variety of sites from blogs to large community
websites. Drupal's simple design is easy to customize
and it has built-in search tool and search-engine
friendly URL's as an extra add on module.
Drupal has many features for building community sites.
So, it would be a good choice for a blogging or news
site, but it can also support a standard website.
3. Plone
Plone is a free easy to install, full featured, flexible
enterprise-ready CMS. However, if you want to add
an extension you need a good grasp of Python and web
programming. Even if you just use the default installation,
you will have a very full featured website to use.
Plone is built on top of Zope and has much of the
extensibility that Zope has to offer. Plone would
be a good fit for someone who is familiar with programming
and needs a flexible, scalable CMS.
4. CMS Made Simple
CMS Made Simple has many enthusiastic reviews. It
is as the name states. It is a free, very simple CMS
that someone with no web experience can use to create
and manage a page based website. It is very easy to
add content and addons to the site. A list of modules
is included in the admin interface from which the
modules can be downloaded.
Unlike, Drupal, it does not have community based
features such as commenting or forums. It is good
for someone who just wants to add or update pages
to a brochure ware website.
5. Mambo
Mambo, formerly named Mambo Open Source or MOS, is
a free, easy to use CMS. Mambo has attracted many
users through it's ease in adding and managing web
pages. It's more advanced features such as page caching,
advanced templating techniques and robust API has
attracted users who are looking for a more complex
website. Mambo also offers RSS feeds, forums, polls,
blogs, news flashes and etc.
Mambo is useful for creating simpler as well more
complex websites.
6. WordPress
Last, I have included WordPress among the CMS system.
Both Wikipedia and Gobala Krishnan in WebPro News
believe that Wordpress has expanded beyond being an
open source blogging tool to becoming a CMS. Since
it is enormously popular, I have added it to the list.
Gobala Krishnan explains that,"it's all a matter
of having clear goals and the right plugins and partnering
with the right services."
For example, WordPress was used by medical blogger
Graham, at Standford University's medical school,
to create a Community Health Resource Center website.
