You may often of heard web designers talk about a CMS. In the article below we go though what a CMS is, and go over some of the CMS’s available.
CMS stands for “Content Management System”. This basically does what it says: it manages the content on a website. It is normally a web based application that allows the user to create and modify the website without the knowledge of design or programming languages.
The content management systems allow you to add new pages, manage existing pages, alter menus, edit text and upload and insert images. If your site has a shop the CMS also enables you to add in your products and prices.
So which CMS should I use?
There are many CMS’s out there and each have there pros and cons. It’s really just a case of choosing the right CMS for the job in hand. Below we go over the pros and cons of the 3 major CMSes available today.
WordPress
Released in 2003 WordPress started life as a blogging system but has since proved its worth as a fully fledged CMS. It’s now powering millions of websites from simple brochure sites, to e-commerce shops and social networks.
Pros
- WordPress is Open Source, is based in PHP and has a strong community surrounding it, meaning its easy to find help, tutorials or information on it.
- Many available plugins to extend functionality including 45000+ free plugins
- Easy to develop themes and plugins
- The management system is very user friendly and intuitive.
- Quick to install
Cons
- The weakness with WordPress is that without additional security measures it is vulnerable.
- Some functionality that other CMS handle as standard does require custom programming
Drupal
Released in 2001 Drupal is an open source content management system , that is easily the most functional of the open source CMS available and is a favourite among developers.
Pros
- Users can edit information directly on the page
- Easily extendable through use of modules and plugins including 34000+ free plugins
- Theme can be easily developed
- Open source – free and has a developer community
- Can do almost anything
Cons
- Not as user friendly as other CMS available – if you are not a developer Drupal has a reputation for being difficult to use.
Joomla
Released in 2005 Joomla is a more complicated but still powerful CMS.
Pros
- Good at managing large amounts of articles.
- 7000+ free plugins
- Open source – free and has a developer community
Cons
- Not as user friendly as WordPress
- Not as Developer Friendly as Drupal
- Modules/Plugins not as extensive as WordPress or Drupal
In conclusion
At The Cybermill we work with WordPress in the main developing custom themes and plugin for our clients, our off the peg range of Breeze websites have also been developed within WordPress. We choose WordPress as our CMS of choice as we find it’s the most user friendly for our clients and from a development point of view is easy to work with, is easily scale-able and can do almost anything.
We do however work with many different CMS including our own in house CMS. We also work with CMSes such as Magento, Concrete 5 and Actinic. If you have an existing web site that needs some attention or need a website that you would like to update yourself why not give us a call on 01904 720 999 to see how we can help.
