If building a website for your business is on the horizon, you may be wondering which content management system (CMS) is the best option for you. Here’s a look at three of the most commonly used. All three are open source software, each developed and maintained by thousands of communities. Not only are all three free to download and use, but the open source format means the platform is continually being improved to support new Internet technologies. With all of these systems, vital functions can be enhanced with an ever-growing range of plugins, contributed by their individual communities.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution here; It depends on your goals, budget, technical expertise, and what you want your site to do. For a simple blog or brochure site, WordPress might be the best choice (while very non-developer friendly, it’s a flexible platform that’s also suitable for very complex sites). For a complex, highly customized site that needs scalability and complex content organization, Drupal might be the best option. For something in between that has a simpler learning curve, Joomla may be the answer.
When you have questions or need help, can you easily find it? With all of these systems, the answer is yes. Each have dedicated and passionate communities of developers and users, making it easy to find free support directly through their websites or through online forums or even books. Also, paid support can be easily obtained from third-party sources such as developers, consultants, and designers. Each of these systems shows long-term sustainability and long life; support for them will continue to be available for the foreseeable future. The more time and effort you are willing and able to put into a learning system, the more it can do for you.
CMS
Drupal is a powerful and developer-friendly tool for building complex sites. Like most powerful tools, it requires some skill and knowledge to operate.
Example Sites: Community Portal: Fast Company, Team Sugar
Installation: Drupal Installation Forum
Ease of use: Drupal requires the most technical knowledge of the three CMS. However, it is also competent to produce the most advanced sites. With each version, it becomes easier to use. If you can’t commit to learning the software or can’t hire someone who knows it, it may not be the best option.
Features: Known for its powerful taxonomy and ability to tag, categorize, and organize complex content.
Caching Plugins – Press Stream – This is a downloadable version of Drupal that comes with popular improvements in key areas, including performance and scalability.
Best Use Cases: For complex, superior, and flexible sites; for sites that need complex data organization; for community platform sites with multiple users; for online stores
Joomla CMS
Joomla offers a happy medium between the extensive developer-oriented capabilities of Drupal and the easy-to-use but more complex site development options than WordPress offers.
Example sites:
• Social networks: MTV Networks Quizilla,
• Education: Harvard University,
• Restaurant: IHOP
Installation: Joomla Installation Forum
Ease of use: Less complex than Drupal, more complex than WordPress. Relatively simple installation and configuration. With a moderately small investment of effort to understand Joomla’s structure and terminology, you have the ability to create quite complex sites.
Features: Intended to function as a community platform, with strong social networking features.
Caching Plugins: Jot Cache provides page caching in the Joomla 1.5 search framework, resulting in fast page downloads. It also offers control over what content is cached and what is not. Also, page caching is supported by the system cache plugin that comes with Joomla.
Best Use Cases: Joomla allows you to create a site with more content and structure flexibility than WordPress, but still quite easy and intuitive to use. Support for e-commerce, social networks and more.
WordPress CMS
WordPress started out as an easy-to-use and innovative blogging platform. With an ever-growing range of themes, plugins, and widgets, this CMS is widely used for other website formats as well.
Example sites:
• Social Networks: PlayStation Blog
• News Post: CNN Political Ticker
• Education/Research: NASA Ames Research Center
• News publication: The New York Observer
Installation: WordPress Installation Forum
Ease of Use: No technical expertise needed; it’s intuitive and simple to quickly set up a simple site. It is easy to paste text from a Microsoft Word document on a WordPress site, but not on Joomla and Drupal sites.
Features: Ease of use is a key advantage for experts and beginners alike. It is powerful enough for web developers or designers to build sites for clients proficiently; then, with minimal instruction, clients can take over the administration of the site. Known for a wide selection of themes. Very easy to use with great support and tutorials making it ideal for non-technical users to quickly set up fairly simple sites.
Caching Plugins: WP-Super Cache – The Super Cache plugin optimizes performance by generating static html files from database-driven content for faster load times.
Best Use Cases: Perfect for fairly simple websites like everyday blogs and news sites; and anyone looking for an easy to manage site. Plugins make it easy to expand the functionality of the site.
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