List of the Top Content Management Systems (CMS)
Content Management Systems or also called CMS are frequently used for storing, controlling, and publishing documentation such as news articles, and just about any other web content.
They make creating websites a breeze, then maintaining that site even easier. Some content management systems will allow you too easily add pages or change them all with just a few clicks of the mouse. You can create just about type of site by using a CMS, there seems to be every type you can imagine – from ones that will give you tools to create a blog to ones that will enable you to create complex site stores.
I would suggest to anyone that doesn’t have the enough knowledge in creating a site as good as some popular CMS can that you choose to use one instead of going about it yourself. It will truly make the experience of being a webmaster a lot smoother.
Wordpress
When it comes to blogs this is the CMS for you, it is currently the most used blog software out there and there are good reasons for it. It offers you a ton of customizable options that make creating a personalized site simple. The development site for Wordpress offers thousands of themes and plug-ins to help you in the process. I would suggest that if you are creating a blog pick this up! Also recently I have seen people taking Wordpress the next level by using it for creating sites other then blogs, so it turns out that this powerful CMS has the ability to shine out from the rest.
- Easy installation and upgrades
- Easy Importing
- Intelligent text formatting
- Multiple authors
- Full user registration
- Spam protection
- Comments
- Themes & Plug-ins
- Password Protected Posts
- XML-RPC interface
- WordPress Links
- No rebuilding
- Cross-blog communication tools
- Bookmarklets
- Ping away
- WordPress Pages
Wordpress Developer: “WordPress started in 2003 with a single bit of code to enhance the typography of everyday writing and with fewer users than you can count on your fingers and toes. Since then it has grown to be the largest self-hosted blogging tool in the world, used on millions of sites and seen by tens of millions of people every day.”
Joomla
Joomla is an award-winning CMS, which enables a user to build powerful websites with ease. It has the ability like many other CMS to add themes and what Joomla calls extensions to add custom features to the site. I would suggest this software to any that is looking for a way to build a website while maintaining your content in an organized fashion.
- Easy installation and upgrades
- User Management
- Language Manager
- Syndication and Newsfeed Management
- Integrated Help System
- Powerful Extensibility
- Comments
- Easy Polls/Surveys
- Themes & Extentions
- Template Management
- Search Functions
- Banner Management
- Completely database driven site engines
- User editable look and feel
- Random Newsflash generator
- Layout preview
Joomla Developer: “Joomla makes creating and maintaining Web sites easy for everyone, from total beginners setting up their first site to IT professionals managing enterprise installations.”
Drupal
Drupal is a powerful content management system, meaning you can power many different types of websites with it without knowing any coding languages. It really is similar to Joomla is many ways – it will of course like others allow you to use custom themes and download cool plug-ins for your site.
- Easy installation and upgrades
- Friendly URLs
- Threaded Comments
- Multi-language
- Themes & Modules
- Permalinks
- Online help/support
- News aggregator
- Role based permission system
- User authentication
- Content syndication
- Database independence
- Polls & Search Functions
- Analysis, Tracking and Statistics
- Collaborative Guide
- Open source
Drupal Developer: “Drupal is a free software package that allows an individual or a community of users to easily publish, manage and organize a wide variety of content on a website. Tens of thousands of people and organizations are using Drupal to power scores of different web sites.”
Mediawiki
This CMS is normally not used unless you are making a Wiki type site. Wikis are normally a manual about a subject or product. I have used it for many of my sites, but normally try to not retain the normal Wiki look. The famous knowledge database Wikipedia uses this content management system.
- Easy installation
- Friendly URLs
- Multi-language
- Automatic resizing images
- Generate a table of contents
- On-page credits
- Anti-spam features
- Themes & Extentions
- File upload feature
- Extended recent changes
- Excellent Organization
- Talk pages
- Open source
- Special report pages
- Wonderful Performance
- Message notification
Mediawiki Developer: “MediaWiki is free server-based software which is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). It’s designed to be run on a large server farm for a website that gets millions of hits per day. MediaWiki is an extremely powerful, scalable software and a feature-rich wiki implementation, that uses PHP to process and display data stored in its MySQL database.”
Mambo
I’ve personally never used this CMS, but it seems to have a decent size following. It seems to offer about the same features as Drupal & Joomla, and it’s actively updated. I would suggest that you take the time to check it out.
- Easy installation
- Completely database driven site engine
- Fully customizable layouts
- Friendly Admin interface
- Dynamic Forum
- Page caching mechanism
- Multiple WYSIWYG content editor support
- Themes
- Advertising management
- Search engine friendly
- Poll/Voting booth
- News, products or services sections
- Hierarchical user access groups
- Object hierarchy
- Content publication scheduling
- Media upload and management
Mambo Developer: “Mambo is an award winning, feature rich content management system; it is used for everything from simple websites to complex corporate applications. Mambo is over 8 years old and has been a free CMS licensed under the GNU/GPL version 2 for over 7 years. Mambo is easy to install, simple to manage, and reliable.”
Conclusion
It’s important to understand that all Content Management Systems are not created equal. You should take the time to review your options to see what will fit your needs when developing your website. I would suggest to try out Wordpress or Joomla, because they seem to have the largest following.