CMS solution help

Does anyone have any input on a good CMS (content management solution)? I'm looking for something to manage a large corporate site so I'm open to pay or free systems, this is not for a small site. The company is purchasing new servers to run the system on if needed so I am not locked into one technology (php, asp) or another either. I've looked around the web but have trouble trusting reviews I've seen (I always feel they are sponsored much like web host reviews). One of the main things I'm looking for is flexibility in site look/design since my part in this will be the look and feel of the interface. Thanks in advance for any input.

jamie

 

I'm a HUGE fan of Joomla. There's not much it can't do once you factor in all of the plugins.

 

Joomla or Drupal are the best php CMS's - I cannot speak for ASP CMS's though.

Is this going to be used as an Extranet/intranet too? if so then you might want to look at systems with DMS functionality built in - like sharepoint.

 

At this point the discussion has been for only a public website.

Joomla does look very powerful (and popular, that must say something), going to check out Drupal next.

jamie

 

Joomla is very good in many ways and I have used it quite a bit, but there are some down sides too.

Certain aspects of it are quite poor, especially for a major website. Access control is very basic, for example and it does not provide a single canonical URL for a given page - it's in fact dictated by how you got there, so you have to be careful in your site structure to be consistent.

While it's very easy to change your template with Joomla, you will very probably have to develop your own to get the look and feel you want. You'll also have to work on the templates of any extensions you use, to get clean consistent output.

There are tons of extensions for Joomla but of course the quality is very variable. One or two are absolutely outstanding, some are quite weak and most are somewhere in between. Expect to have to do some work with them to get exactly what you want. You may also have to pay for a good option in some cases - but it doesn't sound like that's a problem.

So all in all you can produce nice websites with Joomla and save a lot of coding, but you will need to do a good bit of work if you want to avoid a patchwork site.

Drupal I've only used a very little so can't really comment on.

 

Maybe it's because I always have SEO enabled but all my URLs are the same regardless of how you get anywhere.

 

SEO does help a lot and that's how I use it too but it's just a veneer so you have to be careful. None SEO URLs are still valid and can still crop up, for example if an extension doesn't have a good SEO router or if you have articles that don't have a menu link (like news or blog articles), but do have more than one possible path to them.

 

Thanks for the input, I met with the client yesterday and we've decided to explore Joomla, Drupal and one their programs had recommended called SilverStripe. Going to test run them and go from there. Thanks for the input.

jamie

 

If your decision is not made yet, I would strongly suggest you also take a look at TYPO3 (www.typo3.com), which is a real enterprise content management system.
It has a great feature set and is very stable and proven.
The learning curve is steep, but once you get the hang of it, you'll love it.

 

hello

http://www.impresscms.org/

very powerfull, stable, and easy to learn
many modules and strong usersystem.. opensource..try it

M@x

 

I've used both quite a bit, and I'd vote for Drupal over Joomla - Drupal just seems more flexible as far as tweaking appearance and modules, and the community is great.

 

When you say CMS, what kind do you need. I use Joomla for my website, but if you need an enterprise CMS, Joomla isn't it.

Alfresco is a good Opensource enterprise CMS, if you need one in your back pocket.

Cheers,

Galen

 

Which CMS you choose really depends on what you want your website to do...

Joomla's current most popular version is the v1.5.x series. This is getting on a bit, but its age also means it's had a lot of time for third-party extensions and templates to be created for it. It's easy to set up. Easy-ish to use—it does have some quirks, such as the way it handles menus—but its maturity also means it's one of the easiest packages to get support for online. There are countless websites, forums, etc.

Drupal feels like a more mature version of Joomla at times. Its learning curve is steeper, but it's a very consistent design and once it 'clicks', you'll be throwing content online with ease. If I have a criticism, it's that its administration UI tends to assume a lot of knowledge on the part of the user, often using cryptic terminology that you have to lookup. It also tends to use lots of long pages of settings, rather than splitting them up into more manageable and navigable chunks. But this is mainly a GUI criticism. The functionality itself is top-notch.

I tried Typo3 a while back, but just couldn't get on with it. I also find its own website confusing. (E.g. the table on this page has "X" symbols under "Core" and "Ext". But some features don't have a symbol in either column. Does that mean the feature is supported? Coming soon? What? In some cases, it's clear they should have put "N/A" or similar, but even so, it's not a great piece of communication.

I haven't tried Alfresco, so I can't comment on that. I've heard good things about it, but that's all.

An important caveat: some CMS software has a deliberate policy of breaking backwards compatibility with previous releases. Be aware of this when making your choice.

Finally: most CMS software seems hell-bent on using PHP. Personally, I think PHP isn't just a bad programming language, but an insult to good design generally. Unfortunately, the same can be said about web application programming too as it is one gigantic kludge: the web was never intended to be used like this. I'd insert a long rant here about X Window System, Wayland and other alternative technologies that could, probably should, yet aren't used (yet) instead. Of all of them, Wayland seems the one with the most potential, with both Canonical and Fedora both talking it up. (Apple's OS X uses the open PDF standard to power the display and is closer to Wayland than X.)

There's no reason why the machine that does the rendering also has to be the one running the app. Web apps are built on this premise, but the underlying technology is a nasty Heath Robinson* mess of ill-fitting protocols and standards. If the folks at Unity Technologies ever get bored, they could make a killing by applying their magic to web app development.

* (US readers will be more familiar with name of Rube Goldberg, although W. Heath Robinson's "mad inventions" cartoons predate his.)

 

Drupal with the optional Zen theme is nice if you intend to to create your own CSS-driven site design. The plugin selection for Drupal is really, really big.

 

+1 Drupal

 

No joomla, it's very easy to exploit security.

Best bet, is custom cms, or enterprice ready cms (typo3 , Drupal etc)

 

Isn't there any other 'Unity to Drupal' tutorial (than this one) anywhere on the web? It would be awesome if someone could help me out.

 

If I may ask, what do you mean by it being easy to exploit? I have not heard of Joomla having weak security prior to this?

 

Although a little less well known that Drupal and Joomla, you might be interested in Expression Engine 2, which is really a nice system written in Code Igniter (php) and it's really easy to pretty much create any kind of website big or small using various programmable tags and templates.
http://expressionengine.com/

And if you want to do ecommerce shopping cart stuff try the Brilliant Retail add-on http://www.brilliantretail.com/

Even Obama's presidential campaign website change.org used it.

 

Did anyone get this to work? I really meed a demo.

 

If you want something more custom you might want to check out CodeIgniter. It's a PHP framework.

Be aware though... badly written PHP will inevitably end up in spaghetti code.

 

If you want something simple and quick, Concrete5 will work.

 

I use Subdreamer CMS atm. Been using it for about 6 years and it is perfect if all you want to run is a small/medium sized personal or business site. It's secure and a pleasure to use. The downside of using Subdreamer is that there are few plugins and themes.

It's not free though and is around $100 for a license. You also need to pay a renewal fee each year to give you access to further updates. Development of the CMS is strong, ongoing and issues are sorted very quickly.

I've been trying to wean myself away from it to use something else, joomla, wordpress etc. but find those overkill for what I want them to do. Joomla is very powerful as is wordpress but I find them too fidgety to configure and get them to look and play how you want your site to be.

http://www.subdreamer.com

 

I think drupal is the best cms at this time. Very flexible and easy to use

 

+1 for drupal

My web site is made with drupal:
http://www.blockstory.net

I have forums, wiki, image gallery, chat, e-comerce, social network integration.

If you need something, it is just a matter of adding another plugin.

 

Guys, necrothreading a bit no?

 

No one recomending wordpress??

 

Gonna give this thread one more life. Can anyone recommend a CMS to use with GameSparks?

 

Wordpress no get no love??