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10 Promising Content Management Systems

Nov 6 2008 by Jacob Gube | 200 Comments

When it comes to content management systems (CMS) and publishing platforms, there are plenty to choose from. They vary in technologies used, organization structure, performance, and license. You’ve probably heard of popular content management systems such as Drupal, WordPress, Movable Type, Joomla!, and Textpattern, but if you want to try a platform that’s a little less main stream – check out these excellent alternatives.
In this article, you’ll find 10 terrific content management systems that may not garner as much attention as their more popular counterparts – but should.
There’s a large amount of content management systems out there, so if your favorite isn’t on here, share it with us in the comments.

ExpressionEngine

Go to ExpressionEngine demo

ExpressionEngine is a powerful and easy-to-use content management system. ExpressionEngine is known for its flexibility and intuitive Template Engine that lets developers easily mold the CMS into its intended use. It has a built-in caching feature that significantly reduces server load (helpful in times of high traffic). Check out the Showcase section on EE’s website to see live sites that use ExpressionEngine.

Concrete5

Go to Concrete5 demo
Concrete5 is a solid content management system that’s a breeze to use. You can edit a web page live by entering "edit mode", which makes the regions and elements on the web page you are viewing editable. It has a very robust administration panel with a built-in system for gathering statistics so you don’t need to install a plugin/extension or use a third party application like Google Analytics to monitor your site traffic.

Radiant CMS

Go to Radiant CMS demo
Radiant CMS focuses itself for use in small teams. It’s designed as a simple and elegant CMS akin to 37 Signals applications, holding out on complicated and unnecessary features to provide users a straightforward interface for creating and editing website content.

CushyCMS

CushyCMS is a "plug-and-play" content management system that doesn’t require you to install anything to get it working, which can greatly reduce your maintenance cost and development time. With CushyCMS, you define which areas are editable, making it a safe option to your not-very-tech-savvy clients. CushyCMS is currently being used by about 10,000 websites and is gaining popularity as a no-hassle, user-friendly CMS.

Symphony

Go to Symphony demo
Symphony, created by Overture, is a CMS designed for developers, utilizing XSLT to provide developers flexibility in customizing Symphony. If you don’t know much about XSLT, Overture provides a large number of tutorials and screencasts on their resource center. With that said, Symphony isn’t for everybody and those looking for a content management system that requires little technical expertise should probably consider another option.

MODx

MODx is both a content management system and a PHP web application framework. MODx puts a high emphasize on web standards, allowing you to build XHTML 1.1 strict compliant websites easily. It comes with a build-in CSS menu builder for hassle-free site navigation development. For less-experienced users, MODx comes with a graphical user interface installer so you can get up and running quickly.

Plone CMS

Plone CMS is a feature-packed content management system built on the Zope web application framework. It’s supported by a large and active developer community so you won’t have any trouble finding help. Plone has extensive documentation in a wiki format to help you get started and help you take advantage of its more advanced features.

Railfrog

Railfrog is one of the few CMS’s built on top of the Ruby On Rails web application framework (the same technology powering popular web applications such as Twitter and Basecamp). To help you get started on Railfrog, check out its Developer Portal where you’ll find guides that you can follow to get rolling.

TYPO3 CMS

TYPO3 is an open-source, enterprise-level content management system focused on providing companies a solution for websites and their intranet. While many CMS’s try to be simple and basic, TYPO3 provides users complex and powerful features to help you achieve complicated tasks and ability to integrate with other applications.

SilverStripe

Go to SilverStripe demo
SilverStripe is a PHP-based, open-source content management system. It uses the MVC coding framework to offer developers great flexibility and potential for scalability. Check out the live demo on their site to see a basic installation of SilverStripe as well as to take a peak at how the administration system looks like.

Content Management System Resources

The CMS Matrix – A Tool for comparing Content Management Systems.
CMS Watch – A news portal for Content Management Systems.
CMS Toolbox: 80+ Open Source Content Management Systems
CMS Report – A website that reports on Content Management Sytems.
How to Build a Maintainable Site using CushyCMS and Twitter

Knowledge Center

CMS Comparison: Drupal, Joomla and Wordpress

Article ID: 1052
Last updated on April 4, 2013
Authored by: Rackspace Support

If creating a website for your business is on the horizon, you may be wondering which content management system (CMS) is the best choice for you. Here’s a look at three of the most widely-used ones. All three are open-source software, each developed and maintained by a community of thousands. Not only are all three free to download and use, but the open-source format means that the platform is continuously being improved to support new Internet technologies. With all of these systems, basic functions can be enhanced ad infinitum with an ever-expanding array of add-ons, contributed from their respective communities.
There’s no one-size-fits-all solution here; it depends on your goals, technical expertise, budget and what you need your site to do. For a simple blog or brochure-type site, Wordpress could be the best choice (while very friendly for non-developers, it’s a flexible platform also capable of very complex sites). For a complex, highly customized site requiring scalability and complex content organization, Drupal might be the best choice. For something in between that has an easier learning curve, Joomla may be the answer.
When you have questions or need help, will you be able to find it easily? With all of these systems, the answer is yes. Each has passionate, dedicated developer and user communities, making it easy to find free support directly through their websites or through other online forums or even books. In addition, paid support is readily available from third-party sources, such as consultants, developers and designers. Each of these systems shows long-term sustainability and longevity; support for them will continue to be readily available for the foreseeable future. The more time and effort you are willing and able to invest into learning a system, the more it will be able to do for you. With both Wordpress and Joomla, you can order a wide range of services and options off the menu to suit your needs; with Drupal, you’ll be in the kitchen cooking up what you want for yourself, with all of the privileges of customization that entails.
See the comparison chart below for more insight into the differences in these top content management systems. Still not sure? Download each of the free platforms and do a trial run to help you decide.

	Drupal	Joomla	Wordpress
Homepage	www.drupal.org	www.joomla.org	www.wordpress.org
About	Drupal is a powerful, developer-friendly tool for building complex sites. Like most powerful tools, it requires some expertise and experience to operate.	Joomla offers middle ground between the developer-oriented, extensive capabilities of Drupal and user-friendly but more complex site development options than Wordpress offers.	Wordpress began as an innovative, easy-to-use blogging platform. With an ever-increasing repertoire of themes, plugins and widgets, this CMS is widely used for other website formats also.
Example Sites	Community Portal: Fast Company, Team Sugar	Social Networking: MTV Networks Quizilla Education: Harvard University Restaurant: IHOP	Social Networking: PlayStation Blog News Publishing: CNN Political Ticker Education/Research: NASA Ames Research Center News Publishing:The New York Observer
Installation	Drupal Installation Forum	Joomla Installation Forum	Wordpress Installation Forum
Ease of Use	Drupal requires the most technical expertise of the three CMSs. However, it also is capable of producing the most advanced sites. With each release, it is becoming easier to use. If you’re unable to commit to learning the software or can’t hire someone who knows it, it may not be the best choice.	Less complex than Drupal, more complex than Wordpress. Relatively uncomplicated installation and setup. With a relatively small investment of effort into understanding Joomla’s structure and terminology, you have the ability to create fairly complex sites.	Technical experience is not necessary; it’s intuitive and easy to get a simple site set up quickly. It’s easy to paste text from a Microsoft Word document into a Wordpress site, but not into Joomla and Drupal sites.
Features	Known for its powerful taxonomy and ability to tag, categorize and organize complex content.	Designed to perform as a community platform, with strong social networking features.	Ease of use is a key benefit for experts and novices alike. It’s powerful enough for web developers or designers to efficiently build sites for clients; then, with minimal instruction, clients can take over the site management. Known for an extensive selection of themes. Very user-friendly with great support and tutorials, making it great for non-technical users to quickly deploy fairly simple sites.
Caching Plug-ins	Pressflow: This is a downloadable version of Drupal that comes bundled with popular enhancements in key areas, including performance and scalability.	JotCache offers page caching in the Joomla 1.5 search framework, resulting in fast page downloads. Also provides control over what content is cached and what is not. In addition, page caching is supported by the System Cache Plugin that comes with Joomla.	WP-SuperCache: The Super Cache plugin optimizes performance by generating static html files from database-driven content for faster load times.
Best Use Cases	For complex, advanced and versatile sites; for sites that require complex data organization; for community platform sites with multiple users; for online stores	Joomla allows you to build a site with more content and structure flexibility than Wordpress offers, but still with fairly easy, intuitive usage. Supports E-commerce, social networking and more.	Ideal for fairly simple web sites, such as everyday blogging and news sites; and anyone looking for an easy-to-manage site. Add-ons make it easy to expand the functionality of the site.

Alex Rojas Riva

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Saturday, March 15, 2014

10 Promising Content Management Systems.