[urban1977]

I have seen this question lots of times on this forum and now the 2008 report for CMS usage is out it might sway your decision on which ones to use.

most popular and no suprise:

Drupal
Joomla
Wordpress

http://www.waterandstone.com/downloa...rketSurvey.pdf

only 50 pages of reading!

[bluestagstudio]

There are so many CMS systems out there, my idea of a good CMS is one that takes out all the technical requirements and just lets a user manage their content. May sound obvious but I've seen so many CMS systems that are just cut down versions of Dreamweaver and require quite a bit of training to use.

That's one hefty PDF file too!

[smart.1]

You could use CMSmatrix to help you decision - it makes a detailed comparaison between many available CMS, and it is up to date (although very ugly site).

[mytechguru]

Wordpress is Ultimate in my choice

[PointandStare]

Popular doesn't always mean best.
Depends what you want to do really.
Standard stock install and change a few colours or completely develop an original look and feel?

I recommend Nucleus CMS: Pure Publishing

[Shiro]

Having spent the last couple months learning Drupal, and how to code modules for it, I have to say I think it's really quite amazing. I can't see how it could be any more versatile, it really is impressive. Every last thing is customizable on it, so you aren't limited by anything other than the difficulty of the program. That being said, it's pretty difficult. Very steep learning curve. But if you can get over that curve, then it opens up a world of possibilities, and makes coding things much simpler and quicker.

[sbx]

I've personally found joomla quite cumbersome and bloated... I'm trying to get my hands together with expressionengine, but the one thing they have which is a blotch against their name is the horrible, horrible, ghastly rancid, mouldy, old rotten default template.

Spearbox Media to see what I mean. Horrible.


It does come with a lot of features, but understanding it requires a degree. Compared to my knowledge anyway.


--------------------------------

Edit: P.s. The tragedy that is the UI echos through their addons too, the forums are atrocious. If you get it, you really need to devote a lot of time to make it look even slightly usable. Horrible.

The look nothing like what you'd see on their community website.

[invmatt]

Another website to check out is opensourcecms they allow you to test demo all the installs and have quite a large selection to choose from.

Personally I've been using Typolight for a few projects and so far its perfect for everything I need.

[Castemelijn]

I've been using Drupal for the last few months. And I'm really satisfied with it. The moment you start learning about it, you hate it really reaaally hard! But as soon as you learn the basic skills, you couldn't live without it :-)

And even if you're not really a coder, Drupal still is a good option. The only thing you have to learn, is how to create themes, which is not that complicated. And than you're done :-) And if you use the CCK-module, you can create all the content types you desire without writing one line of code.

Hope this helps :-)

[eviltwinisdead]

My work uses Umbraco - The Friendly CMS. It's open source, and it seems to be well liked. I've never used it myself though.

[paulanthony]

13 free CMS options for Web Design Professionals Reviewed

*Ahem* shameless plug.

[sbx]

It's quite good, but I'd have thought expressionengine (despite my current loathing for it) would have made the reviews. I was disappointed though with the lack of a rating. Even out of 10, it'd give a good idea. Maybe I missed the ratings.

[Dusteh]

I third Drupal. As a non-coder myself it is the most flexible CMS available without having to resort to custom php code.

I also agree that you need to stick with it. The first week of learning is a big confusing mess.

Joomla is rubbish, forget about it.

[Shiro]

You ever need any custom modules Dusteh, you know where to come

[Dusteh]

Well actually I might well do. You will be my first port of call.

If you need anyone to skin Drupal when your workload gets too much, you know where to come

[Shiro]

Deal.

[Vivid Lust]

Wordpress is the best!

[roto]

Dusteh and haku, have you two gotten a room yet?

[djeglin]

Symphony (Symphony — Home) gets a vote from me... Its definitely not for the faint of heart, as everything you do with it will require you to write XSLT (the whole thing is XML based), but its worth it... Total flexibility with sections, data types, fields etc... No convoluted templating to deal with... just write an XSL file for your data sources and let css do the work etc... Building my new portfolio on it, as well as a couple of small ish sites for clients.

[pixelita]

Great resource, Paul. Bookmarked will prolly tweet a few of those articles later. Thanks!