[mathias]

We're currently researching CMS's. Trying to find the right ones.

Came across this one. Anyone seen it?


Now for a burning question which I'm hoping the soothing waters of dt's wisdom can extinguish so that I might rightfully one day take my place among the webdev demigods of NW Arkansas and beyond:

Is one CMS right for every application?

I guess I'm referring to scalability here. There will be sites that are tiny, where the owners only want to update text on the front page. Then there will be sites that are huge where the owners may want a more dynamic updating system.

So, on top of finding a good CMS system, I have to determine what 'package' is best per client...

[pgo]

Joomla's OK. It's pretty convoluted.

Originally Posted by mathias

Is one CMS right for every application?

No.

Another one to check out is CMS Made Simple. It should work for most standard "content" sites.

There are different scripts for different circumstances. One thing might work for a standard "content" site, but will certainly not work for a real estate site.

[Intrinzik.v2]

CMSMadeSimple and Joomla are both great choices, ive used both. Joomla though seemed over complicated (to me) to get my site to function the way I wanted. Cms Made simple was a better choice for me (or smaller sites). Also there Wordpress which is very flexible and one of the best out there.

[Dusteh]

I wouldn't recommend Joomla to any professional. Its code output is gash. Its quality control on 3rd party applications is non-existent. Its core structure is outdated and confusing for your content editors. Why is the content limited to 3 layers?? It could badly do with some AJAX functionality.

Its quick to set up however, you can have a site running in a couple of hours without knowing a thing when you start. It does have loads of plugins, meaning you could bodge together a site that just about does what you want.

Is there a holy grail of open source CMS for all applications out there? No.

Personally I would use Drupal over Joomla for large scale sites, CMs Made Simple for small ones and wordpress for blogging.

I have one question, if RoR is the programming framework of the future, and its dev time is much quicker than PHP - where are the RoR-based CMS systems? Is it too early in the languages lifespan?

[ludesign]

Hi,

Personally I do not like Joomla. As Dusteh mention in him/her post, Joomla code is a peice of junk. Nothing is on place even the Templates are php executable files, really hard coded html code into the php code which gives you BIG limitation about how much you can modify the system if you are not familiar with php coding. The SQL is a crap. That's my opinion about Joomla from my Programmer view.

There is no Universal CMS which could be used with the same success for all kind/sort of websites.

p.s. I'm talkin'bout Joomla 1.0.x not 1.5.x

[Dusteh]

Little has changed between 1.0 and 1.5

[oli]

I use wordpress for everything now, so many great plugins etc you can make it do whatever you want. Expression Engine is another good one.

[Dusteh]

interesting, so do you feel confident that you could roll out a pretty large-scale corporate site on wordpress?

[Intrinzik.v2]

^^others have, wordpress is very flexible;

edit: so is joomla though (when in the right hands)

[Dusteh]

Examples?

[oli]

Some nice design examples
http://www.ndesign-studio.com/blog/w...omment-page-7/
All blogs really though.

I've only just got into it recently, Im fairly confident I could use it for most sites. Ive yet to not find a pre-made plugin for something I've wanted to do.

Smallbeer would recommend EE over everything, though I found it a steeper learning curve, so I gave up on it

[John Good]

Originally Posted by oli

Smallbeer would recommend EE over everything, though I found it a steeper learning curve, so I gave up on it

Expression engine is not free, it's even quite expensive for commercial projects.

[FrancescoSforza]

I like this one - http://modxcms.com/
Pretty flexible and not so bloated

[smallbeer]

Originally Posted by John Good

Expression engine is not free, it's even quite expensive for commercial projects.

Nobody said it was free. And if $250 is expensive for a commercial project then the project doesn't require a CMS of the scale of EE. Or you need to find a new way of making a living.

You get what you pay for...

http://wordpress.org/development/2007/03/upgrade-212/

[John Good]

Originally Posted by smallbeer

You get what you pay for...http://wordpress.org/development/2007/03/upgrade-212/

ha ha ha ! yes. indeed.

[Dusteh]

Can someone explain what modX can do better than other systems? Its website is so damn vague.

[John Good]

Originally Posted by Dusteh

Can someone explain what modX can do better than other systems? Its website is so damn vague.

I have no clue, but it looks cool !

[Dusteh]

A couple of people have recommended it on here in the past but I've never had time to look at it properly. Its young age and lack of any real-world examples put me off. I'm lazy like that.

[bgw]

Expression Engine Core is free. Lacks a good few features, but should be good enough to play around with. Let you see if you think it's worth the plunge if you plan to take it into a commercial environment.

[FrancescoSforza]

For one - it's not just another blog CMS, that you need to hack to make it usable for "normal" website. I'm lazy so I like that. I wouldn't say it's head and shoulders above other systems, it's just the fact it's really good for general purposes.
The admin panel is pretty cool, it's ajax driven and has desktop-like feel to it. Clients like it and I find it more intuitive than Wordpress. There's also nice feature that let's you edit the site content "on-site", you just open it in your browser (you have to be logged in) click the element you want to edit and voila.
It's of course expandable, you can write your own plugins as well... just like with other systems. Nothing revolutionary, it's those little things that make difference to me.