You’ve heard the acronym CMS thrown out a lot, but what does it mean?
Call Mom Soon? Cars Moving at Superspeed?

Actually, neither.

For the basics on what a CMS is see our June blog Is CMS for Me?

Ok now, so you know your business needs a CMS based website, but which one is the right one? The right CMS will support your overall business goals and strategies.

So, what is out there?

LAMP server compatible CMS accounts for about half of the CMS applications out there, so we will dedicate this blog to the most popular CMSes on the market.

Joomla
You’ve heard about Joomla as one of the most easy to use CMS out there. This is designed for a user who is used to using Microsoft Word.

We’ll let Joomla speak themselves about the features (from www.Joomla.org)
“Joomla is used all over the world to power Web sites of all shapes and sizes. For example:

• Corporate Web sites or portals
• Corporate intranets and extranets
• Online magazines, newspapers, and publications
• E-commerce and online reservations
• Government applications
• Small business Web sites
• Non-profit and organizational Web sites
• Community-based portals
• School and church Web sites
• Personal or family homepages”

WordPress
WordPress is one of the most popular blogging tools available and is built on PHP/ MySQL but with a few modifications can be used to run a website with or without a blog.

Read other’s opinions on Wordpress.

Some Wordpress features are listed below:

• It is the best CMS to write and manage a blog.
• Visitors to your site can leave comments on individual entries
• Just about any page on wordpress blog has an associated feed that your readers can subscribe to - there’s a feed for the latest posts, for categories, comments, for anything you want.
• WordPress fully supports both the Trackback and Pingback standards
• Out of the box WordPress comes with very robust tools such as an integrated blacklist and open proxy checker to manage and eliminate comment spam on your blog.
• WordPress has a built-in user registration system that (if you choose) can allow people to register and maintain profiles and leave authenticated comments on your blog.
• There’s much more, but these are the highlights

Magento
Magento has emerged as a solution for the e-commerce market.

(from www.MagentoCommerce.com)

“Magento was built with 3 central tenets in mind.

• Flexibility: We believe each solution should be as unique as the business behind it. Magento’s code allows for seamless customizations.
• Upgradeable: By separating the core code from community and local customizations, Magento can be easily customized without losing the ability to upgrade.
• Speed and Security: The coding standards used by the developers follow best practices to maximize the efficiency of the software and provide a secure online storefront.”

A huge advantage of using Magento is the ability to manage multiple websites and stores from one interface.

Drupal
(from http://www.wisegeek.com)

“Drupal is a content management system that makes use of modules to allow site administrators to organize and display content, customize appearance and manage routine tasks, such as registration for websites requiring user names and passwords.

• One of Drupal’s key characteristics is the fact that the entire Drupal framework is open source, meaning that the source code is available to anyone interested in working with it.
• The system itself is also free for all users, and while some web designers sell certain types of Drupal customization, many themes and modules are available for free as well.”

Read more about Drupal features.

Other Options

There are also other categories of CMS such as Microsoft IIS server CMS, Flat-file CMS, ColdFusion CMS and JavaCMS.

Read more on Open Source CMS Comparison.

After all this information, you may be thinking “With so many options out there, do I really need all these new shiny features that some of these CMSes provide? How do I decide?”

Keep it simple and stick to the basics.

Ask yourself:

1. What is my budget?
2. What are the main features I need?
3. How can I build a website around the needs of my business?

For more information about which CMS is right for you get a free consultation.