September 23, 2010 in Blog, Blogging, Production, Software, Web Development by David Dungan

The Best CMS for your Business

Most business websites these day’s are powered by a Content Management System of one kind or another. A CMS allows business owners to change and add content to their website without having to go knocking on the door of the guy who developed the site. Most web design companies have a standard CMS that they offer to their customers as part of a package and some will custom build a specific system for a business’ needs.

There are also many ‘open source’ (free) systems available however. In addition to this there are many different themes and templates available for each and any designer worth their salt will be able to design a custom theme/template for whatever system it is.

But what one to use? Good Question. Below are 3 of the best.

WordPress

WordPress is best known as a blogging platform but it is also a fairly comprehensive CMS. It’s simple to use, fairly flexible and very solid. It also has probably the biggest team of developers and an unlimited range of free and commercial themes available.

It’s not as flexible as some of the other systems however as it is predominantly designed for blogging. For example it generally doesn’t offer as many customisable menu options or choices of layout as the others although there are commercial themes available to add more options.

Verdict: If you need an ‘out of the box’ solution then this is your man. It’s possible to set up a WordPress site with little or no developer help and the CMS itself is a breeze to update and maintain.

Joomla

Joomla is more powerful than WordPress but what it gains in power it loses in usability. The interface is a little more complicated and less intuitive for the user as it offers way more options.

These options allow you to add new menus in multiple positions, constantly change and customise plug-ins and basically have the freedom to change most parts of your site. Staff will need training however because it’s not something that can be picked up quickly by most. It also does not have as many themes available so you’ll need to get some help on the design and development side.

Verdict: If you need something a bit beefier and are willing to pay someone to design and set up the site properly than Joomla is probably the one to go for. Also if you want that extra flexibility and don’t mind forking out for training, this is the CMS for you.

Drupal

Drupal is at the other end of the spectrum to WordPress in terms of both power and usability. It is the developers/webmasters CMS of choice but is certainly not the most user friendly.

Drupal is often used by organisations to power multi-site installations with member areas and multi-tier access. It offers awesome power that you can’t really get from the other two but is really only ideal for developers.

Verdict: If you’re not willing to compromise on power, are a developer yourself, or one of your staff are than Drupal is the best bet. Otherwise it’s probably too daunting to be able to configure and update without a lot of help.