What Content Management System to Choose?
The past few years have seen an explosion in the number of open source content management systems available for your website. It seems like just yesterday that php-nuke was the only one you could really use, and although it was flexible there were so many bugs and exploits in it, it was really pretty dangerous to use. Nowadays, Choosing a PHP CMS is a little more difficult, with everything from Xoops, to Joomla, to Drupal and dozens more offering functionality and stability we only dreamed about back in the days of php-nuke. but how do you compare the various solution available, and select a content management system best fits you.
The first thing I suggest looking at when selecting a content management system is the functionality. Take the time to research and record all of the functionality you think you'll need. Things like RSS feed syndication, easy categorization of content, integrated forums, a secure contact form, a site map that pings Google each time your site is updated, and the ability to upload images and files are all things I like to see integrated into a good system. Decide what functionality you'll need, then research to see if the CMS you are evaluating has that. Obviously business directory and resource would have different functionality requirements than a personal blog would. Also, take a look around the CMS's development community. Are the members of the community active and helpful? If so, that's a very good sign. Check out the third party contributions section. If there are tons of contributions, then that's a good indication that the community is active and quickly adds functionality to the project. Finally, take a really close look at the template integration. How difficult is it to integrate a HTML template or website into the CMS. Even if you are a web development pro, this should be given some serious consideration.
