Best CMS discussion [Split fromt 1.3.5 Soon thread]

i think wordpress.joomla,drupal is the most popular opensource cms
modxcms,typo3,typolight is the best 3 cms

Honestly I think wordpress is the best cms..reasons...

easiest to use as a end user, super many contributions, fantastic templates, easy to tweak..

Yeah yeah..many say wordpress is not a cms. Well they can just read this...

http://wordpress.org/development/2009/1 ... cms-award/

I would never consider using WordPress on any website where my client is making the updates themselves (except blogs of course). The functionality is far too limited, given its original purpose. Additionally I find working with images and links quite painful/cumbersome.

I currently use SilverStripe, but it's overkill for most websites and is quite complex. On top of that, the administration interface isn't as user-friendly as I would like.

I've just downloaded concrete5 and it looks quite promising. The next best CMS I've come across, from an end-user perspective, is CMS Made Simple. I'll be using that if concrete5 doesn't pan out.

Joomla has way too many features, is too complicated, and isn't particularly easy for novice website editors (clients) to get their head around. Even I struggle with the terminology and hierarchy. I also have issues with running it on my web host (which I don't have with other CMSs).

I recently completed my first CMS Made Simple website, and it was truly that. I'm really impressed with it and will be using it for all future 'general' websites.

I working with CMS Made simple for 4 or 5 years. Except for e-commerce, classifieds or real estate sites, is the best solution without any doubts. Easy, fast and very SEO friendly.

creativa wrote:Except for e-commerce, classifieds or real estate sites, is the best solution

Do you mean real estate sites specifically, or any site of that nature (directory listings with images etc)?

In my limited experience with the software so far, my biggest gripes are:

1) Documentation could be improved as it's lacking detail and doesn't cover every aspect of the system.
2) The non-core modules aren't very well maintained. Many are years out of date, there are no screenshots or demos, and finding them on the CMSMS website is difficult/poorly laid out.

In saying that, I've found everything I've needed so far, and those are quite minor gripes when compared to other CMS issues such as loading time, lack of features, lack of flexibility etc. CMSMS seems to have it all!

Windows Live pages just threw in the towel and recommended people goto WordPress
I think Drupal is more CMS and Wordpress was more Blog at some point.. but really blog, cms, they are all pretty much blurred now

yeah cms made simple is the only project I've ever used that uses smarty template system that I like. I love the way they do the whole template system and have a page that explains all the available tags and arguments.

Xsecrets wrote:yeah cms made simple is the only project I've ever used that uses smarty template system that I like. I love the way they do the whole template system and have a page that explains all the available tags and arguments.

You've been spoiled
I do wish we had a "tag" based system.. not smarty, but defined php echos. We used to with the layout.tpl method, tho lacking conformity at the time could have probably been hammered down better by now.

I question if the "controller" concept is best way to go. As it is now, a "controller" is its own page. Which means it can't be used on another page. So like the search can't be put at the bottom of the category page, because they are 2 separate "controller" pages. I'm thinking all controllers should be modules and there should only be dynamic "pages" that you create in the admin and choose which modules show on those pages

so like
Home - Shows the Latest, Featured, Specials modules
Category - Shows the Category, Featured, Bestsellers modules
CustomPage1 - Shows an particular information page with featured module at the bottom

Kinda like all CMS' let you create pages and have static or dynamic content... the current controllers would be modules and could be loaded as dynamic content.

Maybe it's just a pipe dream

The only thing that CMSMS not provide is an easy way to implement an advanced search box combo for different criteria.
For this reason I dont use for

real estate sites specifically

In this case I use the EstateAgent comp for Joomla.
I agree with Oneill that the doc and extensions can be improved, but still remains very easy to use playing with a smarty tags.
I use CMSMS in complex developments that people usually run WP, for example: www.interdeportes.es

I agree with everyone about CMSMS. I have also used it for the last 5 years and it is so easy and quick to get up and running. Very versatile and flexible as well. I tend to bundle wordpress into a site that needs a blog, requires two logins for a client, but I explain to them it is more a question of the best tool for the job. (there is a news feature in CMSMS, but it doesn't handle comments, or not since I last used it anyway)

I have tried Drupal (learning curve), Joomla/Mambo, concrete, silverstripe, frog, light n easy but none of them compare to CMSMS. The only downside of it is some of the modules don't go the whole mile and are outdated, e.g. try using CMSMS as a shop...

I too like the use of smarty, but agree with Q about having a tags system

BTW creative, you can obfuscate the backend by changing the directory name to something else, and updating the config.php.

essexboyracer wrote:I have tried Drupal (learning curve), Joomla/Mambo, concrete, silverstripe, frog, light n easy but none of them compare to CMSMS.

Same here. I've arrived at the conclusion that I'll use CMSMS for any 'general' website, OpenCart for shopping carts, and anything more complex/custom I'll build from scratch using my own framework.

For me, if CMSMS had a better name, branding/appearance and modules, it would be the CMS market leader by a mile. Drupal and Joomla have lots of features but in my opinion are far too complicated for a typical website.