What is CMS and which one to choose
?CMS allows you to automatically create site pages from data and work on the server.
All CMS programs mentioned on this page are free and open source.
Definition
The name CMS, Content Management System, in French "Content Management System" is a vague term, since virtually any software manages content.
In particular, this name is given to software that manages the creation and publication of documents, possibly jointly.
This site will rather talk about CMS as web applications, and therefore about software for online posting of documents on the Internet.
Why CMS
?The Content Manager loads the general part of the site pages and creates pages from the text or data you provide to it. So it delivers you repetitive tasks.
It can be static and create pages before they are placed in the line, or dynamic and create a page at the request of the visitor.
It brings nothing when the content itself, but allows you to manage the structure of the site, add and classify pages... Basic CMS allows you to manage the forum, directory, news, most often by adding extensions.
Sometimes it allows you to adapt the site interface, create thinner printed pages or involve participants in the work.
Which CMS to choose
?The number of available CMS, even if limited to free software, seems unlimited. The comparison page, although long enough, only lists some of them and lacks commercial software.
Still, the classification we're going to give should help differentiate between what we're looking for and what software might fit what we're looking for.
In the second article containing the CMS list, the comparison is based on the type, language and storage of information. In addition, there are links to websites that allow you to compare software capabilities in detail using a dynamic matrix and user comments.
Blogs
It is completely useless to work on formatting a site for blogging. On the one hand, there are community sites that offer you to post your blog on the Internet without any HTML editing, on the other hand, there are CMS that need to be installed on your own site for the entire page formatting part.
- Wordpress
This is the most commonly used. It automatically creates HTML pages from edited text stored in the database. You can create a post on his blog by sending an email. Its numerous themes and plugins that extend its capabilities allow Wordpress to be used as the CMS of the portal site. - DotClear
French blog manager. Support for blog administration, search, classification, etc.
Wiki
These are sites whose content is edited by visitors. Therefore, encyclopedias, general or specialized cultural sites on the topic are suitable.
- MediaWiki is a wiki content manager that is increasingly used. Works with PHP and MySQL. He's pushing Wikipedia.
- PmWiki and DokuWiki are in PHP but do not use a database.
Discussion board
It is completely useless to devote one moment to the site's forum schedule. There is complete and relatively easy-to-use free software. Tickets are written to the database and discussion threads are displayed dynamically.
- flowBB appears to be the most appropriate addition to a site already offering other content. It is lighter, easier to interact and program as needed. You will need to add anti-spam code.
- phpBB is most widely used on forum sites. It is very easy to install and just as easy to operate. There are an impressive number of extensions and templates to change the appearance. Highly targeted at spammers, it requires code changes to protect itself from it.
- MyBB and SMF are equivalent in functionality to phpBB. MyBB offers basic volumes of functions that are available in phpBB only as extensions for installation.
- vBulletin is a CMS with possibly more security.
- bbPress is a version of Wordpress adapted for forums. The advantage is in Wordpress extensions.
All these CMS require PHP and MySQL.
Note that many common CMS (or portals) also include managing forums, FAQs, and news, possibly by adding extensions.
Portals
Portal generators are comprehensive content management systems that can create and manage, in addition to HTML pages, the interactive capabilities of the site: FAQs (user questions and moderators' answers), forum, news... The following CMSs have a text processing style editor and basic features:
- Jumla. Joint Internet and CMS Intranet project in PHP. Buffer pages for faster loading, indexing, RSS wire, printed version of pages, news, blogs, forums, surveys, site searches, and foreign language searches using extensions. It is made of Mambo and made by the same developers.
- Drupal. Another PHP project with a support community, with the same features as Joomla. Turns to professional webmasters.
- Xoops. Works only with Apache and PHP server. Modular CMS for progressive development of the site and use of themes to give it the chosen appearance. There is a French version.
- SilverStrip. Another widely used, albeit lesser known, project.
Other CMS Categories
Specialized CMSs are more like web applications.
- E-commerce. Operations management. Product Implementation Management (different from Inventory Management)
- Education. Training management.
- Organization or association. Member management.
- Intranet. The Internet equivalent is local to the company.
- Groupware. Manage multiple equity holdings. For example, for projects such as Linux.
Methods
CMS with templates
These CMSs run on templates that are defined according to page format and whose fields are affected by the data depending on their type.
- Spip is an example, the site is created from reusable templates, each of which describes the structure of the page. Uses PHP 3 and MySQL.
Static pages
Static CMS creates pages before placing them on the network from files or templates
The advantage is that access to content is much faster than using a database like MySQL.
There are tools for processing pages locally, converting them to HTML and sending them to the server, where they are used statically. The pelican is an example. (Python must be installed locally).
Dynamic pages
Dynamic CMS builds a page at the moment when the visitor wants to see it by clicking on the link. The data is read from the database and the page created from the template.
Many CMSs use SuperCache software, which allows direct access to the last pages viewed without going through the database.
Storing Data in XML
Some CMSs extract data from XML files, from which you can create pages in different views. This is accompanied by a file compression system, often in zip format, as DokuWiki does, for example. XML-CMS can be static or dynamic.
Further information
- Build your own CMS. Article and code. Starts with wysiwyg editor for writing online.
- Complete list and comparison of CMS. All free CMS with programming language and type of database used.
CMS rating by popularity