There are many things to consider when building or updating your website.
With so many content management systems (CMS) available, you might need help selecting the system that is right for your organization. We have compared the top three systems to help you decide.
What is a CMS? A content management system is software that houses your website and all of its components. The front facing portion is what users see when they view your site online. The back-end is the portion that you and your web developers log into to create, edit and modify content, add media, post articles and configure the site. When the site has been built and turned over to you, you can assign users on your staff access to the back-end. Some may be given access as content creators or editors, while others may have full access to make any changes to the site. Your web developer will train you and your staff on how to use your CMS.
There are three major open-source CMS platforms: Joomla, Drupal and WordPress. Each system is free and supported by an active user community. Open-source software is extremely flexible and speeds up the development process with thousands of expansion modules.
Joomla Is intuitive and easy to use. The installation is easy and it's versatile enough to be used for different types of sites. New users can be easily taught. It also has a convenient help center portal and support for language internationalization. Joomla is popular because it is great for medium to large sites; especially e-commerce sites and has strong social networking capabilities. Joomla offers unlimited expansion and user-friendly site administration. You can also easily create and track data from froms or surveys with Joomla. There have been more than 30 million Joomla downloads (websitesetup.org).
The Harvard website is built on the Joomla platform.
Drupal It is suggested that you have some HTML or web programming experience if you are using Drupal. Drupal, like Joomla, lends itself well to online stores and complex and advanced sites. Drupal works well with larger multimedia sites and lends itself well to video, text and image integration. Drupal like Joomla and WordPress, has some intuitive features on the back-end, you can easily publish new pages. As of mid-2014, Drupal had more than 14k free plug-ins (opensource.com), which is far fewer than WordPress, but still more than you will need. There have been more than 15 million Drupal downloads (websitesetup.org).
The White House uses Drupal.
WordPress Is your best bet for blog or brochure style sites. While it can be as simple or as complex as you would like, it is a reliable solution for smaller sites. It is great for text heavy sites. Simple tools make it easy to embed media like videos and photos. It is also easy to edit and add content in WordPress. It is the most widely used of the three systems with 140 million downloads (websitesetup.org). It has a wide variety of plug-ins and widgets. WordPress also lends itself well to a variety of formats and is intuitive and easy to navigate.
CNN and Sony use WordPress.
Do you have more specific questions about which CMS might be best for your organization? Our team of web developers and designers will answer your questions and help you find the perfect solution.