Open Source Content Management | CMS List & Features

Once you get a grab on web development you will wonder if there is an easier way to update your pages without going into the actual code. You will probably find something called content management. Open-Source Content Management is an application that will manage all you content without going into your sites code.

Content Management System or CMS

Open Source Content Management Systems

A Content Management System or CMS can have huge advantages. A CMS is highly recommended if your website has more than 50 pages. It will make your life a 100% easier. A quick break down of a CMS system is an application that will manage all your content. You can create, edit and delete you pages without going into the code. The only coding you have to do is if you want a custom template or design. The biggest advantage of having a CMS is the modules or plugins. These modules or plugins can be blogs, forums, galleries and login forms. Installing these modules to your CMS systems, it will integrate with your content without doing any coding.

Best Open Source Content Management Systems?

There is a lot of buzz about which is the best cms, but there isn’t a number one. Each of them have their strength and weaknesses, it really matters on what the web master’s preference is. There is also commercial CMS and open source. Both of these have their strength and weaknesses, but the open source CMS that are listed below are just as good as most of the commercial systems.

Best 3 Open Source Content Management Systems

These three CMS are on the top of the market right now. All of them will run perfectly functional website with many modules and plugins. Drupal, Joomla and WordPress are the best CMS right now.

Drupal - Community Plumbing

Drupal Community Plumbing Logo

Drupal CMS is the barebones set of the open source content management systems. It gives you everything to get going and leaves the rest up to you. Drupal is probably the hardest one to learn and set up. Drupal is a very clean application that doesn’t put a lot of features you will probably not use in the install file. Drupal is the only CMS that comes 100% CSS and the closest to SEO friendly.

Drupal Features:

Joomla! - Award Winning

Joomla Award Winning Logo

Joomla CMS has a lot of features out of the box. To start out it has a beautiful administrator backend application that will navigate you through its different features. You can create content categories and sub categories to keep content organized. Create, edit and manage menu systems with aliases. User management system, news feed, polls and search all included.

Joomla Features:

WordPress - Blog Tool and Publishing Platform

WordPress Blog Tool and Platform Logo

WordPress CMS is the most popular CMS. It started as an online application that you would host off their server and use their domain name. But WordPress has release an open source content management system for anyone who wants it. WordPress is the easiest CMS to jump in and start writing content. WordPress also has a huge community for help, discussions and plugins to take your website to its full potential. Anything you can think of, someone has made it for WordPress.

WordPress Features:

Try all the CMS and Learn

All of these open source CMS will work for whatever type of business you are working with. The only thing you might want to watch out for is if you are creating an ecommerce site. These CMS do have shopping cart integrations and are pretty good. The only thing you need to really be concerned with is the learning curve. It does take some time to understand how they work and how to manipulate them. They are open source and don’t have any support, only online communities. But try them out and learn how they work. If you learn one of them you can learn the other very quickly.

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