What the heck is a CMS?

No kidding, until last week, I hardly knew what a CMS was. Now that I have browsed the discussion threads listed below, perhaps I am beginning to understand. And so I will post a poll which is partly tongue-in-cheek, but also partly a test to see whether I am understanding correctly? I.e., if you think my poll does not make any sense, then I guess I am still not getting it...

Meanwhile, here are some of my new-formed, tentative opinions on CMS...

1. Try to use Wordpress for all client-maintained sites. If you are a webdesigner, webhost or web developer seeking clients who want to manage their own website without knowing anything... Use Wordpress.

Anecdote. I have a friend who is a successful businesswoman, probably more intelligent than myself. But somehow, she cannot even open a Paypal account by herself. Then she wanted a website. I made her a little website, went to her home and personally showed her how to use a WYSIWYG to edit her site. No different from using a Word processor, or so I thought. Click here to make letters bigger... smaller... italic... etc. Click here to save and upload... Several months later, how is your site? No she couldn't do it...

Then several months later, we meet again and she says, "Oh hi, I have a blog at blogspot.com. It's great, I love it..."

The moral of the story. The main reason Blogs are so popular is simply that "somehow" even the most internet-challenged can do them, and into the bargain can achieve a site format which has "somehow" become universally respectable.

2. If the website will have numerous bloggers, not just one, then use Wordpress. I suspect that no CMS can compare to Wordpress when it comes to multi-user blogging.

3. If your client is quite clever, or if you are going to do the maintenance, then consider Drupal. Drupal can do anything, or so it seems. Unfortunately the code is bloated and inefficient, but that's life. Even Washington agencies are using Drupal, and nobody ever accused them of being bloated or inefficient, haha. Anyway I suppose it works somewhat. Joomla is perhaps more user-friendly but not that user-friendly, and evidently less SEO-friendly and more limited. Or so it seems based on my recent reading here.

4. If your client is not so clever, but Wordpress will not do, then perhaps consider a lesser-known but extra-friendly CMS. Here is an interesting list compiled from the 2008.11 WDF discussion: "User Friendly CMS?"

• Look again at Wordpress. In case you don't know, Wordpress has innumerable plug-ins like "Expression" and "NexGen" that enable it to behave more like a CMS.
• CMSmadesimple.org
• PegboardCMS.com
• iUpdateIt.com
• CushyCMS.com

5. Some helpful CMS discussions.

• 2007.07. How useful is Joomla to a freelance webdesigner?
• 2007.07. Using Drupal?
• 2007.08. Better to use Drupal or not?
• 2008.07. Joomla or Drupal?
• 2008.11. Another thread about CMS.
• 2009.07. Thoughts on which CMS to use.
• 2009.11. CMS. (Includes Drupal-Joomla comparison list.)
• 2009.12. CMS or regular coded website?
• 2010.03. Easy to use CMS and shopping cart?
• 2010.08. Best CMS?
• 2010.10. CMS integration with regular website.

Your thread is very useful. I’m a new here and the first info I wanted to find when I registered here was CMS. Now I can say that my understanding of CMS become clearer but still not as good as I wanted. Maybe someone can add some info about it. Thanks in advance.

cms = content management system. So instead of a customer asking you to change this word, add this picture etc they can do it themselves.

Some simple cms systems can just be plugged in to an existing website - but with limited results.

Others like Wordpress allow customers to add and delete pages and menu options as well as changing words and pictures.

Thank you all for your comments. In addition to being informative, your different perspectives are meaningful in themselves. I am reassured to find from ANDREW that I am not the only one who is somewhat new and unclear about CMS. Then ALPHAMARE, a moderator who probably understands CMS quite well, but nonetheless seems to be aware of amazingly similar experiences. In contrast, I get the feeling that JJ1 and MLSEIM are very comfortable with CMS to the point that they "do not quite get that we do not get it..." Nonetheless their comments are very helpful in a different way.

RSS is another term that I barely understand. I would be interested to hear more. In particular...

I am right now setting up a Xenforo forum, a Wordpress blog, and a Wiki, possibly on two or three different sites. (Depending on how things work out.)

One reason I was considering CMS was to have "latest discussions" from Xenforo + "latest blogs" from Wordpress + "latest addition" from Wiki to show up on the Home page of my primary website...

But can this done just as well (perhaps better) with RSS?

If so, I will plunge right into studying RSS!

The core of my vision for this new site (Emocracy.com) is a powerful forum, plus powerful multi-user blog, plus a few dozen static pages which I know how to make. I know that Xenforo + Wordpress can do this, and I do not think any CMS can do it. I am hesitant to add Drupal or Joomla, just so I can have a better Home page...

So can RSS be used to paste readings from my Xenforo and my Worpress onto the Home page? If so, I would be delighted. That would seem an ideal solution.

P.S. Where do I best get this RSS thing or learn how to do it? Any particular RSS to recommend? I would be most interested. Thank you.

Thank you WIRED and MLSEIN for the important clarifications.

I believe WIRED that a blog is low-class for a serious ecommerce site. However, Wordpress.org has won a CMS Hall of Fame Award, and features a WP-as-CMS-Showcase. I am just now installing my first Wordpress and Xenforo, decided largely by reading comments by WIRED and a few others at WDF. Meanwhile SMOSELY (Transio the Great) has been extolling the virtues of Drupal. So I was wondering, what are the limitations of Wordpress? In what situation should I add a CMS? Now WIRED has put things into perspective, and I put much faith in his opinion.

Mainly what I was saying, in addition to that, was...

• Do not take it for granted that all clients will be more happy with a "quality" ecommerce site than with a blog.
• Do not take it for granted that all clients can operate Drupal, or even Wordpress.

On the other hand...

• Even the most complex CMS (such as Drupal) helps to enable some editing by the client.
• Often, client-editing is not an issue. A client with significant cash flow can well afford webdesign services. In this case, no point reducing product quality, and reducing work, in favor of blogs!

And yet again...

• According to several ecommerce gurus, Wordpress has become the platform of choice for targetting Google search results, due to high rankings from known as well as unknown reasons.
• At the other extreme, my local small-town Chinese Restaurant manager is not technical-minded. He has a website but is frustrated in being unable to post at will some new menu item, food gossip, whimsical photos, etc. He lives in the real world. His restaurant proves his worth, not some fancy Home page. A blog may best suffice him. (We'll soon see.)
• Surfing the discussions here at WDF, there are many complaints about the difficulty of Drupal. Thus I semi-sarcastically quipped, "CMS is a way to maintain sites without HTML that is just as difficult as to learn HTML." However, this probably pertains most to the initial design work. I.e., while CMS may be overrated as an easy way to create a website--nonetheless CMS certainly makes editing a website more accessible.

Perhaps in the beginning, CMS was a toy for people who did not know HTML and only resulted in boxy and impersonal sites. If so, perhaps CMS has come full circle. CMS now seems a platform of choice for a professional webdesigner, enabling full flexibility, while also making editing more accessible for clients.

Thank you especially, WIRED, for clarifying the differences between RSS and CMS content delivery. I think I came across "RSS in plain English" a year or so ago, but the English or the context was not very plain to me. Now in the context of your words, I will try again and feel confident that I can work it out.

For now, it seems I do not need CMS but only RSS. However I am glad to have achieved a basic picture of CMS for when it is needed. Two weeks ago, I would not have advised anyone to use CMS. I still prefer raw code for myself. However thanks largely to this discussion, in future I will probably advise any typical non-HTML-proficient webdesign customer to insist on either Drupal, Wordpress or CMSmadesimple for his typical websites. (And I also will read this discussion several times more.)

I agree with you WIRED. After this discussion I started to talk about CMS with people who are acquainted with this theme and they told me the same thing: nothing beats a good web developer. And if you want to succeed then you have to turn to a professional web developer.

Personally I prefer the bespoke options - it can be more expensive, but using a .net platform and building from scratch saves a lot of hassle - it also means that you get exactly what you want

Can a Drupal, Wordpress, or some other type CMS turn off HTML like a Vbulletin?

I also agree with WIRED. As I was clumsily attempting to imply in the "poll," Drupal may have started as an attempt to make site creation easier, but from my one attempt several years ago, is not very helpful in that regard, resulting in boxy and impersonal designs. Why waste time learning to tame that monster when you can learn HTML almost as easily, or heck, use a WYSIWYG.

...However... thanks largely to WDF posts by SMOSELY... I recently came to realize what evidently the webdesign professionals also came to realize years ago...

• Taming Drupal to every touch "can" be done by the professional, and then leaves a much happier customer for easy minor editing!
• Drupal maximizes resale value of your website. More people will want to buy it because more people will feel they can edit it.
• Drupal makes it easier to hire content writers or part-time webmasters. Believe it or not, many people are very intimidated by HTML but who can write good English a lot better than most programmers. (No kidding, haha.)
• All I really wanted to be was an online journalist with his own websites. So maybe I wasted my time learning HTML and CSS?

One question please...

Can a Drupal, Wordpress, or some other type CMS turn off HTML like a Vbulletin?

I decided a year ago to host Wordpress sites, when I discovered how popular and accessible it is. But also, I hoped this might reduce my concerns about "posting malicious code." I.e., can Drupal, Wordpress, or any other CMS "turn off HTML" on an admin level like a Vbulletin? If so, this would enable me to offer cheap reseller webhosting, without having Cpanel, without becoming a magnet for phishers etc., and without having to lose sleep dealing with such things. (I suppose I'll learn this anyway, as I try Drupal and Wordpress for so many other reasons. But thank you anyone who might happen to know...?)

P.S. Yes Wordpress can disable HTML posting. See item C-3 in my later WDF thread: "Wordpress security installation notes."

We would have to agree! A CMS is a great way to manage a smaller site which may need minor tweaks. Once you start getting into bigger sites with greater intricacies, it is nice to have a web developer. The reason for this is that web developers know the coding and layout of your site so they can make appropriate changes.

open source content management systems need to be consistently monitored for exploits, you should always have a maintenance plan for open source cms software,,

Can anyone recommend "paid" multi-domain blog, wiki, site and link exchange software?

:squareeyed: Thank you very much JSCRIPT and TheGAME. This rings true. Before deciding to buy Vbulletin (now switching to Xenforo) I realized that a 'free' forum would be plenty good enough for me--but read posts warning that any "free" software is a target of choice for hackers. The "free" security patch update notices are basically a how-to manual for teenaged idiot savant vandals. As soon as they need to pay 10 cents then 99% won't bother...

And so, I certainly wondered if the same was true for Wordpress, PhpWiki, Drupal, PHP links, etc. etc...? This is the first time I heard such news, especially about Wordpress, about which I only read glowing reports.

D.I.Y. software is out of the question for me. Much better to pay a few dollars. And so, as of this minute I will begin shopping. Can anyone please suggest some good "paid" software as follows...? This advice would come at a perfect time.

1. A secure paid multi-domain blog software equivalent to Wordpress 3.0...? ("""Since Version 3.0, WordPress includes new multisite features, meaning that it can run many blogs, even with their own separate domains, on one WordPress installation.""")
   
2. A secure paid professional-level website creator equivalent to Drupal...?
   
3. A secure paid user-friendly website creator equivalent to CMS-Made-Simple...?
   
4. A secure paid Wiki software...?
   
5. A secure paid "link exchange directory" software...? (So anyone can submit a link to a website, after posting a return link, and which enables the webmaster to "approve and post" every submitted link, including non-link text description, to its appropriate category instantly and with one-click.)

Ideally, as a part-time webhost, I would like to buy a licence that enables me to enable the above software inexpensively on numerous sites.

Thank you, anyone.

P.S. By "good" software I mean, in particular, "likely to remain supported," i.e., made by a company that is not likely to go out of business overnight.

How much do you usual charge to build a cms?