CMS Toolbox
Most websites being built today are using some sort of content management system. As the need for businesses and website owners to maintain an up-to-date web presence continue to grow, content management systems will only gain in popularity with developers and users.
There are so many CMS options out there that it can be confusing to know which one is best for a particular situation, and to know the basics of what is available. In this post we’ll take a quick look at a number of different CMS options and provide some links that will help you to dig deeper with those that interest you.
Please note that content management systems that are primarily built for e-commerce purposes, such as Magento, are not covered here. If this is the information you are looking for, please see 37 Shopping Cart Options for Developers. There are however a few listed here that include e-commerce in their core functionality, but they are also built to manage websites with other purposes.
While there are many options when choosing a CMS, you’ll want to consider things like stability and available resources before making a decision. One of the reasons I prefer to use WordPress when possible is because of the strong community of users that allows you to find just about anything you can image as a plugin or a theme. With that said, here is an overview of many popular content management systems.
WordPress:
WordPress is probably the most popular open source CMS right now. While it started out as just a blogging platform, WordPress now provides developers and users with the opportunity to build just about any type of website on its system. The standard WordPress installation provides most of the necessary functionalities you would expect in a CMS, and there are plenty of plugins that can bring added functionality.
WordPress Resources:
WordPress Codex – Provides documentation of just about everything you will need when working with WordPress.
WordPress Forums – With WordPress’s active community of users, the forums are a great place to turn when you have questions.
WordPress Developer’s Toolbox – A post that I put together for Smashing Magazine with all kinds of resources for those who develop WordPress themes.
How to Be a Rockstar WordPress Designer – An ebook by Collis Ta’eed and Harley Alexander that is available for purchase.
Designing for WordPress Series – Chris Coyier’s series of tutorials for designing and developing for WordPress.
Drupal:
Like WordPress, Drupal is another leading open source CMS. Drupal is the preferred choice of many developers for building multi-author sites and blogs, as well as community-driven websites. Drupal has a large community of users that make it solid choice because of large number of modules and other resources that are readily available.
Drupal Resources:
Drupal Handbooks – If you’re getting started with Drupal or just looking for some documentation, the handbooks can be a great resource.
Drupal Forums – Get some help from the Drupal community through the official forums.
Drupal Developer’s Toolbox – My collection at Smashing Magazine for Drupal development-related resources.
Drupal White Papers, Cheatsheets and Free Books – MyDrupal.com has a nice collection of useful resources for developers.
Drupal Sites – A gallery of websites powered by Drupal.
Create a Killer Band Site with Drupal – GoMediaZine has a six-part tutorial that leads you through the process of building a site with Drupal. Of course, this is a great resource even if it’s not a band site that you want to build.
ExpressionEngine:
ExpressionEngine is a powerful CMS that is preferred by many developers over the open source options. EE will cost you $100 for a personal version or $250 for a commercial version (there is a scaled-down version that’s free for personal use). EE offers a long list of features that will allow you to use this CMS for just about any purpose or type of website.
ExpressionEngine Resouces:
ExpressionEngine Developer’s Toolbox – My collection at Smashing Magazine for resources involved with developing for ExpressionEngine.
ExpressionEngine User Guide – The official documentation from ExpressionEngine.
ExpressionEngine Forums – Tons of information is already available in the forums, plus you can post your own questions.
Building a Small Business Website – A comprehensive 17-part tutorial that will take you step-by-step through the process of builing a site on EE.
Building a Church Site – A 39-part series that leads you through the process of building an example church website on EE.
ExperssionEngine Showcase – EE includes of showcase of example sites on their own website.
Movable Type:
Movable Type is another popular CMS that has a few different options depending on your needs. There is an open source version available for developers, plus a free version for individual bloggers. For larger companies, prices start at $395. Movable Type can be used for blogs, websites, and social networks.
Movable Type Resources:
Movable Type Open Source Project – A community effort, led by Six Apart, devoted to building and maintaining the open source version of Movable Type.
Movable Type Documentation – Official documentation for using and working with Movable Type.
Movable Type Forms – A great place to find answers to your questions about.
Movable Type Developer’s Toolbox – My collection at Smashing Magazine for those who want to develop with Movable Type.
Movable Type Showcase – MovableType.com includes a showcase of sites for your inspiration.
Textpattern:
Textpattern is another free and open source option. Like the other leading open source options, Textpattern has a strong community that makes it easier to find information and resources about using it as a CMS.
Textpattern Resouces:
Textpattern Developer’s Toolbox – My collection at Smashing Magazine for those who want to develop with Textpattern.
Textpattern Support Formus – The official forums from Textpattern.
TextBook – TextBook is the documentation provided for those who work with and develop for Textpattern.
Your First Textpattern Theme – A tutorial for those who are new to building sites with Textpattern.
WeLoveTextpattern – A gallery of sites built on Textpattern.
Joomla:
Joomla is also a popular open source CMS that originated from Mambo. Of all of the open source options, I’ve seen more mixed opinions on Joomla than any of the others. It has a large community of users, and it is intended to allow developers to build all kinds of websites, including corporate, e-commerce, online magazines, intranets, and more.
Joomla Resources:
Joomla Documentation – Official documentation for users, designers, and developers.
Joomla Forums – The official forums for Joomla users and developers.
Joomla Developer’s Toolbox – My collection at Smashing Magazine of resources for Joomla developers.
Joomla Based – A gallery of sites built on Joomla.
Best of Joomla – Another gallery of Joomla sites.
LightCMS:
LightCMS is a bit different than many of the other options on this list in that it targets designers by providing a source of ongoing income. Clients pay to use LightCMS on their site, which includes hosting (sites must be hosted on their servers), and designers can provided their clients with a branded content management system and earn recurring commissions from the hosting.
LightCMS Resources:
ReSeller Information – Designers can become resellers to build client sites on LightCMS and earn a residual income.
Video Demos – Here you can learn more about how the system works and how you can build sites with LightCMS.
How to Use Any Template with LightCMS – A tutorial from Element Fusion, the company behind LightCMS.
LightCMS Review – Collis Ta’eed wrote a review of LightCMS on Freelance Switch.
GoodBarry:
GoodBarry is another CMS that offers reseller options to designers who want to provide a branded solution to their clients. GoodBarry’s emphasis is growing online businesses, so e-commerce functionality is a big part of what they do, although other CMS functions are also included.
GoodBarry Resources:
GoodBarry Forums -Support forums from GoodBarry.
ReSeller Information – Learn about using GoodBarry on client sites and making some additional income.
GoodBarry Videos – Video tutorials and information.
GoodBarry Review – Design Shack covers the basics of GoodBarry in this review.
Traffik:
Traffik is similar to GoodBarry in the fact that their focus is providing a CMS to power online businesses. Traffik includes e-commerce capabilities as well as other typical CMS functionality. [Update – Traffik is a reseller of Business Catalyst. GoodBarry is also based on BusinessCatalyst, although GoodBarry is owned by Business Catalyst.]
Traffik Resources:
Support Videos – Training videos for all aspects of using the system.
Wiki – Documentation for using Traffik.
Pligg:
Pligg is an open source CMS that specializes in allowing developers to create social networking sites where users can submit an vote for content. Sites such as Sphinn and Design Float are built on Pligg.
Pligg Resources:
Pligg Forums – Get answers to your questions from the Pligg community.
Pligg Wiki – Documentation in the form of a wiki.
Understanding Pligg Template Files – A good starting point for those who want to understand more about how Pligg works.
Setting Up a News-Voting Website with Pligg – This tutorial will take you through the steps of getting your own site set up with Pligg.
Concrete5:
Concrete5 is an open source CMS that has been built to meet the needs of both developers and site administrators. It aims to be simple and powerful. Concrete5 gives you an editing toolbar on any page of your site that allows you to give you all the controls you need.
Concrete5 Resources:
Concrete5 Forums – You can interact with other users and get your questions answered in the official forums.
Concrete5: Site Building Toolkit -Some basic information on c5 from Web Resources Depot.
C5Mix – Concrete5 tutorials, themes, tips & more.
Typo3:
Typo3 is a powerful, free, open source CMS. Typo3 has a lot of features and can be used to run large websites for many different purposes.
Typo3 Resources:
Typo3.org – Provides of all the documentation and developer’s resources for the community of users.
Typo3 tutorial – Siteground has a tutorial series that will help you to get started with Typo3.
Radiant CMS:
Radiant CMS is an open source option that was designed for simplicity of use. Unlike many of the other open source options, Radiant CMS is built using Ruby on Rails.
Radiant CMS Resources:
Radiant CMS Documentation – The best source of information for Radiant CMS users and developers.
Radiant CMS Tutorial – A basic tutorial for getting started with Radiant CMS.
Frog CMS:
Frog CMS is a PHP version of Radiant CMS. Like Radiant CMS, it aims to be a simple solution for your content management needs.
Frog CMS Resources:
Official Documentation – Learn all the basics of Frog CMS from the docs.
Frog CMS Forums – Get answers to your questions from the community of users.
Plone:
Plone is an open source CMS built with Python. Plone claims to have the best security track record of any major CMS.
Plone Resources:
Plone Documentation – Official documentation for working with Plone.
Plone Support Forums – Get answers for your questions from the Plone community.
Plone Tutorials – Learn more about Plone from these tutorials covering various topics.
SilverStripe:
SilverStripe is an open source CMS that aims to be a simple option for both designers and site owners/content editors.
SilverStripe Resources:
Sapphire – Sapphire is the framework developed to build sites for SilverStripe.
SilverStripe Forums – Get help from the community of SilverStripe users.
Tutorial: Building a Basic Site with SilverStripe – A good starting point for working with the CMS.
CushyCMS:
CushyCMS is a delibarately simple option. While it doesn’t offer all over the features and functions of many other content management systems, it may be ideal for small websites where the owner just needs to be able to edit some text and change photos – situations where a full-feature CMS may be overwhelming. There is a free version as well as a brandable Pro Plan that can be resold to clients.
CushyCMS Resources:
Set Up a Client’s Site to be Editable with CushyCMS – A tutorial that I wrote for getting started with CushyCMS.
How to Build a Maintainable Site Using CushyCMS and Twitter – A tutorial from Collis Ta’eed that covers the basics of working with CushyCMS.
CushyCMS – Simplicity at its Best – A basic overview of CushyCMS by the Positive Space blog.
General CMS Resources:
10 Things to Consider When Choosing the Perfect CMS – This Smashing Magazine article written by Paul Boag will help you to know how to choose the right CMS.
How to Choose the Right CMS – A Webdesigner Depot article that can also help with this decision.
Choosing the Right CMS Platform for Your Website (from an SEO Perspective) – Rand Fishkin covers the subject of what SEO factors should be considered.
The CMS Matrix – A website that has information on all kinds of content management systems, and allows you to compare them.
CMS Watch – Evaluates content-oriented technologies, publishing head-to-head comparative reviews of leading solutions.
10 Promising Content Management Systems – Jacob Gube of Six Revisions highlights some content management systems that may not get their share of attention.
Hi Steven,
Good post on content management. You’re right there are so many choices that it can be overwhelming! I’d like to add one more option to the mix, Smallbox CMS. While not open-source, it’s a great product that offers professional results, design flexibility, reasonable development costs and a base service level agreement.
Smallbox CMS was developed by designers for designers, so there are many unique features that cater to developing creative user interface design. Additionally, the product offers a rich suite of functionality modules (blog, eCommerce, eMarketing, etc.) to power even the most content heavy site.
wow…nice collection.I use wordpress:).
nice cms resources thanks a lot for the list..
After getting a whole site up and running with Drupal, I scrapped it an started again with WordPress. Drupal is just weird, and difficult to customize. People do it, but none of the sites I see that do it take advantage of the features Drupal offers, and if you don’t need a multiple author kind of thing, WordPress is just going to be easier and faster.
The other thing about Drupal is that to get a minimum site working, you need to download tons of plugins, so basically core features of your site (like pretty urls) are relying on third party plugins that don’t get updated very frequently when the Drupal version changes.
Shawn,
Thanks, I’m not familiar with Smallbox. I’ll check it out.
Matt,
Yeah, that’s one of the reasons that I’ve stuck with WordPress for most situations. Thanks for sharing from your experience.
Thanks Steven.
I will be building a site using Drupal very soon (out of necessity) so the Drupal resources you’ve provided will be very handy.
I’ve always used WordPress until now and will continue to do so as much as possible, although I plan to look into CushyCMS next time I get a very simple site with minimal editing capabilities required by the client.
I am always looking for a better/easier/faster CMS, hopefully I can make use of some of these. I noticed ModX was not on the list – any particular reason?
I’ll definitely be using one of these “easy” ones soon, I seem to get a lot of clients that aren’t “computer people”, so I could use something simple for them to just update their sites quickly and easily.
Does any one else worry about choosing the wrong one and it becoming obsolete? Or unsupported? That’s one of the things that has kept me tied to some of the most popular options, but I want to give “the little guy” a shot, too.
I think Symphony (symphony21.com) is a really powerful CMS that’s missing on this list. It’s not very popular yet, but it’s very flexible, and I began to use it in place of wordpress.
Great collection and info – will bookmark this and get a look at some of the available CMSs I haven’t had a play with yet…
Thanks
Gordon
I am missing TYPOlight http://www.typolight.org/ I switched from Joomla to TYPOlight, because it is easier to handle for my customers. It has a nice clean layout, modern techniques, a rich feature set and a acrtive community.
Ok, one big plus for me is the fact that the key developers are germans, so i can ask my questions in my native language 🙂
Gabe,
Yes, that’s something that concerns me as well. If you use a CMS on a lot of client sites and it goes under, that could cause problems.
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Based on the screenshots on the traffik website it’s not similar to GoodBarry, it IS GoodBarry. My guess is they’re a reseller.
Little homework maybe? 🙂
I use CMS Made Simple and love it. It is easy to template, has a great community, and is easy for clients to use.
Good job listing these CMS’, but as somebody has already mentioned, it is difficult to ‘select’ from so MANY.
I am disappointed, but not surprised, not to see <a href=”http://ocportal.com/start.htm”ocPortal listed. It has only recently gone ‘Open Source’ and it may take a little while for CMS users to discover this gem.
I could list ALL the features, but that would take too long. Take a few minutes to check them out and you will be pleasantly surprised.
I cannot close this comment without mentioning the support offered by the developers who are determined to make this the premiere CMS. My record for a response to a ‘ticket’ is 6 minutes, and that is almost par for any query, whether by ticket or by asking in the Forums!
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Hi there,
I’m from the old school of thought that doesn’t really consider WordPress and the other blogging platforms a CMS. Maybe I’m wrong, as it seems to be #1 on all lists like this.
My thoughts here:
http://jonontech.com/2009/03/22/the-cms-word-on-the-tweet/
Gabe and Steven, I think concern about whether a product will be around for the long term is absolutely warranted. I think the best way to evaluate this is to look at who is behind the product. If it’s open source, how big is the developing community? If it’s a company, what is their financial situation?
Ok, now for full disclosure — I’m the marketing director for Element Fusion and LightCMS. Stability is one of our big selling points for LightCMS. Our company is debt-free with no outside investors. We’re ten years old with a reputation of trust and support. We’re on the Inc. 5000. These types of things give our customers confidence in our long-term viability.
That is the end of my pitch. Thanks, Steven, for the great article and for including LightCMS!
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Cool, wordpress tops the list 😉
WordPress is the best of all.
frog cms is great. very simple, if that’s what you need. i use wordpress and frog cms, depending on the needs of the site. imo joomla isn’t a good choice at all – if you want to learn something other than wordpress i wouldn’t go with joomla. i’ve downloaded expression engine and cannot wait to try it out. everyone i know that uses it says it’s worth the small price (the download is free, though, to get started).
Michael,
You’re right. I updated the post. I knew of GoodBarry’s association with Business Catalyst, but I didn’t realize Traffik was a reseller. Traffik was a late addition to the list and I apologize for overlooking this.
Jon,
I would agree with you if blogging was all that WordPress offered, but that’s not the case.
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I’ll plug open-source concrete 5. The interface is great and installation, upgrading and templating is pretty easy. It also has page versioning, a decent set of permission tools, a bunch of useful core modules/blocks you can pop into the your content areas (autonavs, search, contact forms, polls, video, audio, maps, etc.) and a click and drag sitemap to help you organizing content intuitively. And no, I’m not a member of the concrete 5 dev team, lol. Just someone who really likes the CMS in comparison with Drupal and Joomla. That said, I’m still going to use Drupal for large community content driven sites but concrete5 is a great choice in my opinion for small to medium sized sites.
I second: Where’s MODx? (http://modxcms.com) MODx is both simple to use and incredibly powerful. It’s all we use here at my work for delivering sites to clients. Not only is MODx highly extensible, but the app itself is easily customizable as well. We’ve created a heavily modded version that we use that cuts our development time down to a fraction of what it would be without MODx.
I am sure a few of these might be new to some people, but I am sure that for many of us, the systems you mentioned are are well known. In fact the best part about this post, is the comments that people have left. People linking to other great systems that may not be as popular was more interesting than the ones listed. Maybe you should do a post on the smaller less known platforms.
I will also like to contribute a mention of Mango Blog. http://mangoblog.org A ColdFusion powered blog, in case any of your readers are not PHP developers.
I’d agree that Modx should be included, it is pretty easy to use and seems to do a good job.
What about xoops? 🙂
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Chris,
I’m not really familiar with MODx, but I just read a little bit about it on your blog and it sounds promising.
Mark,
I’m not surprised that you’re familiar with most of these. The goal of the article was more about providing some basic information and resources to help find the right CMS for the job, rather than trying to uncover new options that people hadn’t heard about. Even though most of us hear a lot about various CMSs, it’s not always clear what their purpose is or what projects would work well. I like your suggestion about a follow up post with reader-suggested CMSs. After a day or so I’ll see how many were mentioned in the comments and maybe it will be enough to warrant a new post.
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Very good list and some good insights! I would like to point out one missing platform: ocPortal. This package can easily run with the “big boys” and I would venture that it would outpace most of them as well. Solid platform, friendly growing community and fantastic developer support, second to none.
FlexCMS is light, easy, functional. Not too fancy, but more than adequate for most “little to medium” sites. And, if you like to tweak your PHP, it is dandy. Plus, support from FlexCMS makes it a great choice for those who are scared to even think about joomla! or Drupal.
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Hi Steve,
Great list, I would also add http://www.IzzyWebsite.com here, fully branded CMS for designers/developers with database of compatible templates on http://www.Templateo.com
Thanks!
I also vote for http://symphony21.com/ its a very extensible and adaptable cms. Custom fields out of the box its the most important thing in a modern cms.
Nice list and good Article.
I am missing Zikula
http://www.zikula.org
Wow, I had really only heard of the “major players” (wordpress drupal joomla etc)… thanks for sharing this list and accompanying resource links… nice collection. I have heard good things about Expression Engine I will have to check that out, even though I am currently doing things in Drupal.
Jim
Jacksonville, FL
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Something that should be noted is that Traffik is GoodBarry. Traffik is a reseller of GoodBarry, notice how the screenshots on their websites are exactly the same?
Micheil,
Yes, you are right. That was updated a few days ago (you can see the note in the Traffik section). Thanks.
where is Dotnetnuke?
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Completely agree with Chris Pratt. I know many people are complaining about this or that CMS is missing, but MODx is the only one which is really a awesome CMS which decreased our development time with at least 40% compared to other CMS tools.
MODx FTW!
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This is an awesome list. WordPress is probably the most popular open source CMS right now for many reasons, and really it suits just about all my clients perfectly.
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What about PHP-Fusion?
Nice list. You didn’t include MODx (http://modxcms.com), powerful and flexible content management system/framework. I’m compiling a list of modx resources for anyone who’s interested – http://codingpad.maryspad.com/2009/04/13/modx-resources-and-tutorials-on-the-we/
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I am suprised you didn’t include any of the ASP.NET CMS systems that are available, like Sitefinity or Kentico. With Visual Web developer is really simple to have a development environment set up.
Hi Les,
I’m not familiar with Sitefinity or Kentico. I’ll have to check them out.
I noticed MiaCMS wa not on there, that ‘s fine but no ModX ???
And why typo3 ? If anyone needs to use it, they probably already know about it (and if not they’re probably better off)
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I used to use CushyCMS, but I discovered SurrealCMS a few months ago and like it MUCH better. It has an easier interface, and also allows you to upload stylesheets and allows clients to input metatags and easily upload images.
This is a nice comparision list.
But as far as I could see, there are only non Microsoft technique Frameworks in it.
I´m also interestet in a comparision between these techniques and the professional use of the CMS.
So therefore the Open-Source CMS http://www.dotnetnuke.com is missing.
Maybe it´s coming in the future into this list.
Best regards,
Rene
I also wonder why MODx is omitted from this list. We use it for most of our development work. We have a development team who can do anything with MODx and it’s really a winner for us. I recommend people to search it out and give it a whirl if you’re interested in CMS. You won’t be disappointed.
Cybernautix,
MODx was mentioned in a follow up that was done just after this post, you can see it here – http://designm.ag/resources/cms-recommended-by-readers/
Hi Steven,
Why don’t you have a avatar, it looks strange if a author don’t have one.
BTW great article
tahaqadri,
I do have an avatar. I just changed my WP username the other day for added security and it looks like when I did that it took away the avatar. I’ll look into it.
For sites that can be broken down into an assembly of multiple blogs (sections), you should also consider b2evolution.net .
I’m just wondering if things like WordPress and Movable type should not be classified as blogging software. That’s their primary use after all. Although it is a CMS by basic definition, for me they lack a few CMS functions.
Then again, anything that manages content on any basic scale can be termed a CMS.
Hi. Here’s another one – http://www.refinerycms.com
You should include SquareSpace on this list as well..
Hi. Very good site! Thanx for it helps me!
Joomla! 1.5 can work as fast as Drupal or even faster. There are a number of possible solutions, i.e.CssJsMinify, JRE, but the most powerful is Web Optimizer (with Joomla plugin which enables System-Cache properly). It’s really a must-have addon.
I recommend people to search it out and give it a whirl if you’re interested in CMS. You won’t be disappointed.
Thanks for the nice info. I’ve been looking for this.
I had to admire your work and skills you have show in these posts thanks for this hope you will do it again and again…..
I admire your listing and it’s very helpful for me. Proofcms do all these work very effectively and in reasonable price.
I didnt see element fusion on the list and am wondering why and what the difference is between it and the rest.
Great post. I’m a normal visitor of your site and appreciate you taking the time to maintain the nice site. I will be a regular visitor for a long time.
I’ve been told about a new open-source CMS called ImpressPages which is very user friendly. This can be a smart alternative !