Book Image

Choosing an Open Source CMS: Beginner's Guide

By : Nirav Mehta
Book Image

Choosing an Open Source CMS: Beginner's Guide

By: Nirav Mehta

Overview of this book

There are many powerful open source CMSs available to take the pain away from managing a web site. These systems are feature rich, often easy to use, and free. Unfortunately, there are so many choices it's tough to be sure you're choosing the right one. How can you be sure that you are selecting and working with the right tool? This book will guide you through choosing the right CMS for your needs. You can be confident in your choice of CMS for the needs of your project. It will also help you make a start using the CMS, and give you a feel for what it's like to use it ñ even before you install it yourself. Are you bewildered by the many open source CMSs available online? Open source CMSs are the best way to create and manage sophisticated web sites. You can create a site that precisely meets your business goals, and keep the site up to date easily because these systems give you full control over every aspect of your site. Because open source CMSs are free to download, you have a huge amount of choice between the various systems. Yet there are many open source CMSs to choose from, each with unique strengths ñ and occasionally limitations too. Choosing between the bewildering number of options can be tough. Making the wrong choice early on may lead to a lot of wasted work, because you'll have a half-finished site that doesn't meet your initial requirements ñ and needs to be restarted from scratch. This book will show you how to avoid choosing the wrong CMS. It will guide you through assessing your site requirements, and then using that assessment to identify the CMS that will best fit your needs. It contains discussions of the major CMSs, and the issues that you should consider when choosing: their complexity to use, their features and the power they offer. It discusses technical considerations such as programming languages and compliance with best practice standards in a clear, friendly way that non-technical readers can understand. The book also contains quick-start guides and examples for the most popular CMSs such as WordPress, Joomla!, and Drupal, so that you can experiment with these CMSs, get a feel for how they work, and start using them to build your site. After reading this book, you can be confident that your CMS choice will support your web site's needs because you have carefully assessed your requirements and explored the available options.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
Choosing an Open Source CMS
Credits
About the author
About the reviewers
Preface
13
Hosting your CMS-Powered Site

Which CMS?


The next question that comes to her mind is, "OK, so which CMS should I use?"

Mario explains that there are many options. Content Management Systems have been around for quite some time and have evolved. There are general-purpose systems and some serving niches. There are many commercial and enterprise-class CMSs. But Mario emphasized on going ahead with an open source CMS. He listed many advantages such as:

  • Open source usually means free of cost. Almost all open source CMSs can be downloaded and used free of cost. That keeps our overall costs down. It's important to control costs—especially in the current economic situation!

  • Open source means you can customize. We can review and look around the programming code of an open source software. This allows us to customize it as per our wish. We get a strong base ready, and can add whatever we like.

  • Open source is generally better quality. Most popular open source CMSs are very high quality. Thousands of people may have reviewed and improved them. This results in an overall good quality and security.

  • Open source means community. Many people use open source software. And when it comes to CMS, most prefer open source CMSs. This means there is a huge community and we can get its support if we get stuck anywhere.

"Apart from telling you to use an open source CMS, I can't suggest much further now. There are hundreds of options you have, and which one you choose depends on your exact requirements and comfort level." Mario suggested. "But don't worry; I am always available if you need any help."

That ended the conversation. Oprah relaxed in her chair and gathered her thoughts.

  • A CMS allows managing dynamic content easily.

  • I can control and manage my web site through a web browser.

  • This is how most people manage large web sites.

  • Open source CMS is perfect for my needs because I can obtain the software for free and can rest assured that there are many people who have used it before me, and can help me if I need.

  • I now need to find out which CMS serves my requirements, and learn how to use it.

That actually gave her a lot of peace. She felt free and ready to take on a new journey. Oprah is ready to choose a CMS and build her site to her desire. She is thrilled!