Your Online Presence > Strategy & Development, Managing Content

Choosing A CMS That's Right For You

By Simon Pavitt

Using a Content Management System (CMS) can make developing, upgrading and maintaining a website easier. This article explains what a CMS is, the benefits of having one, and provides some guidance to help you choose between the many available options.

What is a CMS?

Websites are not new any more - there are now millions and millions of them – and the methods used for creating them have improved. CMS software can now be used to manage the content of a Website, making its creation, maintenance and updating much easier to accomplish.

CMSs can be large and sophisticated pieces of software, and they all work in a slightly different way, offering different combinations of features and options. However, there are usually two parts to a CMS system - the program that is used for creating and viewing the website, and a database that contains all the content and settings.

CMSs are generally installed on your own publicly accessible web space, although some are available as hosted versions that are already online. Website visitors view one version of the website (sometimes called the 'front-end'), while the website administrator also has access to a different view (sometimes called the 'back-end') which gives a series of online forms for changing settings and maintaining the content.

Out of the box most CMSs include a set of core features that are needed for virtually every website. These can usually be extended by the use of additional of optional extras that can enhance the CMS’s functionality or change its layout.

Effectively each user ends up with their unique version of the CMS, with its own choice of settings, its own combination of modules and extensions, and with templates and themes adapted to give a unique appearance.

As with any piece of internet software, all CMS software requires regular upgrades to fix faults, prevent security exploits and add new features.

What are the benefits of a CMS?

By using a CMS you are automatically giving up some measure of control over the final website. Rather than creating the website yourself from scratch, you are using somebody else's building blocks, so you no longer have absolute control over every aspect of it.

But using a CMS can give you a head start in setting up your website as you can take advantage of a lot of previous development work that has gone into simplifying website management. This can lower the cost of setting up the website, and makes it possible for non-technical staff to maintain.

There is also safety in numbers, as you are joining a group of users that all share the same platform. You also avoid being solely responsible for maintenance and security of the software, and have a shared interest in ensuring that the platform continues to develop and is supported.

For most CMSs there will usually be somebody who is already using it in a similar way to how you plan to. And the more people that use a particular CMS, the more books, webcast, training and support options will be available, and the easier it will be to get help with any future development.

Proprietary and open source CMSs

CMSs come in two varieties, proprietary and open source. This distinction is based on the type of licence that the software is released under. The difference might seem slightly esoteric when all you want is the best software you can get for your project, but it is important to be aware of the distinction as this will affect the way your website might develop in the future.

Proprietary systems

A proprietary CMS is one that has been produced by a specific company. They may use it themselves to create websites, or sell it to individuals and web design companies to use, but ultimately they have sole control over how it develops in the future.

Open source systems

An open source CMS is one that anybody can use and adapt. Anybody can add new features but there is generally no guarantee that support will be available from the original developer or that they will fix any problems. And although software itself is available free of charge, as with proprietary software, there are legitimate costs involved in installing, hosting, adapting, developing and maintaining the website, or training staff in its use.

Whilst it might seem chaotic at first, the fact that the software is publicly available means that any developer can build on previous work or provide support. This means that users of the CMS have more flexibility about adapting it, commissioning changes to meet their own individual requirements, or where they go for support.

Choosing a supplier

Many organisations will be using somebody external to help set up their website. Whether this is a web design company or a circuit rider project, the place to start is by producing a specification of what it is you want to achieve and the features you want the website to have. For more information see the Knowledgebase article Writing a brief for a website.

The specification would not usually need to define the CMS to be used unless there was a particular reason, such as there was one that your organisation already used for a different project.

As a CMS can be a complicated piece of software, web design companies usually specialise in using one or two specific examples which they use for all the websites that they develop. This is not necessarily a problem, as most CMSs are very flexible and usually websites could be implemented with any of several different CMSs.

Similarly, if a staff member or volunteer is going to develop and support the website in-house, there is nothing wrong with using a CMS that is already familiar to them as it can save a lot of time and frustration in getting used to something new.

However, in either case make sure you are happy with the choice of CMS they would use for the project and that it provides the features you require for your website. In particular, check whether it is proprietary or open source, and make sure you know where you would go for support and help if the original web developer, staff member or volunteer was no longer available.

Adapting a CMS

Open source CMSs in particular can be extremely flexible and adaptable. There are sometimes hundreds of different modules or extensions available to enhance the functionality of the website, and you can usually over-ride the way they work by default and add extra features.

As the software code is publicly available, if necessary you can adapt or enhance it to your own requirements, or pay a website developer to do so on your behalf. If you are desperate for certain functionality that is not readily available, you can even commission your own module or extension and make it available to other users. However, you should take care that any third party modules or extensions will not inadvertently compromise the security of the main CMS software.

In practice, however, there are several reasons why at some point it is usually better to draw a line and make a compromise on how far you customise your CMS system.

Obviously the more customisation you do the more it is going to cost, but more importantly, you are going to be solely responsible for ensuring your modifications or additions can be maintained. In the longer-term, the more individual the setup of your CMS is the more work it is going to be to keep it up to date.

To take advantage of new versions of the CMS, including security fixes, the copy of the software that you are using will need upgrading, including any extra modules or extensions. Any customisations that you have made will also need incorporating into the new version, something that will probably require work from the original website developer.

Selecting a CMS

Some of the criteria to use to judge what is going to be the best CMS for you are:

• Are you happy that it provides all the features you require?
• How widely used is it?
• Are there other similar organisations to yourself using it?
• Does it require any specialised web hosting?
• Can it produce websites that meet current web and accessibility standards?
• Does it have a support forum where you can get help and guidance from other users?
• What documentation, books, manuals and training are available?
• What process exists to update the CMS and any third party modules or extensions in the future?
• What would be the process for upgrading your own website?

Another important criterion is simply whether you can understand the way the CMS works. Either ask for a demonstration copy or try out an online demonstration yourself (see below). Although it might be the first time you have seen the software, try creating or editing content as well as some other less regular tasks such as maintaining the list of users or adding an item to the website menu. Different CMSs handle things in different ways and some will make more sense to you than others.

If your organisation does not have anybody with the required technical expertise, a good option might be a “Website-in-a-Box” or hosted package as this saves the trouble of arranging hosting and installing the software yourself. Whilst these can be used to create a perfectly acceptable website, there are fewer opportunities to make it individual or stand out, and it might not be possible to add to the functionality later if your website plans expand.

Comparing CMSs

There are several resources that allow you to compare CMSs. These include CMSmatrix, which allows a feature comparison of different CMSs, and CMSwatch, which provides news and reports about CMS developments, particularly CMSs suitable for larger organisations. The Book Publisher Packt also organises an annual competition to find the most popular open source CMSs.

To try out online versions of different open source CMSs you can login at OpenSourceCMS, but bear in mind that these are the initial default installations which would probably need to be adapted for your own circumstances. It does however, give a flavour for what it would be like to work with each CMS on a day-to-day basis.

CMS examples

A survey in 2007 found that the most common open source CMSs used by non-profit organisations were Drupal, Joomla and Plone. Joomla is usually thought of as the easiest to get to grips with and get a website up and running, Drupal is good for situations where you want to encourage visitors to interact with the website, and Plone comes into its own when you need to connect to data in other systems. A review comparing these three flexible CMSs is available from Idealware.

Another Idealware article “A Few Good Tools to Manage Content on Simple Sites” has further suggestions, including details of some hosted website services. For more straight-forward websites, CMSMadeSimple might also be an option as it is deliberately has a minimum of features.

For simple sites it also worth considering blogging platforms, as these are becoming more sophisticated in the features they offer. Popular examples include Wordpress and Blogger.

There’s no shortage of options available. By considering the issues outlined in this article and doing some well targeted research, you have a good chance of finding a CMS that’s right for you.