Advanced Web Design: Choosing or Editing a Content Management System (CMS)
The GardensToTables.com web site was created using Joomla, which is great for magazine-style sites with many sections and subsections.
The Mobile Web Design Blog was created with WordPress, the increasingly popular blogging tool.
Comparing WordPress, Joomla, and Dupal
Here’s a quick look at a few of the most popular Content Management Systems (CMS) and why you might choose one over another. A good CMS can be used for something as simple as a blog or as complex as a newspaper or magazine Web site.
(Not quite sure how a CMS works with a database? Get the big picture here.)
Not only can using these programs help save you time, experimenting with them will help you learn from other programmers' experiences because as you see how they have created these tools, you’ll surely learn things that will help you if you decide what you might want to create your own custom site content management system.
WordPress
www.wordpress.org (note: wordpress.com is a free hosting service)
Price: Free / Open Source
Pros: One of the most popular and powerful blogging tools, WordPress is increasingly used as a CMS for more complex sites. You’ll find many great extensions for WordPress and it’s very easy to teach people to use the administrative tools to update the site after it’s built (even if they don’t know any HTML).
Cons: WordPress was designed for blogging and it’s great for that, but if you want to add more complex or advanced interactive features you’ll still probably have to do some custom programming yourself.
Additional Resources: Also has many, many extensions that you can use to easily add special features, including polls, discussion forums, and shopping carts.
Want to review more blogging program options?
Joomla
www.Joomla.org
Price: Free / Open Source
Pros: Offers more features than WordPress, including the ability to easily create categories and sub categories for more magazine-style sites.
Cons: You’ll need some programming skills and advanced HTML/CSS knowledge to fully customize a Joomla site.
Additional Resources: Also has many, many extensions that you can use to easily add special features, including polls, discussion forums, and shopping carts.
Drupal
http://drupal.org/
Price: Free / Open Source
Pros: Designed by programmers for programmers this CMS is popular among the most technical fans of Open Source. If you have the programming skills, you can do just about anything with Drupal.
Cons: If you’re a designer, the learning curve on Drupal is a bit steeper than Joomla and you won’t find nearly as many templates.
Additional Resources: Many extensions that you can use to easily add special features, including polls, discussion forums, and shopping carts.
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