Web Geeks: Content Management

**SkiEvil** · 11-10-2006, 06:53 AM

I am in the process of setting up a small simple site for a friend. I would like to set up an easy content management system so that they do not call me every other week to update the site. Is there a good open source product out there for content management? Yes I know I can google for one but I prefer a recommendation from someone that has first hand experience.

**Free Range Lobster** · 11-10-2006, 07:01 AM

What kind of site?

There's a billion different CMSs out there depending on what you need them to do.

**SkiEvil** · 11-10-2006, 07:14 AM

Brochureware for a volunteer organization. Ideally the user would be able to simply push via a template on the site or via email.

**wi3dzmin** · 11-10-2006, 09:23 AM

Sweet, finally the CMS question popped up here... I tried asking this on ars, got something along the lines of... yeah they are all good just pick one and stick to it... anyways...

I've tried two so far... Joomla! (appears to be Mambo's spin-off) is a very sharp and flexible cms that grabbed the Best Linux/ Open Source Project 2 yrs in a row. Not having a lot of experience with cms's though I found it to be a bit overwhelming, especially Joomla's hierarchy of content which to me doesn't make a whole lot of sense... perhaps it'll be easier to cms jongs like myself now that they released official user manual...

CMS Made Simple is the one I'm currently leaning towards... in terms of content intuitively it makes a a lot more sense than Joomla, although I haven't played with it a whole lot yet since I installed it for the forst time last night.

If the purpose of the site is blogging, I hear Word Press is very good for that. I have friends that set up their site on it, although since they were not doing it purely for blogging purposes there was a lot of pain rewriting the style sheets.

So there you have it... fwiw. Afaik, all these run on LAMP - free in either way you look at it. I can vouch for the first two being trivial to set up on a properly configured server... Feel free to drop me a line if you decide to go with either. Also, http://www.opensourcecms.com/ has literally LOTS of various cms's, including demos if you'd like to test drive them...

**milton** · 11-10-2006, 09:29 AM

I've used CMSimple, it's all html based and has a WYSIWYG editor. Pretty basic package, might fit your needs.

http://www.cmsimple.dk/

**Flexon Phil** · 11-10-2006, 09:42 AM

Act is good. I hated using Goldmine.

**cowdog** · 11-10-2006, 10:53 AM

www.drupal.org

PhP and mysql. There's a bit of learning curve to getting into drupal, but it is a nice, robust, and scalable CMS.

Joomla is nice too with an easier setup and module system, but once you get under the hood, I think drupal is a better CMS. Actually, for what you are looking for, Joomla might be a better option in the short term.

**RShea** · 11-10-2006, 11:05 AM

Originally Posted by Flexon Phil

Act is good. I hated using Goldmine.

These are really Customer Relations Managers (CRM) software packages and not really web related like the OP is looking for. They are both good databases to track customer info and contacts.

To the OP you have PostNuke, Xoops, Mambo, Joomla and Geeklog as a few of the popular ones out there. Joomla seems to be getting good press recently, but I have not used it yet.