Which CMS to use.

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cuemasterfl

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I work at a Courthouse, which is one of 5 in a Circuit (5 counties). We're upgrading our website with a CMS, but I'm not sure which one to go with (Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal). I'm "ok" with Wordpress, but I've never used the others. There could be many users editing and creating content. The main thing I am concerned with is finding one that allows Person A to edit certain pages, Person B to edit certain pages, etc. Which one do you recommend? TIA.
 
in the CMS world, on a scale of 1-10 difficulty, i would consider this to be true:

wordpress = 1, joomla = 4, drupal = 8

if you are creating it and you are "ok" with wordpress then use it. joomla and definitely drupal would require too much time to learn and then implement.
 
Joomla recently added in better access control in V2.5. You can give different users and groups read/write/edit access for different pages and sections. Joomla is pretty easy to get in to. It does take a little bit of time to figure out where some of the settings are located, but a simple forum search usually fixes that.
 
robvas said:
Wordpress is more of a blog - Joomla is more of a 'site'.
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I agree with this. I use wordpress and it is indeed a blog/news site rather than Joomla or Drupal but I have got to say, Wordpress is easy to configure and the other two can be very frustrating depending on the templates you use.
 
I'm somewhat of a pro Drupal user, it is difficult to get started with. Creating themes is probably the most difficult thing but in my opinion it's easier to use that Joomla, and lots of help is available online. But it depends on how much time you have to invest in learning something new.
 
Your inquiry is too vague and right now you're only getting recommendations based on popularity.

Here are some questions to consider when picking a CMS:
  • Is the site largely static content, or are there forms and other app-like features?
  • Do we need different subdomains under one main site? - This means you will need a CMS that can support a common layout/template for multiple sites.
  • Do we need internationalization? - You will probably need pages in spanish.
  • What language are we most comfortable with? - So far i've only heard PHP.
  • What data back-end are we supporting?
  • Do we have a large amount of digital assets? (images, pdf etc).
  • How much do we need to comply with accessibility requirements? If you're a government site, you have to put forth a best effort to be 508 compliant.
  • How much money do we have?

Also Wordpress is not just for blogging. 'Blog' means nothing in a web development context. You can make any size site with it, and it has a massive collection of plugins which are very helpful.
 
Wordpress can't do quite as much until you get plugins (or work in your own code), but then you have to concern yourself with site performance if you use too many plugins. It does help to know ahead of time what features you want to use ahead of time.
 
I would recommend Drupal over Joomla every time (note: I am biased. I work for a place where we build most of our web-based products on top of Drupal in some form or another) for the flexibility, second-to-none community support, and the wide variety of pre-built modules. Choosing between Wordpress and Drupal is more about the scope of your site. How big is the site and what sort of content will there be? Take a look at both products and try to come up with concrete requirements about your project scope, then you can critically evaluate all the products on the table and see how they match up with your goals and requirements.
 
i would say drupal over joomla every time too. however my theming and styling skills aren't as good as they are in joomla so if someone is looking for a very modern flashy site i will gravitate to joomla. but if it needs to handle any kind of data, drupal hands down.
 
MrGuvernment said:
what about for sites in .asp ?
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If you're deploying a new site based on a CMS, it's a perfect opportunity to escape from the terror and vendor lock-in of ASP .NET. Don't squander it. If the site is already in ASP (hopefully ASP .NET and not legacy ASP) why do you need a CMS? If for some reason you really want to add a CMS to an ASP .NET site and everything has to stay ASP .NET, there is Ektron, which is the only ASP CMS I'd even come close to "recommending." However, if cost is a factor, you probably can't afford it.
 
There are some free asp.net CMS systems offered in the control panel (the equivelent of softalicious) on Windows servers. I am not familiar with any of them but I'd assume that Wordpress, Joomla and Drupal are more developed because they have a bigger following and they have been around forever.

Despite what people say, Windows hosting is not expensive anymore and IIS is a perfectly good web server.

And most Windows hosting places have offer PHP and mySQL.
 
CEpeep said:
I would recommend Drupal over Joomla every time (note: I am biased. I work for a place where we build most of our web-based products on top of Drupal in some form or another) for the flexibility, second-to-none community support, and the wide variety of pre-built modules.
Click to expand...

I agree with this guy. I'm a software programmer (proprietary applications) primarily, but I do some web programming on the side.

I've used Joomla and Drupal. Joomla just feels backwards and annoying compared to everything else. If you're only ever making one website, you might finish faster with Joomla... but if you plan to learn the CMS to make multiple sites you will suffer much less in the long run with Drupal.
 
You should choose appropriate CMS for your site

Blog = Wordpress
Site = Joomla
e commerce = Magento, oscommerce, open cart :)
 
I know of a website team that went from joomla to wordpress. Obviously I had to ask, and he said the boss wanted something where he had more control over the site from a user point of view. I can't tell you from experience, but from what I gather, the CMS experience from a non-developer's point of view is more pleasant to work with.
 
I use Wordpress and Joomla.

Wordpress is a bit simpler, but less flexibility in some instances and a lot of the addons are hacks to the backend management. Joomla is more complex, but easier to use with a more complex site as the backend manager is more adaptable to more complex addins. Drupal is good to, but much more of a poweruser CMS with more time needing to be spent in the code to get things done.
 
I suggest talking to a design firm and letting them choose what they want and then let them do their shit and all you have to do now is update.
 
There are other ASP.Net CMS solutions out there for free: DotNetNuke comes to mind, and I have some colleagues working on a few Orchard implementations.
 
i asked as we have a team claiming wordpress is no good and we should move all of our sites to asp / .net because it is SO much better and they refused to do SEO on wordpress sites (php / mysql), they only do asp /.net

i said they only do those cause they dont know how to SEO wordpress sites... which isnt rocket science.
 
LOL, don't know how to SEO wordpress ?

Seriously ?

RUN from those guys.

Wordpress is the SIMPLEST cms to work with.

We've made it from an eCom, Picture Gallery, Portfolio Site, Non-Profit, and more, it can be ANYTHING you want. The trick is having a designer/wp guy who can do what your mind dreams up ;) If you need help let me know, I run a ton of WP sites for myself, clients, and never any issues once you figure out what works, even VERY high traffic can be handled with cache, cdn, etc...

Let me know if I can help.
 
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