Please Help Me Choose CMS

I started the site on WP (just barely, no big deal to junk it). However, the same template that I like is available in Joomla & has a membership option/login. I very much like the Joomla version better - but I've never used Joomla.

The website will be a directory in an essense. It will be very specific though, dealing with one kind of business in one state. It should not be difficult at all to get to the top of search results for at least 20 keywords, so I imagine getting good traffic in the very near future.

Some of my ideas for plans include:

• Once traffic is coming in, I will contact some of the higher end of these hundreds or thousands of businesses and offer paid features/ads.
• I also imagine having visitors sign up for free, for updates to their favorite places, or monthly drawings for gift certificates (which I'll work with the businesses to do).
• If I can get enough businesses on board, maybe offer a low price membership to visitors where they receive some kind of discount at the those businesses.

The area is constantly growing, and tourism is becoming a big deal. I can see this being a very large site in the future.

Which CMS do you think would work to my benefit the most? Why? Oh, and I don't have the option for paid options -- only free.

 

joomla is a handy one , it will be matter of few days when you get used to it
you can try drupal also , or if you want a directory specific software they are also available

 

I think Joomla is the best option for you because its the easiest CMS around with lots of additional feature that you can have for free, you can look at extensions.joomla.org.You may compare another CMS, but I think you will face 2 main problem: its not easy as joomla or its not come with variety of extension that can help you to customize your website the way you like it.For tutorial you can learn via video tutorial at myjoomlacast.com.

 

Joomla is overrated bloutware.

If you want to offer a commercial grade product, then go with a commercial grade management system. Do people like CNN, CNET, Bloomberg, yahoo or the BBC run joomla? I dont think so. Use a product you can get real support for, and timely updates.

Lets say your site is hacked, who will you turn to? Will it be the free joomla (so called) "support" forums? Or would you rather have the option to get real tech support in a manner that fits your needs? I used joomla for about 6 months. Some of my questions in the joomla forums were never answered - good thing my site was not down at the time.

Joomla also has a reputation of not being secure. When you install joomla, you have to make just about every folder writteable. This creates a number of security holes and problems.

A lot of the programs used with joomla use a bridge to get them to integrate, this creates another security issues and issues with it comes time to update the website.

There are a number of inexpensive commercial grade management systems on the market, look at them. But for a quality site you want to make money off of, stay away from joomla.

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Hers is a list of content management systems - both free and commercial grade. Scroll down until you see "Proprietary" and take a look through them. That list is not complete as some CMSs are not listed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_content_management_systems

One such cms is subdreamer - www.subdreamer.com

There there is PHPcow

And VIVVO - http://www.vivvo.net

 

I would sugest "PHP Fusion".....the new version 7 has just been relased.
It is my expirence that this is a quit flexiable CMS with very good support sites.

 

you can also try some plugins available to add membership managment in WP..
Joomla is good..also can find huge Huuuuge tools for that..
also join joomla community..its very helpfull..
study more..its your asset ..whice you learn

 

I used drupal for my site and thought it was confusing. well, it must take some getting used to. I switched to joomla and like it better

 

I disagree with Kev.

Joomla is widely supported, their support forums are good and there are plenty of reasonably priced and reliable people out there for support, development and emergencies.

There are a huge range of components and plugins available and I am unsure where the "bridges" bit comes in. Yes if you want to say use Menalto Gallery you need a bridge, or SMF but there are a plethora of components that slot straight into Joomla without the need for a bridge.

Yes you need to keep an eye out for updates, on both your CMS and the addons installed. Yes you need to go through some processes to ensure that once you have built your site it is secure and yes it is an ongoing process.

Joomla is an Open Source project, it is free and it works so it gets my vote.

 

Thank you for everyone's experiences and input. I'll be looking more into several of them before jumping in.

 

There are more items then just gallery2 and smf that use a bridge. And smf dropped its support for joomla because of the way the joomla developers view the GPL license.

And yes, the joomla community does offer a wide range of extensions. Many of which have not been updated in months and in some cases years.

For someone to make an educated decision, they need options. Most of the replies to these types of threads are "joomla" or "wordpress." Joomla is not the fix all, end all cms solution - its far, far from it.

I used joomla for about 6 months and found it terrible to work with. The joomla "support" forums were not very helpful. Overall, my joomla experience was the worst out of all of my website building experiences. I even bought a $100 add-on for joomla. Only to find out is was very limited and support was terrible. But everyone at the joomla community recommended it. Figure that one out.

If you want a good commercial grade CMS, with real support - do not use joomla. There are other options out there. Such as vivvo.

Instead of using a bridge like joomla, Vivvo has direct integration for a Vbulletin forum or a simple machines forum (SMF) - http://www.vivvo.net/plugins.php

A lot of the stuff that you have to add to joomla is already built into subdreamer - http://www.subdreamer.com/sd_plugins/p13_sectionid/3/start/1

And one of the things about subdreamer, you can get real support - something joomla can not offer - http://www.subdreamer.com/support

If you want to offer a quality product, you have to use quality parts to build that product. In my opinion - joomla is not a quality product.

And that is the best thing you can do. Keep in mind that there is a world of difference between a commercial grade CMS and free CMS. I wasted about 2 years trying to to use free software until I finally switched over to VBulletin. When I did make the switch, I asked myself why did I wait so long? Since I started using commercial grade (paid for) software, there is no going back.

 

I respectfully disagree.

This is true. There are also ways to plug those holes.... including chanigng the write bits back when you're done.... but it is a a known weak spot. All products have strengths and weaknesses.

Some do, some don't... if you don't want a bridge, don't use it... that's not a statement on Joomla per-se'.

Security issues can and are addressed by comercial 3rd party components, often for less than the cost of a commercial site:

http://extensions.joomla.org/index.php?option=com_mtree&task=listcats&cat_id=1918&Itemid=35

I respect your right to your opinion, but there are too many good things about joomla to just toss it ... especially when there are known solutions to the valid security issues you raise.

 

You can try elxis cms, its powerfull, lot like joomla, but more advance and secured. The only and biggest advance of joomla is number of extensions.