I have a few choices of CMS, opinions wanted on them.

Hi there to all,

I have a hosting provider and these are ready to install on my site:

* E107
* Geeklog
* Mambo
* Nucleus
* PostNuke
* Xoops
* phpWiki

Most of them are the latest stable releases, and it seems most of them use xhtml 1.0 strict, which is a good thing.

I'm pretty sure I can ask my hosting provider to help upgrade the ones which aren't upgraded yet or install others, but those are the ones which are "instant-one-click" installable.

I've gone over the other threads, and looked at opensourcecms.org too.

Here's my question:

From among my list, which would you recommend and why?

My use is just very simple for my school org. They have no idea about websites so it doesn't matter what I use. I will probably have news, announcements, parties. I will probably have articles written by org members (so I'd want something they can add stuff to or like that.) I will probably have some pictures every now and then. I'll probably have a poll every now and then. They would probably want to archive old news.

I'll probably not be able to admin it often, so I'd need for the CMS to be self-moderating (the org has a president, vp, bunch of staff, bunch of members.) People might want accounts, or a forum or something (and I can always use gmail for the domain.)

Personally, I'd want to put adsense on it later (org probably has about 100 members total, not to mention the inter-school relationships, and the occassional extremely viral post either by controversy or comedy, you know how schools go.)

Size is probably not important but I got a small plan (60~100 MB) and small bandwidth (2~3 GB / month) cuz that's all the org is willing to afford. We can always upgrade.

I can also put a wordpress blog, but that's probably a separate issue.

Kindly limit your choices to the ones in the list. I have read about and would like Joomla, but at this point am not sure if my host can install that for me, so I want an alternative option.

Thank you for your opinions, and I hope this can also help others in a similar situation.

 

I was able to install Joomla and play around with it a bit. It seems complicated (at first). Hoping for other feedback as well with people who have experience with any CMS too.

I'm looking for a simple one. The simpler the better. If I can't find one, I might try to make one.

 

Joomla (which is basically the still developed version of Mambo) is relativly simple to use for portal sites, if that is what you are after - although the learning curve could be a little steep if it is the first time you've used a cms.

For lighter sites I use Etomite ( http://www.etomite.org), which I have used for some leagues and clubs at uni and people who aren't very technically minded seemed to grasp it quite quickly.

I haven't used the others in your list though, any reason you've picked them? Most cms has install wizards and the versions bundled with fantastico/cpanel is normally not the best way to install them if possible.

-Tim

 

Out of all the ones you listed I think E107 is definitely the easiest one to use. If you're building a simple site I would go with that one.

 

I havn't tried any of those. The one I use is pretty good and easy to use. it's called common sense CMS by M. Peyton. They sell ready made sites. It works on unix servers and it sets up easily.

 

Ahh. okay, I listed those because those are the ones with the "one-click-install" script. Almost like fantastico. Then I realized that I can install just about anything with a little bit of work and fantastic, while great, isn't the best way to work on a site.

Thanks for the comments and replies. Still playing with them.

 

Hi there Dabs
Sounds like your looking for a Open Source CMS / Free CMS?

Ive been working with lots of CMS as part of my job for some years now - both open source and commercial licensed.

Theere is a great list - well maintained - on WikiPedia

A web content management system ive been using recently is by Jadu called 'Galaxies'. This system lets you build your own CMS systems without needing to know HTML or CSS etc. The CMS is generates is quite amazing and very easy. The sites are all accessible too.

Ive also been using Wordpress for my blog (excellent and easy to use) and Mambo - which is OK - though you get the best from it with some heavy customisation. There are lots of modules knocking around too - which is useful.

Hope that helps

Maya