17 Free Content Management Systems For Better Content Handling
Ahmad Hania
Every one that wishes to start a website or a blog needs a way to manage content. Content Management System (CMS) is found and created to fulfill this task for you. Content Management Systems is designed to simplify the publication of web content to websites and blogs, allowing content creators to submit content without requiring technical knowledge of HTML or the uploading of files. Several content management systems exist both in the Open Source and commercial domains. In this article I collected 17 free to use content management systems that will make your content creation process an easier task.
1. WordPress
WordPress started as just a blogging system, but has evolved to be used as full content management system and so much more through the thousands of plugins, widgets, and themes available to suit your needs. WordPress is also free and open source CMS and it is considered one of the most used content management systems out there and I might dare to say it is ruling out there. It uses PHP as a server side language and MySQL as a database.
2. mojoPortal
mojoPortal is a free and open source content management system built using the Microsoft ASP.NET and supports various databases like MySQL, MS SQL and PostgreSQL. It comes with a lot of built in features such as: Image Gallery, Event Calendar, Polls, Blogs, Forums and many more.
3. Drupal
Drupal is a free and open source content management system that allows an individual, a community of users, or an enterprise to easily publish, manage and organize a wide variety of content on a website.
4. Joomla
Joomla is a free content management system, which enables you to build web sites and online applications. Many aspects, including its ease-of-use and extensibility, have made Joomla one of the most popular content management systems available. Best of all, Joomla is an open source solution that is freely available to everyone. It has many built in features but if that’s not enough you can take a look at the 4000+ extensions from the community.
5. Pligg
Pligg is a free and open source content management system. Pligg CMS provides social networking software that encourages visitors to register on your website so that they can submit content and connect with other users. You can create websites where stories are created and voted on by members, not website editors. Use Pligg content management system to start your own social networking community in minutes.
6. SilverStripe
SilverStripe is an open source and free content management system. Besides their feature rich CMS they developed Sapphire which is an object-oriented PHP5 web framework designed to let you either build standalone applications or extend your SilverStripe CMS-powered site.
7. Plone
Plone is a powerful, flexible Content Management solution that is easy to install, use and extend. Plone is created for non-technical users to create and maintain information using only a web browser. Perfect for web sites or intranets, Plone offers superior security without sacrificing extensibility or ease of use for non-technical users.
8. BlogEngine.NET
BlogEngine.NET is an open source and free .NET blogging engine that was created to offer a better blog platform. A blog platform with less complexity, easy customization, and one that takes advantage of the latest .NET features. BlogEngine.NET was designed using the current .NET framework and focused on simplicity, ease of extendability, and innovative features. despite it packs a lot of built in features along with extensions available by the community it still lacks attention for the little details that is found in other content management system.
9. Symphony
Symphony is XSLT-powered open source content management system. Symphony leverages open standards like XML and XSLT, and good old XHTML and CSS. Even the admin interface employs the widely-used jQuery library, so extension developers don’t have to learn a whole new framework when extending the back end. Symphony is comprised of discrete, fully configurable components. Its data, logic, and templating layers are all independent, meaning that whatever you implement can be modified, added, or removed with minimum effort.
10. sNews
sNews is a completely free, standards compliant, PHP and MySQL driven Content Management System. sNews is extremely lightweight, simple and customizable. It’s easy to install, and use via a simple web interface. sNews consists of only one core engine file, one independent template file and its accompanying CSS stylesheet file, plus an .htaccess file that makes all URLs search engine friendly.
11. CushyCMS
CushyCMS is a Content Management Systems that is truly simple. It’s free for unlimited users, unlimited changes, unlimited pages and unlimited sites. It’s built from the ground up with ease of use in mind – for both content editors and designers. It’s such a simple CMS that it takes less than 3 minutes for a web designer to implement. No PHP or ASP required for this CMS. If you can add CSS classes to HTML tags then you can implement CushyCMS. It’s also a hosted CMS, so no installation or maintenance is needed either.
12. Frog CMS
Frog CMS simplifies content management by offering an elegant user interface, flexible templating per page, simple user management and permissions, as well as the tools necessary for file management. Born as phpRadiant in January 2007, Frog CMS is a PHP version of Radiant CMS. Frog CMS requires PHP, a MySQL database or SQLite.
13. Radiant
Radiant is an open source content management system designed for small teams. It is built using Ruby on Rails and using the SQLite as a database.
14. MediaCore
MediaCore is a free open source video cms and podcast platform. MediaCore can pull video or audio from any source, track statistics, enable commenting, and provide a high degree of control over the presentation and administration. The CMS was built for individuals and organizations who wish to distribute video or podcasts on their website without kicking users to other social media sites. MediaCore is built using the TurboGears Python Framework and MooTools Javascript Framework.
15. CMS from Scratch
CMS from Scratch is a quick, easy, open source and FREE solution that lets web designers give their customers a web site they can edit themselves. It is now also an open source project, so you can use the source PHP scripts for FREE.
16. MODx
MODx helps even regular individuals manage content on their websites simply, quickly and intuitively. For the geek-elite, MODx is an Open Source PHP web application framework with a capable built-in Content Management System.
17. TYPO3
TYPO3 is a free Open Source content management system for enterprise purposes on the web and in intranets. It offers full flexibility and extensibility while featuring an accomplished set of ready-made interfaces, functions and modules.
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Nicolas Hoizey
Posted 733 days ago 25No mention of SPIP? This is a joke.
http://www.spip.net/rubrique25.html
Teddy
Posted 733 days ago 24Hi,
I think, you forgot one of them… SPIP : http://www.spip.net/
.-= Teddy´s last blog ..Temps-Libre Magazine / phase 1 =-.
ferdi
Posted 733 days ago 23Also i reccommend you the PHP-Fusion. http://www.php-fusion.co.uk
Marvin
Posted 733 days ago 22Hey Ahmad,
you forgott an very easy and small CMS System. It’s called redaxo and developed in Germany.
Have a look at this http://www.redaxo.de
The Site is in German but the CMS have nice English Plugins and is totaly easy to understand.
Brandon Ziel
Posted 733 days ago 21I personally use MODx CMS for myself and all my clients.
It’s hard to learn but once you’ve mastered the first hump it’s the best out there. It’s great for custom sites. Where a lot of WordPress and Joomla users use the great resources out there they don’t know what to do if a client wants changes to it.
MODx FTW!
.-= Brandon Ziel´s last blog ..BrandOnMedia =-.
roni
Posted 733 days ago 20How about SPIP ?
http://www.spip.net/rubrique25.html
Marco
Posted 733 days ago 19And Typolight? http://www.typolight.org
.-= Marco´s last blog ..Es gibt keine HTML-Tags! Von Elementen, Attributen und Tags =-.
doige
Posted 728 days ago 39I can also recommend Typolight.
Victor
Posted 733 days ago 18MODx is the Best CMS for any project. Recommend
rocket
Posted 733 days ago 17hooo boy!!! nic…. I Had never heard of silverstripe…
.-= rocket´s last blog ..Learn MYSQL data types the easy way =-.
Ziya
Posted 733 days ago 16You need add to this list “TextPattern”, my fav CMS.
William Åström
Posted 733 days ago 15Nice article, but i don´t think MODx is only for the geek elite;) It is actually very easy to use. Even for a newbie. I would really recommend it to anyone. Especially designers!
Keith
Posted 733 days ago 14Of the ones you listed, I have used mainly WP and Joomla, but I did just create a new social bookmarking site with Pligg, and I like it so far. Will submit this article for you :)
.-= Keith´s last blog ..Organize Your Twitter =-.
matt ryan
Posted 733 days ago 13not a bad list, although i’d really only use 3 or 4 of these.
.-= matt ryan´s last blog ..How to Make WP Custom Fields Better =-.
Dave Kinsella
Posted 733 days ago 12Concrete 5 is also worth a look – very easy to learn but powerful too
.-= Dave Kinsella´s last blog ..My new favourite CMS – Concrete5 =-.
Jae Xavier
Posted 733 days ago 11I love this post! Some new CMS’s i have never heard of before.
bill creswell
Posted 733 days ago 10Missing my 3 favorites:
gpEasy (php file based data)
LightnEasy (php page based)
Umbraco (.net)
Chunksmurray
Posted 733 days ago 9Nice list! Some great options there.
Another one to check out is Concrete5. Been using it for a while now and it really is like nothing else I’ve ever used!
You can find it at http://www.concrete5.org
Nick Burd
Posted 733 days ago 8Great selection.. I’m a huge fan of wordpress…
I have used ModX in the past, im not sure if the developer just implemented it in a horrible way, but I really had a hard time with it at first. Once I caught on, it was easier.
I also find that Joomla has a pretty steep curve for clients to be using it. But all are great CMS’s to be presenting in this post. I also have used “getsimple” in the past, just to offer some basic content handling for a client… Its great, allows multiple forms built in, php, etc, and its super simple for designers with little php knowledge to implement on their own if they are on a low budget. :D
.-= Nick Burd´s last blog ..Design Inspiration… A never ending quest. =-.
Cruz3N
Posted 733 days ago 7Thanks for this usefull article… WORDPRESS is the BEST :D
bob
Posted 733 days ago 6No Textpattern? It use to appear in all the ‘best of’ lists and now it’s nowhere to be found. Shame, its a pretty good CMS and rivals any of those you have listed.
Jon W
Posted 733 days ago 5Nice list but no EE Core?
Mike Ilsley
Posted 733 days ago 4Wow, that’s a serious list! I really need to find time to try out a few of these options, like CushyCMS.. They seem like great solutions..
nine
Posted 733 days ago 3Only available in german, but very nice for small sites:
http://www.cms2day.de
Lakeside Techies
Posted 733 days ago 2For me… wordpress rocks… I’m getting better and better in wordpress too ;)
Tomas Varil
Posted 733 days ago 1Plone is really great solution, but there was not said that unlike other CMSes, Plone is Python based CMS and it needs specific hosting parameters ;-)