CMS for custom application

Question

We are building a custom application using LAMP with P being PHP. We also need to have CMS to manage various aspects of the site. The two options for the CMS are

1. Build a complete custom CMS from scratch

2. Extend an existing open source CMS to fit our needs. This way we can use some of the features out of the box and others we will build ourselves.

I would like to get your feedback on the following

1. What are your experiences with option number 2?

2. Which CMS would you recommend that we can further customize and extend for our use?

3. What are the best ways to integrate a custom application with other external CMS?

Answer 1

I really like the MVC approach for a CMS (you did mention extending), and PyroCMS is built on Codeigniter. It might not (out of the box) serve all of your needs, but easily could. Its worth a look, at the least.

Answer 2

A whole set of CMS are available nowadays, everyone with its own pros and cons.

I guess the first step in your case is to make a list of the features that you:

• MUST HAVE
• SHOULD HAVE
• COULD HAVE

Once you have this list, you'll be able to compare the existing CMSs to see which one better fits your needs.

There's no a best CMS (otherwise everyone would use the same).

Said this, Joomla offers a powerful base system, easily extensible. But this is just my modest opinion. Right now, 4712 extensions exist for this CMS. If you still can't find all you need, it's possible to implement your own extensions (in terms of plugins, components and modules). See the developers section for more information.

Answer 3

I've recommended ModX in response to previous questions

It provides a nice clean framework which is simple to install and is easy customize.

For your situation I think ModX is a strong contender as it allows you to embed your own php code in your site using snippets - Bob's guide on snippets is a good overview. The snippets can be managed through the backend web manager and they can easily be dropped into any pages as required.

Larger applications can be setup as modules, this is similar to many of the other main stream CMS's, it's just that in ModX the web based control makes the management of the code a simple task.