Content management recommendations for website?

Question

Hello

I am working on a website that has a wide range of content. (News, FAQs, tutorials, blog, articles, product pages etc.)

Currently a lot of this content is static or uses special-purpose scripts. I would like to move most of it under the wing of a single content manager.

I have not used out of the box content management software previously so am hoping for some recommendations on what options there are and what might be best suited to a project like this.

Whether the manager is open source or commercial, and what language it is written in, are not so important. I can customize the environment as necessary.

The most important things are:

1) The ability to manage a wide variety of content.

2) The ability to create highly customized templates for a single page of content or entire category of content.

3) Flexibility. ie The ability to integrate managed content with other pages not controlled by the content manager.

Thanks in advance for your help,

Travis

Answer 1

Have a look at Umbraco - fairly steep learning curve but I'd recommend it.

You could also consider DotNetNuke - my experience with it has been quite negative due to performance issues but it is worth considering. It is the most popular open-source CMS.

Answer 2

I have used DotNetNuke with occasionally stunning results. All 3 of your points are fairly generic in terms of CMS (most should be able to do all three). Drupal and Joomla I have also used, with slightly less success, though they are both great products and I am sure that with enough attention they would've been great. I see you tagged Django and while I do not think of it as a CMS first, it can easily be used as one. Definitely a more hands on approach. You also might look into Google Sites for a free hosted solution. Good luck.

Answer 3

I would certainly recommend Drupal if you're willing to invest some time. The learning curve is steep. Many people describe Drupal as more of a Content Management Framework as opposed to an out-of-the-box CMS. Most of the pieces are there, you just need to figure out how to put them together.

For me, the single biggest advantage to using Drupal is the community behind it. There's so much documentation and discussion going on between Drupal.org and personal blogs that I've never had a problem go unanswered.