Lightweight CMS in PHP

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600

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+11 Q:

Lightweight CMS in PHP

Hi, I am building a site which will require some very limited content management for a client. There are only a few areas of the site which will require the client to be able to update the content themselves.

Would it be better to create a very simple custom admin page for the client to log in and say add a news story etc or would it be best using a fully fledged CMS like Drupal etc which seems overkill to me.

+8 A:

Wordpress, Seriously :)

Ololo 2010-05-11 08:03:18

how difficult is it to theme wordpress - the required layout and style is very specific. this is part of the reason im hesitant to use a CMS as they all appear very 'samey' and i would therefore assume that they are difficult to theme

Andrew 2010-05-11 08:09:11

There's a huge community of WordPress theme, styling, and PHP-hackin' users at Wordpress.org. Good enough documentation.

Jeff Wilcox 2010-05-11 08:25:51

Wordpress is a doddle to theme. CMS generally have 2 approaches, the "noob" approach, where they provide lots of placeholders. But you can gut all that out, use the tags in regular PHP includes and make it do what you want.

sunwukung 2010-05-11 09:49:24

I recently tried Wordpress. It's remarkably easy to just remove the default theme and replace it (although keeping the old one around for reference is a good idea.)

Brendan Long 2010-06-01 19:58:25

+1 A:

Take a look at Pixie CMS, never used it myself but my boss has, he enjoyed using it.

ILMV 2010-05-11 08:08:59

+2 A:

I've had very good experiences with Frog CMS, though chances are depending on what you're wanting it will only deal with user authorisation/authentication for you. But it's about as light as they come (that I've seen, which, given the multitude of CMSes out there, may not be much at all).

Also see this similar question. (Of those, Textpattern is definitely another good one, but may also be too barebones for you.)

pinkgothic 2010-05-11 08:11:52

+8 A:

I recommend you to use a proved ready CMS instead of reinventing the wheel. Drupal at its core is a ~~Lightweight,~~ extremely extensible and popular enough to go!

Also Remote CMS might match your situation, I recommend you to take a look at PageLime, it looks very easy & promissing.

Sepehr Lajevardi 2010-05-11 08:12:22

i have used Drupal in the past for projects, it is quite hard to theme from my experience.

Andrew 2010-05-11 08:14:26

It's even easier than making a WordPress theme! you just need to read couple of pages first.

Sepehr Lajevardi 2010-05-11 08:25:55

+1 for using Drupal.

Leszek Laszka 2010-05-11 08:28:45

You mean 1 Megabyte compressed. Unpacked it's 4.5 Megabytes. Hardly a lightweight cms don't you think?

zaf 2010-05-11 08:42:44

My fault, you're right zaf.

Sepehr Lajevardi 2010-05-11 08:57:12

Thats alright, I'll remove my -1 for you being a nice chap.

zaf 2010-05-11 09:05:28

Very kind of you ;)

Sepehr Lajevardi 2010-05-11 09:15:37

+1 A:

I like Silverstripe for it is effective and simple, plus it's built on top of a good OOP framework.

nuqqsa 2010-05-11 08:17:00

I've had a great experience with Apostrophe CMS. It's based on adding a set of plugins to an existing Symfony application, tweaking a few settings, and then saying "I want this part of the page to be managed". Comes complete with roles/permissions ability, and being Symfony, the ability to integrate it into an existing site or extend as you wish.

Very user friendly - log in on the page you want to change, click "Edit" alongside the proposed change, make your change, click "Save", done :-)

richsage 2010-05-11 08:20:36

+6 A:

If you've got what it takes then I advise you to have a go at creating a simple admin for maintaining the content.

This way you'll have full control and flexibility without trying to tame a kitchen sink CMS to do simple tricks for you.

zaf 2010-05-11 08:38:31

thats my thoughts, essentially the client simply wants to update some news stories and other little bits of information, for example a links page. I feel that going down the full cms road is a little too much but on the other hand it may be a more elegant solution.

Andrew 2010-05-11 09:08:54

+1 using any pre-built CMS is overkill if what you want to do is simple

Lo'oris 2010-05-11 09:20:20

+1 there is a point where reusing just isn't useful anymore. If you need only limited admin capability, sqlite + php can do this for you much more conveniently than trying to install mysql, php and then a flavor of (wp/drupal/joomla).

mike 2010-05-12 22:07:33

Checkout ExponentCMS. I've used it for a handful of sites and I must say it's VERY easy to setup and theme.

tobefound 2010-05-11 09:03:26

TextPattern CMS is also a good, super-lightweight option! I've used it before and have been pretty happy with the results...easy setup, small memory footprint, etc.

espais 2010-05-11 09:09:58

As mentioned previously I'd suggest having a look at ModX.

Out of the box, the backend management has a built in permissions system. It's very simple to build a site and then allow registered users access to one small part they need to update.

Adrian 2010-05-14 09:56:36

ansaurus

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