Which CMS should I use to manage a small internet site without programming experiences?

Question

I'm looking for a CMS system to manage a simple and small website. The website will be made with pure HTML and some JavaScript (perhaps prototype library). The reason while I'm looking for a CMS system is, because the customer will have the ability to change the content later by him self, and of course he didn't have any experiences with HTML and JavaScript or programming any more.

The CMS should be very easy to use, especially the management.

Answer 1

Personally I would recommend WordPress. Although it's 'marketed' as a blogging platform, it has very nice support for just "pages".

• It's free;
• It's commonly available on cPanel installations, or it's easy to set up on your own server;
• It has very slick editing facilities;
• There's a mass of themes and documentation available.

Answer 2

A good .Net one is Umbraco...

Answer 3

Have found Drupal to be very easy and it can grow with you

Answer 4

It also depends on your own level of skills but I would go with a CMS which has a good front end editing implementation so the customer doesn't even have to login to the admi area that often.

you could chose:

• SilverStripe
• Joomla
• WordPress (is not a CMS as such)
• Drupal (is a good CMS but in my opinion not suitable for your needs since its admin backend is not very easy to understand for non-tech-ppl.)

for not tech-savy end users I recommend Joomla though (the 1.5 series) since it is hard to break and components/plugins/etc. are found in a central location (joomla.org), easy to install and easy to uninstall.

Answer 5

Like stusmith, i'd go with wordpress if the needs are really basics. It's really simple and easy to install then handle.

But if you need a real CMS, Drupal is still not complicated and very powerful.

Answer 6

http://www.opensourcecms.com/ has demos of a bunch of cms' for you to try.

Personally, http://www.concrete5.org/ would be my choice for easy of use for non-programmers.

Answer 7

If this site involves e-commerce, I would recommend Joomla, since there's a popular e-commerce plugin for it called VirtueMart. Joomla has good community support, many plugins, and its features make it very scalable and customizable. Joomla also has good user management. However, using Joomla can be difficult at first, as its content organization is rather complex.

If the site would consist of basic blog-like webpages, then WordPress is the way to go. WordPress is a very simple blogging CMS with a huge user community. It's very easy to use, has many plugins for it, and the newest version of WordPress even has auto-updating features. WordPress isn't as good as Joomla when it comes to user management, though. For example, Joomla can specify exactly what content users and user groups have access to. WordPress has basic user groups, but additional customization and plugins would be required to have that functionality.

OpenSourceCMS contains demos for both Joomla and WordPress.

In my past web development experience, I've used both Joomla and WordPress for my clients. Joomla typically requires having a sit-down with the client to go over the basic features of how to use the software, while WordPress is easy enough for the client to figure out without any assistance. However, the WordPress sites I've worked with that require more than the standard blogging features (e.g., e-commerce, image galleries, forums) usually involve integrating WordPress with a separate software application, while Joomla more often than not has those plugins available for it. The end result is a website with several applications on it installed (e.g., WordPress, Coppermine, phpBB), each with separate logins and admin screens.

For a simple and easy website with basic features, I would suggest WordPress. For a website with specific needs (such as e-commerce) and the potential to scale, I would suggest Joomla.

Answer 8

One simple cms is for example Zimplit, it has a online editor, so your customers can edit their pages right on site, no admin area,also you can use any html template you want,you can take a look at demo or read more info about it

Answer 9

What about cuyahoga? It's a .NET CMS web app which has a really simple edit + admin interface + it's very module oriented. It's also easy for developers to create own custom modules.

Answer 10

You said "pure HTML" so http://www.cushycms.com/ will do what you want. Watch the demo, it's extremely slick and easy albeit no frills but you don't need any, it just gets the job done ;)

Also, http://www.synthasite.com/ is a great website creation tool to get up and running quickly.

You can add 3rd party plugins for forms, feeds, photos, maps etc. and then it exports all of that as HTML or it can publish to your FTP site and I think they can also host it for you. http://www.synthasite.com/tutorials

Using Synthasite & CushyCMS is a great combo to get something "pure HTML" up and running extremely fast.

http://www.squarespace.com, not free but so easy that your granny would smile.

Answer 11

guude,

have a look at typolight it has the best backend i have ever seen. and it is very easy to understood. login into the demo backend and have fun :D

regards, sebastian

Answer 12

I'm quite surprised no-one mentioned Plone yet. This is an open-source product which is very suitable for the requirements you describe.

Answer 13

Thank you for the reply. I have this space in my blog but I’d like to know what kind of ads are these? I have put adsese in this space becasue I have got no clue about these ads and I have found no tutorial on the same on internet.