Do I really need CMS (wordpress, drupal, joomla, etc..)?

Question

Hi there, I am a fresh graduate developer not much of experience in anything. I bought a domain and hosting service, and now I'm building my website. I'm using php, html, javascript. Now my website is going to be a blog oriented somehow I'll need to post stuff occasionally about my robotics or whatever. I'm not web developer, still I can manage and I don't want to have someone design it for me.

• The goal was: I need to have custom designed theme (which also fits the website homepage of course).

• First decision: use wordpress already made template and try to make website look like it but it didn't work well cause most templates doesn't fit my needs at all and each one has a problem.

• Second decision: make normal website then convert it to wordpress theme, which lead me to the fact that wordpress sux when dealing with developer, it's very hard to chop things up and customize php code, huge disappointment.

• I tried to find any books that would help, it seems they have no idea where to start from, they just pull things out of no where and expect you to understand!

• Now I'm curious about Joomla, drupal,

So what do you think should I make my own simple CMS? Or give others a try? But before I give them a try I came here to ask for guidance. Maybe someone has a fix for my wordpress situation, or guide me to another CMS fits my needs.

Answer 1

Blog engines and Twitter clients are the "hello world" project these days. It's good practice but it won't make you rich or famous. I'd try picking something like WordPress and extending it with a ground-breaking plugin.

WordPress is easy to theme with theme frameworks like Thesis, Hybrid etc.

Look before you leap. There is a myriad of info on the webs comparing WordPress, Drupal and the usual suspects.

Answer 2

You don't need a CMS to set up a Web site, but if you're new to development (especially Web development) you're better off starting with something like Wordpress or Joomla to learn the basics.

You should post a separate question with your Wordpress problem and see if someone can help you fix it. Distill your problem down into a simple description of (1) what you're trying to do, (2) how you attempted it, (3) how it worked out (or didn't) and (4) what you wanted to happen instead.

Answer 3

I have about a dozen websites that I run (self, friends, family, pet, work, work2, blah), and recently moved some of them to CMS - 3 to Word Press, 1 to Drupal.

My simple experience is that using a CMS is committing to a more rigid content style, with the advantage that you can edit the comment a bit more easily and not worry about FTP etc. On the other hand, pure PHP, HTML leaves it much more flexible (you can really do anything), but it is a bit more work to manage it.

I also created some custom content management systems (using PHP) for specific domains, and while initially my friends would remark ("Oh you could have done it Drupal very easily!"), when I hired one of them to do it, it took him about 3 weeks before giving up.

I know people talk about how configurable Drupal, or Joomla, or Wordpress really is, reality is that if you have a complex website, it only takes you a few days till you have to make your first workaround.

On the other hand though, if you are a quick printing website (such as a news site, etc), you would just have to go with a CMS, as you can live with a few styles as long as you can publish with a button click.

Answer 4

This isn't so much an answer as a word of encouragement. Wordpress is tremendously confusing when you get started, but after a bit of trial and error (and several big mistakes), everything will fit together and start making sense. When I started with Wordpress, I absolutely hated it - it seemed like a martian CMS. But, after a few weeks, I started to see the tremendous power hidden just below the surface.

Best of luck, but you can definitely do this!