Easiest to use web content management system

Question

I have to choose a content management system to allow dynamic updating of website content. The amount of configuration required and the learning curve with most of these systems really seems to be a lot more than what should be necessary.

I have almost set the site up with Alfresco SURF - but I just find that it makes simple things harder than they ought to be.

I have heard of Drupal, Joomla and Plone - but what I am hoping for is something that is very simple to set up and use. I have heard these are not.

We just need to be able to change things like dates of upcoming events etc. navigation template changes don't need to be supported (but if it's they are and the software is still easy to use then it's a plus).

Can you recommend only very simple to use apps, or explain if there is some reason what I am asking for cannot exist.

Answer 1

Try Wordpress - it's not only suitable for blogs but also as a CMS if you have very simple requirements .

Answer 2

i would use wordpress for this sort of thing. it is simple to install and is quite easy to use. you don't have to use the blogging part of it

Answer 3

To make installing much easier you can try a BitNami stack. Drupal and Joomla are there.

Basically they are installed as stand alone instances that are meant to not interfere with other systems you have in place (installing their own DB and webserver).

Answer 4

Have you had a look at ModX? You can have it installed in quarter of an hour and have a working site in a couple more and there are loads of tutorials floating around for it.

Answer 5

Drupal is very easy to use (I know since I run my personal site and my wifes site on it) - the modules install is really extracting a folder. And there is a great system internally which tells you about updates for everything. Install is very easy now (as hard as installing an app) on IIS with the web platform installer which Microsoft released at Mix. If you want the manual approach it is basically create empty database, extract files, go to site, follow prompts. Very simple too, but the web platform installer handles getting pre-requisites for you, and the config of the server.

I believe Joomla is also on it, but I have not used it.

BTW what I did for my wife's site to make it easy for her was to use Drupal and setup the modules that make it useful, then I created all the pages for her and setup Windows Live Writer on her machine which she uses to edit the pages. This way she controls the content but she doesn't have to know anything about websites. Her site is not a blog, it's a normal business-y site, but using WLW makes it easy.

Answer 6

the learning curve with most of these systems really seems to be a lot more than what should be necessary

I understand. I've felt the same way when I've tried to use one. There is a lot of terminology and configuration (install, user setup, access rights etc) to go through if you only want to throw up some simple information.

If I were you I'd just use a wiki. The advantage of this is you can create a flow however you want and not worry about the rules of the CMS system. And you can take it wherever you want later on. E.g. Python wiki.

The two wikis I'd recommend are MoinMoin because it is very well presented (e.g. Python wiki), easy to use (full WYSIWYG editor option), customisable (CSS etc) and uses flat files (so no DB admin or hidden content in SQL). Its written in Python and I'd recommend using fastcgi or mod_python to make it really fast.

If you don't fancy that, WakkaWiki is excellent. It's PHP with SQL backend though. Easy to setup and easy to grok with good features (e.g. embedding mind maps).