Choosing a CMS for your project depends upon the requirement and complexity of the project. The rational behind choosing a CMS is deployment of flexible and better management of all the data, then be it content, pictures, videos, audios, etc. People with no or less technical knowledge find it difficult to manage all these things and with their needs piling up every day various companies have made different CMS giving the user a perfect backend admin authority.
Main features of these CMS, which makes them popular among their users, are as follows:
- Aid in easy storage and retrieval of data
- Reduce repetitive duplicate input
- Control access to data, based on user roles
- Allow for large number of people to contribute to and share stored data
Here are 10 most user-friendly content management systems, which you can use for your future web projects.
WordPress
It is the most widely used CMS used for blogging purpose. Its easy usability and easy to understand interface makes it every bloggers favorite CMS. Initially used for blogging it is now being used for corporate websites as well. It is very easy to install and you can start working in 5 minutes. The latest version carries an in-built auto-updater, which allows installing on the backend to the latest version, without downloading a file at all.
Especially for people with no programming or HTML knowledge this CMS is very easy to use. An integrated WYSIWYG editor allows you to create and expand the article with pictures. Using themes from the layout can be adapted to tens of thousands of templates and plug-ins extends the functionality of the content management system.
Joomla!
Joomla! is another simple using complete CMS package, it offers many great features and extensions. Its installation is easy and it offers a user-friendly administration interface with drop-down menus and other interesting features.
The official Joomla website hosts over 3,200 extensions, so there’s a huge development community behind this CMS. However, the themes and extension in Joomla community are more commercially oriented, so if you need customization products, do not forget the credit card.
Drupal
Unlike Wordpress it is not focused to blogging but is developed as a pure CMS. A complete installation includes a ton of optional modules with lots of interesting features such as forums, user blogs, OpenID, user profiles and much more to add.
Drupal is open source, subject to the GNU General Public License (GPL) and is freely available. Pre-requirements for the operation are a web server, PHP and an SQL-compliant database (eg MySQL or PostgreSQL).
TypoLight
Regarding functions, Typolight can certainly compete with CMS like Drupal. It offers modules in order to start a community site, as well as a newsletter and calendar function. It has a well-organized backend which can be adapted to many settings.
Developers save time with integrated CSS generator and enjoy the good integration of the Ajax technology. If you want to create a site with advanced features and its own programming, TYPOlight will thrill you.
ExpressionEngine
Expression Engine CMS is an elegant and flexible solution for any type of project. It is easy to expand and adapt. ExpressionEngine sets high targets for administration interface, it is also very intuitive and organized. It only takes a few minutes to understand the backend and to capture the content or to change the look of the website.
Expression Engine is packed with useful features, such as the ability to manage multiple sites with one installation. One of the best features is the global search and replacement function. Anyone who has managed a website or even blog knows how difficult it is when you have to replace loads of data and so must each article or each page to edit.
SilverStripe
Silverstripe is unique because it is built in its own PHP Framework, Sapphire. It also supports its own template language, which simplifies the design-to-template process.
Silverstripe provides some interesting features such as content version control and SEO support. Particularly unique is the possibility that developers and designers can customize the administration interface for their customers. The community is not very big, but there are some modules, themes and widgets available to the CMS which can be added.
TextPattern
Because of its simple elegance, Textpattern is very popular among designers. The main objective of Textpattern as a CMS is to generate a well structured and standards-compliant website. Instead of using a WYSIWYG editor, Textpattern use Textile markup to generate marked-up text to valid HTML elements. The generated HTML pages are therefore extremely easy and fast loading.
Even if the text pattern is deliberately kept simple in design, the back end is surprisingly intuitive and easy to use. Moreover, Textpattern has an active developer community with lots of help and resources..
RadiantCMS
PHP is the most popular programming language in web development, but this does not mean that we should ignore other popular languages such as Ruby. Radiant CMS is a small, fast CMS, which can be compared with Textpattern.
Radiant has been programmed in Ruby on Rails framework and the developers behind it have done their best to the CMS It is as simple as possible with right amount of functionality. The Radiant has its own template language, which, however, is very similar to HTML and is intuitive to use.
CushyCMS
Cushy CMS is completely different from all other previously introduced CMS. It’s free for unlimited users, unlimited changes, unlimited pages and unlimited sites. It’s built from the ground up with ease of use in mind – for both content editors and designers. It’s such a simple CMS that it takes less than 3 minutes for a web designer to implement.
Cushy CMS is freely usable for everyone, even for commercial use. There is the possibility to adapt to a pro-version upgrade, which allows a logo and color scheme as well as some functionality.
Alfresco
Alfresco is a fairly strong enterprise content management solution, which is surprisingly very easy to install. A very useful feature is the ability to drag files into a folder and convert them to Web Documents. It probably needs some more time to incorporate into the CMS than in others, and it’s not very beginner-friendly it will be rewarded with an ECM that surpasses commercial products such as Documentum or Microsoft ® SharePoint ® in functionality and usefulness.
Alfresco is certainly not the best choice for simple pages, but it is a very good choice as an enterprise solution.
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