Easiest most flexible CMS to use?

[smile]

you can try www.opensourcecms.com , and test everything there. hopefully you'll find one. this saves time because u dont need to install anything...

[Johnn]

If you don't need all the bells & whistles you may want to try this one:
http://easysitemaker.net/

I used on one of mysite here:
namenetwork.net

It's very easy - even a caveman can do it.

[RUD_Lee]

I'd just like to share my experience of using Drupal.

I was running a site for my friend's pop group on a 1&1 shared server and was all fine. They then entered a tv talent show (with around 10 million viewers) and a banner was held up showing the site's url and uv's went through the roof. Site was shut down almost instantly for using too many resources which is understandable, but then moved between several dedicated servers (visits had dropped to around 10,000 pv's a day by now) and the site was running at a snail's pace. Seemed to be something to do with Drupal's caching but even when I turned it off it still didn't speed up much.

After a couple of weeks, with the same amount of daily pv's, I migrated to Joomla and site has been running fine ever since.

So, from my experience I would say if you get a high number of daily visits to definitely avoid Drupal. Quite a few ppl on their support forums complained that it couldn't handle high traffic volumes but I think theonion.com seemed to have no problems with it though.

[djriel]

I found that xoops was easier to use than joomla and had more plugins than drupal did. Sorta has that "clunky" feel though... not sure why.

I've got joomla running on my www.stratameeting.com site, but I find it a pain.

[whitebark]

Everyone seems to ignore the best unknown CMS out there - PostNuke - by far the most secure and flexible. No other CMS has a better built in theme engine and permission structure.

But it's not the easiest to learn. I've worked with them all, and PostNuke is still my favourite.

[tonyfloyd]

never heard of drupal either...i'll take a look...but wordpress is what i use and couldnt be any more easier.....

some recent sites:

virtualusvi.com
beautygym.com
bloids.com
greekhomerecipes.com

[BGray]

I've had the same issue Adam.

Try: www.websitebaker.com - Free
Easy to use and very effective.

If you want something that is really robust and can do virtually anything try:
www.ExpressionEngine.com - $99 base with available mods to purchase
This CMS has a nice community backing and is incredibly powerful without too much of a learning curve.

[dadster]

I've tried a few of them - joomla, and mambo I didnt care for, postnuke installs nice fast and clean, lately am trying wordpress for www.grailquest.org, phpcow for OddTales.com and am looking into FlexCMS.com - looks nice and simple.

Tough finding one that has everything you want.

[dolansco]

ArticleLive ... is a piece of pi55 to use

[tres]

http://sitellite.org/
Easy and fast wysiwyg CMS

[Ubiquitous]

never heard of drupal either...i'll take a look...but wordpress is what i use and couldnt be any more easier.....

Definitely WordPress ... Drupal isn't bad, although a bit tougher to use I think.

~ Regards

[unholy1]

WordPress powered with the SemPro Plugins is easily the most flexible CMS.

[Honan]

More tips here than at the hairdessers
Thanks guys

Here is a summary
http://www.joomla.org/

http://www.mamboserver.com/

http://drupal.org/

http://easysitemaker.net/

http://xoops.org/

http://www.postnuke.com/

http://start.websitebaker.org/en/introduction.html

http://www.interspire.com/articlelive/

http://sitellite.org/

http://wordpress.org/

I have been trying to master wordpress ever since Adam kindly provided the jumpline free 1 year Hosting
It was one click installation on the 1st domain
Easy
Even mastered installation on subsequent names at jumpline

No need to ftp to publish. I love it

I would love to know how to make wordpress look like a web site and get rid of the blog altogether
Can ayone help me to do that?

Eh kingpin, What are sempro addons?

John might have pointed me in the right direction with an application that even a caveman could use
I got the cave already, just need to download that easysitemaker

I have been trying do a decent web page for about 10 years
Keep getting distracted

Current distraction is watching Internet tv beta Joost

[Ubiquitous]

I would love to know how to make wordpress look like a web site and get rid of the blog altogether
Can ayone help me to do that?

Eh kingpin, What are sempro addons?

That's the beautiful thing about WordPress ~ You can definitely make it look however you want - it just depends on how much time and effort you put into it. You can strip out what you don't want, and only include what you desire. What I found most appealing was that I was able to make several plug-ins specifically for particular projects that interface with the database nicely. I installed and researched about 20 different CMS packages before I finally decided that WordPress could be tweaked with the best results. I could probably point you in the right direction depending on exactly what you are looking to do ...

By SEMPO I assume you are referring to the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization, and there are some great plug-ins for SEO that you would be impressed with ... Take a look. On one of my sites I use 30 plug-ins that do various things and I'm amazed it works so smoothly. Once in a while you might find some kind of issue with a plug-in you install, however, with one click you can disable it.

If anyone here is interested to know more about my CMS experiences I would be happy to share, and I am looking for some work too (hint, hint).

Regards ~

[namestrands]

I am in the process of developing a Content Management System which should be complete in the next week or so. I would be happy for you to give it a once over upon its completion.

I myself have tried many weird an wonderful Open Source and commercial software, and have found that they all try to target as broad a market as possible which inevitably does tend to over complicate something that's whole purpose is meant to make web content display simple.

I have therefore decided on a format for all my sites and stuck with that, it will no doubt always be a work in progress however it will be simple to maintain and if I want something new then I just build an addon.

Will let you know once complete.

[Adam Dicker]

Just read this string again and found it to be very useful giving me lots of things to try.

I will probably split some sections up so its easier for people to post all the joomla, drupal and other addons they like. This will allow people to see all addons that are in use by others and good without having to sift through crap ones.

All in all, one of the most imformative threads I have read in a while.

Thanks to all that contributed so far!

-=DCG=-

[Gerry]

-=DCG=-

I recall you were impressed with Drupal.

How about a rundown on your take on any and all that you have tried? I've got Joomla, Drupal, WordPress, and Ruby on Rails all under consideration.

[Gerry]

Drupal is defintely good for quick sites. It does lack the power of Joomla if you want to take it further though - there are some great modules for Joomla - but it has to be the least intuitive product around..

Not trying to push my own sites, but I launched www.SciFiCentral.com a few days ago if you're interested in what Joomla can do

Beachie...THAT'S *****IN!

my ceuq.com is done in Joomla. What really makes it is the modules that you mentioned. I taught myself Joomla putting this site together. Perhaps it was too big of a project to wean my teeth on. But it gave me all the confidence in the world to tackle more sites. Since that time I have read a few turtorials. Now I think I can do some more and change the templates up a little.

But as you mentioned, I think I would like to learn Drupal and WordPress for "up quick" benefits.

[myst woman]

Drupal put me to sleep. Joomla is fun.

[Dale Hubbard]

There's actually a huge gap in the market here, which it seems namestrands might be addressing. I've given up on CMS software because there's just too long a learning curve to make it do what you *really* want it to do, hence DCG's original problem. Wordpress is easy to install. But to get it to do what you want is a nightmare, if it's not a blog. What makes me laugh with most of these scripts is it's even a nightmare to change the logo...