Easiest most flexible CMS to use?

[BGray]

Half of the CMSs out there are custom made. If there are deep pockets involved I'm sure that is the case here. You are probably best off finding a good coder and commisioning him/her to make a clone CMS to your specs.

 

[liberator]

Hey Adam,

I don't think they are using the same cms system. Heres what I was able to gather:

http://www.birds.com/admin/ <- Looks like custom cms backend
http://www.nurselink.com/admin <- points to admin.nurselink.com:8080 and timesout for me same as policelink

if you go to:

www.birds.com/foo <- says /foo not in ICMS DB yet

tried to lookup any icms software and found:

http://www.icms2.com/
http://www.infinitas.ws/T1.asp?pcID=4&pcParentID=0&action=
http://www.krismer.ca/default.aspx?page=3
http://www.ionlinecms.com/
http://icms.scross.co.uk/index.php
http://www.yfactor.com/Public/Default.aspx?I=15&n=iCMS

here is a link to some other sites using the same CMS as birds.com:

http://www.google.ca/search?q="ICMS...s&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&start=0&sa=N

EDIT: quick look and it looks like its a custom cms solution by http://www.paleymedia.com/services/

from there solutions page:

The Solutions

Paley Media has created and operates a network of websites technology businesses focusing on Travel, Finance, Sports, Entertainment and Shopping. Some of the sites that we have created and manage include: Travel- Scotland.com, SouthAfrica.com, PuertoRico.com, Horseracing.com, Finance-Stockmarkets.com, Sports- Autoracing.com, Entertainment-Musicians.com and Shopping- Linka.com.

Hope that helps in your search

All the best,

Jay

 

[fris]

what type of site are you trying to run? I am developing a cms that caters to embedded video type sites.

 

[csitenet]

Scotland.com etc. are all custom work, i already asked them because i wanted something similar myself. I looked and looked everywhere for days and weeks. There is nothing out there to make it easy and simple for us, i guess thats why we need web designers and programmers. I gave up looking and just paid freelancers to develop a clone of scotland.com

But even now i have lots of problems with it like SEO issues etc.

My advice is know exactly what you want from a cms and get a very good well established reputable company to do your work, its not something just any programmer can develop for you.

 

[Jack Gordon]

This may be too little too late Adam, but I have been happy with TinyPortal. It installs over SMF (forum) but totally takes over the look and feel of the site. Both are freeware with lots of different skins.

I like the modules that are available, but then I am not what you would call a big developer either. It's just another option that nobody else here has mentioned yet.

 

[fpforum]

when it comes to CMS scripts with good addon modules I would recommend Xoops or Joomla. Both are pretty good and have a ton of modules you can easily add on..

 

[webd]

Drupal is defintely good for quick sites. It does lack the power of Joomla if you want to take it further though

My impression is that Drupal has more power than Joomla. Drupal has custom content types (CCK), views, content template, etc. There are a large number of add-on modules for Drupal.

Examples of what some people are doing with Drupal:
http://buytaert.net/tag/drupal-sites

My 2 cents:
WordPress is good for blogs and lightweight content management
Drupal is for heavy-duty content management
vBulletin for forums (unless your site is using Drupal)

I've tried many open-source CMSs and those are the ones I ended up settling on.

 

[Gerry]

Damn, I love The Onion.

To much on my to do list. But learning Drupal will be on my short list.

 

[DomainMagnate]

I mostly use either wordpress - easy to use and install, or custom stuff.
When it's a unique site it should be 100% custom.

I tried other CMS's, but it takes an awful a lot of time to set all the configs, change parameters, install etc.
Although if you want more options Drupal and Joomla are the way to go.

~MG

 

[mediawizard]

If you want the best CMS out there in terms of features its Joomla. With 1.0.13 you can do whatever you want - blog / forum / video / images / community / etc etc. To get a full idea of what extensions are available for Joomla see http://extensions.joomla.org

There are also a lot of template clubs and commercial components available for this. My dedicated Joomla site - http://www.jooms.com - we do complete solutions from $299.

Here are some sites done by us -
http://www.mumbaimart.com
http://www.maal.biz
http://www.glamzone.com
http://www.golfkraft.com
http://www.revayur.com
http://www.unijules.com
http://www.mediawiz.biz (Web Developers since 1998 - My co.)
http://www.mediawiz.co.in
http://www.chaloindia.com

Its extremely extensible due to the 3PD community. 1.5 the code base is phenomenal but I think you're going to need to code all the solutions yourself (some like forum / events calendar etc will be available).

Drupal comes a close second and is actually better than Joomla for native SEO. It lacks in extensions for increasing functionality of the core code or even themes. So if you're doing content only sites its a much better option.

Wordpress is third, easy enough but a pain to update everytime theres a new release or even to tackle compatibility issues between plugins. But its LOT more powerful that it looks. It can be easily used only as a static site with decent seo out of the box. It also has tons of plugins to allow you to make full use of the social web or web 2.0. Also, creating custom skins for this is the easiest.

We've made some demo sites with this,
http://www.blog-sale.com
http://www.hitpr.com

plus I also blog on this -
http://www.mwzd.com

The fun bit is you can actually use Joomla AND Wordpress together via the JD component/bridge. You can also use Joomla + SMF or Joomla + Gallery or Joomla + Coppermine or even Joomla + Gallery + SMF.

Yes it has a learning curve, yes its not easy to get your head around but if explained properly its simply the best CMS out there. And demos / tutorials dont really help. You need to understand the concepts and then implement the site as per functionality. Most sites with less than 100 pages can be done under 24 hours.

Sites that need advanced SEO or Community features can take a week and cost anywhere between $1.8k - $9k.

We've been using Mambo for two and a half years before Joomla and I'm one of the first 900 members on Joomla.org forums. So for us it comes naturally. Drupal is a lot tougher to implement and is recommended only for enterprise projects. Plus low grade architecture can crash for a high usage site, where Joomla.org has about 20,000 visitors per day and runs on Joomla and no problems.

We also have a down and dirty website builder that costs as low as $1.99 for 15 pages upto $4.99 for 500 pages (w/o hosting and per mo.)

Heres the feature comparison for that -
http://web.mediawiz.biz/sitebuilder.php?type=sblite

And heres the demo -
http://web.mediawiz.biz/content.php?action=demo&type=sblite

You can add flash/images/et al. without any problems...try the demo.

For 10,000 sites I think a multi-cms is your only solution though you'll need to custom code it or get it done. Joomla has a multi site installation component, commercial, though its a pain to implement. Nucleus is too flat but easy to implement on multiple sites.

Hope the links will be forgiven, they are just for example purposes. Oh and btw DCG, we are always open for new work.

 

[webd]

Drupal is a lot tougher to implement and is recommended only for enterprise projects. Plus low grade architecture can crash for a high usage site, where Joomla.org has about 20,000 visitors per day and runs on Joomla and no problems.

Drupal does not crash on high usage. Many enterprise sites use it. I run many Drupal sites on cheap hosting.

I don't use Joomla, but from what I understand it's easier to implement than Drupal, but harder to extend. If you are building your own sites (not hiring a developer), Drupal is cheaper to implement...

 

[mediawizard]

Drupal does not crash on high usage. Many enterprise sites use it. I run many Drupal sites on cheap hosting.

Please read my post above in entirety. You CAN run Drupal on shared hosting IFF your server specs are decent (dual core/4gb ram etc).

If you try and run it on a celeron with 512k...specially multiple sites...

I don't use Joomla, but from what I understand it's easier to implement than Drupal, but harder to extend. If you are building your own sites (not hiring a developer), Drupal is cheaper to implement...

Joomla is both easier to implement and extend.

Joomla is easy for the 'individual' domainer too.

I guess its just a question of what you're most comfortable using and a certain degree of 'brand loyalty' goes with the territory.

Of late I've seen a proliferation of some kickass sites done with Wordpress and SMF-TinyPortal too. So each has it benefits and pitfalls I guess...especially the learning curve.

 

[webd]

Please read my post above in entirety. You CAN run Drupal on shared hosting IFF your server specs are decent (dual core/4gb ram etc).

If you try and run it on a celeron with 512k...specially multiple sites...

Site5.com can handle multiple Drupal sites on a $5/month hosting plan.

Joomla is both easier to implement and extend.

Do you know about Drupal's CCK, Views, Taxonomy, and templating system? I don't know if any other open-source CMS has those features where you can do as much without having to write code. Give it a try

I guess its just a question of what you're most comfortable using and a certain degree of 'brand loyalty' goes with the territory.

I think it probably has something to do with comfort and brand loyalty. I switched from Mambo (pre-Joomla) to Drupal because I couldn't get clean URLs in Mambo without paying extra money for SEF Advance. Drupal gave me that for free. I'm not sure what the status is with clean URLs on Joomla...

 

[mediawizard]

Out of the box I guess wordpress is the best for seo.

Drupal is pretty cool too, easy enough to implement.

Joomla to make it 100% seo capable you do need a third party component, but there are several free ones available now and you don't have to go with Sakic's component.

 

[webd]

Out of the box I guess wordpress is the best

for seo.

WordPress is OK for SEO but it has limitations on URL structure. There is an article about it here:

Advanced URL Control — Unlike WordPress, Drupal gives you precise control over URL structure. Each item of content in Drupal (called a node) can be given a custom URL (called a URL alias). In WordPress you are generally limited to one type of permalink URL for all posts. You can override the "post slug", but it's much less precise than Drupal's URL aliases. You can also automate custom URL structures for each different content type with the Pathauto Module. The Global Redirect Module will automatically 301 redirect the internal Drupal URL to the custom URL alias. Unlike many other content management systems, Drupal's content pages have nice clean URLs.

 

[Uncle_Unix]

I use several installs of Joomla, drupal, wordpress and dragonflycms

Joomla is full featured eats server resources.Requires lots of permissions to get tightened up to keep secure. Been with them since mambo started.

drupal is a bit buggy and the url re -writes can be a pain to stop on the server end realy messing with the way google see's it. Been using it only 2-3 years

Wordpress, very nice. 1 year

Dragonflycms, rock solid tight coding. very fast and low on system resources Secure as it comes and the search engines eat it up. Highly reccomended. been using since the alfa version cpgnuke.

Hope this heps someone

 

[webd]

drupal is a bit buggy and the url re -writes can be a pain to stop on the server end realy messing with the way google see's it. Been using it only 2-3 years

What kinds of bugs did you have with Drupal? I've run many Drupal sites and wouldn't call it buggy. Drupal is also excellent for SEO.

What kinds of URL rewrite problems are you having? Drupal's Pathauto module is great -- just don't use the "create index aliases" option (which is going to be removed in future versions anyway). And set the Pathauto update action as mentioned here.

 

[Uncle_Unix]

When we went to early version 5 we ended up with a mess of None Compliance Page errors and some 404's in our logs on the pages we assigned clean urls. I'll try to grep some old logs to find the exact errors, got me thinking again.

 

[webd]

When we went to early version 5 we ended up with a mess of None Compliance Page errors and some 404's in our logs on the pages we assigned clean urls.

If you were using a beta version of Drupal 5, bugs should be expected...
The stable versions of Drupal are solid and are used on many enterprise Web sites.

 

[WebsiteTraders.Com]

this has been a very interesting thread..though a bit old.........would like to see a bit of good CMS's as of know...........my website WebsiteTrader.com has been on Swsoft.com's sitebuilder....i want to know how do you find this CMS?.......i want the best CMS for developing my 150 domains.........many will be affiliate product selling ....i want to know which cms(paid/open) has the most flexibility and stability and easy to use...coz i wont be coding........just as DCG said in the opening post........is WebCeo.com a good one.......also i have tried seoportals.com but not seen their templates very interesting -accessoriesforlaptop.com........any better CMS out there?
thanks everyone...Farhan.