Which CMS Best Suits Me?

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GusRuss89

New Member
Hi Guys,

I'm a web designer, but I have never used a content management system. Obviously I need to learn my way around one. I don't really have enough time to try them all out then pick one, so I was wondering if you guys had any suggestions.

The things that I would prefer are:
- complete control over the appearance of the site (is this possible? do i still write the html and css?)
- a free, open source one
- i don't mind if it will take me a while to figure out, i just want maximum control of the appearance
- needs to be able to support things like a message board/news page, with comments allowed, i suppose it could just be a modified blog though.

I hope I don't sound stupid, but yeh, could you help me out please?
Also if you suggest one in particular could you tell me why?

I had kind of been leaning toward either Joomla or Wordpress, but only really because they're some of the ones I hear about most.

Thanks

Angus Russell
www.arwebdesign.com.au
 
ddt

ddt

New Member
Joomla is rated very high. It has won many awards and is predicted to be around in the future more than other vaporous programs. You don't want to spend all your time learning a specific platform and then poof, its gone in the blink of an eye. Make sure to support what ever you can when using open source programs. If you like, and use, support it. That is Donate.
 
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elcape

New Member
joomla

you can make your own template

with a plug in for comments

and a plus is that you have a lot of tutorial on coding custom templates
 
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scottg

New Member
I reccomend Joomla to any designer looking for a stable, scalable cms. Plus, there are lots of great ready-made templates out there for you to customize if you have basic css knowledge. Wordpress is also popular, but difficult to expand if you want more functionality. If you are a web designer, you'll love joomla. Trust me!
 
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bluecollar01

New Member
hi gusruss,

personally, I prefer expression engine over joomla for two reasons. number one is that the learning curve for implementing a custom design seemed much easier to me and two it's developed by a software company so there is a great support staff to answer questions and supply very detailed documentation.

not to say that open source products aren't great but when i need an answer to something i'm working on for a client i like the piece of mind that i can contact someone rather than searching through tons of how to's that may or may not answer my question.

only draw back to expression engine is that for profit sites have to purchase a license - anywhere from $99 - $250 depending on if it's the commercial version. to me it's worth it though. just my opinion.
 
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jeffc

New Member
why don't you create your own CMS depending on the requirement and you can use it always in future on all your sites. Joomla is little bit tough as compared to normal cms but depending on replies above I think it will be easy once you learn it.
 
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kfawcett

New Member
I personally love Joomla! for a couple of reasons. It is designed around the MVC model, so you can design around it all you want without messing with the logic. It also has a huge ecosystem built around it. Take a look at http://extensions.joomla.org and look at all the pre-made extensions there are for it and many of them are free. You won't see that with any other CMS.

That being said. There are many other CMS/Blog systems you could use. Wordpress, Drupal, Expression Engine, etc. all have various advantages and disadvantages. But for me Joomla! has been my CMS of choice for a few years now.
 
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BnH

New Member
I've tried a ton of CMSs including Drupal and Joomla.. and now I use Modx which has been the best so far.. if I had to choose another it would be expression engine but Modx lets me do anything I want and the support is a big reason why I havent had the need to try another CMS.. it doesnt have a learning curve like Drupal.. pretty easy to figure out on your own just start building!
 
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