Lately, open source CMS software like Drupal, Joomla! and Wordpress are giving proprietary CMS software a run for its money. And for good reason. It is easy to use—You don’t need programming skills to make updates or changes. Here are some of the other benefits of an open source CMS:
- No proprietary licensing fees. We're not saying open source is free. You will still be paying for the development of your site after all. But what you won't have to pay for are licensing fees to use your CMS on top of the programming bill.
- SEO friendly. Right out of the box, open source software is capable of custom page titles, META descriptions, friendly URLs and permalinks to support your SEO goals.
- Scalable. Open source CMS software can accommodate the growth of your firm so you can easily add new content, services and features.
- Safe and secure. Drupal, for example, has proven itself to be a safe and secure platform for the online storage, display and distribution of websites.
- Browser-based administration. Whether you’re working from home or at the office, you can add text and upload media files directly from your browser.
- You’re not tied to only one web development firm. Because developers of proprietary software own the code, any time anything goes wrong with your site you are bound to use them to resolve the issue. If they go out of business or there’s a dispute, you’re out of luck. Open source is supported by a vast and passionate developer community, which means it will be easy to find a developer who can help you.
- High quality and stable code. Any proporietary CMS is developed by a limited number of programmers. No company has the resources to match the developer community that supports open source. Since thousands of developers are constantly improving the software, open source code is more stable.
- Customizable. Open source offers a variety of modules for everything from custom social networking sites and document management to forums and ecommerce to give you limitless functionality.
At Moiré, we’re big fans of Drupal. What CMS do you use? Does it make your life easier or frustrate you on a daily basis? We'd love to hear your thoughts.
Comments
WP -- Word Press for the non-web developer readers of our site -- is a good, simple backend development program that is become more and more robust each year. However, I don't think you can beat the Drupal community of developers in terms of innovation, security and SEO as well as cutting edge design options. Our clients find Drupal extremely user friendly and training someone on how to use Drupal as their website's backend Content Management System (CMS) only takes a couple of hours before they are ready to fly on their own. However, we're always here to help out our clients that may ever need any assistance.
Best of luck with your Nottingham site -- there's a lot of data and information there to organize. -Jeffrey
We are using WP most of the time and Magento for e-commerce sites but Drupal is the next step for us too here in Nottingham.
I really don't have any first-hand experience with an open source CMS yet but I'm curious to try it out.
Thomas Brown
Tampa, FL
http://www.tampacriminaldefenders.com