Content Management Systems (CMS)

If you are starting out  on your first website, this may not mean anything to you.  Content management systems, particularly those that are open-source systems provide a range of features in modules so you do not need to write code.  It is a faster way to get a robust and feature-rich site up and running.  They are used to build dynamic web sites with a broad range of features and services including

• blogs

• bulletin boards

• chat

• classified

• dashboards and portals

• discussion / forums

• document management

• events calendars

• FAQ management

• groupware

• guest books

• help desk

• job postings

• link management

• mail forms

• metadata functionalities using controlled vocabularies and

• news aggregation,

• newsletters

• photo gallery

• polls

• publishing workflow,

• RSS

• search engine

• site map

• surveys

• template creation and management

• tests and quizzes

• user administration,

• user contributions

• XML publishing for content sharing purposes.

They are usually equipped with a powerful blend of features and configurability to be able to support a diverse range of web projects ranging from personal weblogs to large community-driven sites.

How to Choose A CMS

• CMSMatrix - Here's a website that has an excellent, detailed and all-inclusive list of almost  every CMS out there and their features.  I've noticed that they are not all up to date, though.  Here is a comparison of some of the more common and popular CMS's, and links to each CMS, listed by name and version:
  • Drupal 4.5.2
  • Geeklog 1.3.9
  • Mambo 4.5.1
  • PHP Nuke 6 (popular but has security issues0
  • phpwcms 1.1 RC4
  • phpWebSite 0.10.0
  • TYPO3 3.7
  • Xoops 2.06
• OpenSourceCMS is another website that has both comparison and explanations