There are a lot of websites out there that have some really cool articles about pros and cons of various open source content management systems.  Here’s my take on them from a developer’s point of view!

Drupal

Pros

• flexibility of site, PHP, modules
• roles and permissions are easily configurable
• single registration for site (forum, site account, storefront, etc…)
• tons of free modules
• can build a community site with just a few key basic modules

Cons

• not so straight forward installation
• library of themes is not as large as Wordpress and Joomla.
• large learning curve initially
• Requires basic to advance knowledge of PHP (for development)
• learning to theme can be a challenge
• upgrading can be a pain and hassle

Wordpress

Pros

• super easy to install
• easy administration dashboard
• tons of themes to choose from and super easy to install themes
• upgrading is easy

Cons

• not as robust with permissions as Drupal
• tons of spam if you don’t have the right plugins installed
• more geared towards a single user blog with additions of editors who can post to the site, but not as community driven as Drupal.

Joomla

Pros

• super easy to install
• adding modules is pretty easy, just upload the zip file and it’s ready to go (must activate through menu!)
• tons of themes to choose from
• large developer community

Cons

• roles and permissions are not as flexible as Drupal.
• navigating in the administration panel is chaotic, especially if you have special plugins you need to activate
• must pay to use the more advanced community features

Overall, that’s just a quick summary of my personal thoughts on the open source content management systems.  I’ve also worked on enterprise content management systems such as Autonomy Teamsite (formerly Interwoven Teamsite).  My thoughts on that is another blog entry. Hehe.

I’d say if you want a single user blog, go with Wordpress.  It’s very easy to use and installation is super easy and straight forward.

If you want a more complex community driven website with advanced features such as a messageboard, singe sign on, permissions, roles, and flexibility … my choice is Drupal. Don’t get me wrong, Joomla can also do the job too but I prefer Drupal because of “Views” and ability to specify the user roles and permissions.  Drupal is the primary CMS choice of many universities and colleges.  Sony uses Drupal for many of their band and movie websites.  The Whitehouse also uses Drupal for their website.

In terms of security, I’m no systems administrator or networking engineer, so I’ll leave that topic to the pros.

This blog entry is based on my knowledge and experience working with the different content mangagement systems as a developer.  I’ve worked on all 3 CMS and my level of expertise in content management systems is fair.  I’ve been working on CMS (open source and enterprise) for 4 years.  I’ve been a web developer since 1997.

I so LOVE Drupal   It’s like become my new best friend, aside from Twitter and Facebook.  I love open source technology

My favorite Drupal modules are:

• CCK
• Views
• Panels
• Twitter
• Mollum
• Advanced Forum
• WYSIWYG
• LoginToboggon
• Fivestar
• Front
• Devel
• and many others, too many to list!

I have another community that I built with Joomla 1.5.  I was excited about Joomla at first because there were so many beautiful themes.  But once I started developing, I soon realized there were a lot of limitations.  The admin console was confusing, working with the templates was getting tedious, then managing the modules and plugins through the importer was giving me errors, yadda yadda yadda … the list went on and on.  I didn’t like the fact that there are only a few minor permission roles.  Also, any “social community-like modules “you have to pay.  Sure, there are some free ones out there but they didn’t do half the job I wanted them to do.  I tried Community Builder, but the site itself was a headache to navigate (bright orange/yellow tags all over the place, I couldn’t tell what was clickable vs non-clickable).

Right now, I’m currently building a new community website using Drupal.  My sister and I are working on this as a team project.  She and I have built communities together in the past.  I plan to take social media and mobile technology to the next level.  I’m learning Objective-C for building iPhone applications.  I plan to release an app in the iPhone app store hopefully by the end of this year.  I’ve just been so busy doing so many things and shuffling my priorities.  I’ve got a long term business plan.  Now I just need to fund it.

In case you are wondering, my personal site here is powered by Wordpress.    Hehe.  It’s a single user blog, so hence Wordpress!

Wish me luck!