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Published October 17, 2011 | By Jeramiah

This article was written October 17th, 2011

Web sites are more complicated and powerful today than any other time in history. It’s all because web sites today are all based on a CMS platform. CMS stands for Content Management System. And it controls everything you put on your website.

CMS platforms are constantly changing. There are many CMS platforms to choose from. In this article I will list a few for you and their pros and cons:

WordPress

We at TCI recommend WordPress to manage a website. We have information about WordPress HERE.

To put is simply, WordPress is the most popular, widely used CMS platform today. It’s known for being very easy to use. The reason WordPress is so popular is because it’s easy to use and understand. The reason WordPress moved from just another blog platform to a full fledged CMS platform is the ability to add plugins. Plugins are little programs which you can easily add to WordPress to customize it and make it more powerful. The real power of WordPress is in the plugins.

Easy. Powerful. Well supported. PHP. Plugins. No Programming knowledge required to maintain your site.

Joomla

Joomla is probably the second most used open source CMS today. I have seen statistics saying it has about 1/10th the market share of WordPress. Joomla is powerful, but has a big learning curve and is not as user friendly as WordPress.

Powerful. But has a learning curve.

Drupal

Drupal has been said to be “the programmers CMS”. It’s powerful… but if you aren’t tech savvy and aren’t ready to work really hard, avoid it like the plague. It’s powerful, customizable, and definitely a secure option.

Powerful. Secure. Avoid it if you don’t have a degree in programming. :)

Mura

Mura is a CMS platform similar to WordPress. It’s claim to fame is that it has more built in options than WordPress. It is not as widely used, but is a great solution. If WordPress isn’t careful… Mura will be a major contender in the future. The distinct difference between Mura and WordPress is that Mura runs on ColdFusion, while WordPress is PHP.

Powerful. All in one solution. Plug-ins too. Not widely used.

Adobe Business Catalyst

Adobe Business Catalyst is a “pay for” CMS. It’s is a great all in one solution for businesses with e-commerce, CRM, and email marketing all built in. Although it sells itself as “not needing to know code” to run it, the user interface is nowhere near as nice as WordPress or Mura, and yes, you will most likely need to know some programming language.

Powerful. All in one solution. Web site and CRM integration. Requires some programming knowledge. Web site will be hosted on the Business Catalyst hosting servers.

Expression Engine

A proprietary CMS system. Highly customizable and easy to use. It comes with a $300 price tag per web site which can turn people off. Expression engine is a commercial project built on open source technology. It has many pros to offer, but is not as widely used as WordPress.

Powerful with lots of options. A definite CMS option on the market.

Percentages for the big 3 (WordPress, Joomla, Drupal)

Downloads Per Week in 2010

WordPress 983,625

Joomla! 113,836

Drupal 33,671

What Are Most Sites Running On?

WordPress 12.9%

Joomla! 2.5%

Drupal 1.4%