How to Select an Open Source Content Management System

When you have a website that is open to contribution by numerous users, it's important to have a user-friendly content management system. There are a great many open source software options that are, by definition, available for free. Making a selection can be daunting, but you can be certain there will be at least one that meets your needs.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Select an Open Source Content Management System

1. Identify your needs and decide what it is you want the content management system (CMS) to do. This will depend on the core needs of your site. There are CMS systems that do everything from content management to layouts, themes, plugin modules and much more.
2. Determine the operating environment, including what operating system and web server the server runs on, what languages are available (PHP, ASP, Java, etc) and what databases are available. Not all content management systems support all web servers and databases, so you'll have to choose one that meets the requirements of your server. By far, the most common combination is PHP and MySQL running on the Apache httpd.
3. Browse a list of content management systems from which you can select. Sites like SourceForge and Freshmeat provide lists of open source content management systems (see Resources below). Narrow your search, discard incompatible options and compile a shorter list of content management systems that meet your needs and will run on your server.
4. Narrow the list further to fit your (or your webmaster's) skill set. It's important to choose a content management system you'll know how to use. Overly complex content management systems are useless if you don't know how to use them. For instance, a content management system written in Java is not very useful if you only know PHP.
5. Select a content management system that's currently active. There are a number of open source projects that are inactive, and for one reason or another, the developers are no longer available to give support and fix bugs. While the software may work fine, you will have to fix any problems yourself. With an active project, there are other users who will be able to help you in addition to the developers.

Tips & Warnings

• If you don't know the specifics of your operating environment, contact your web host.
• When choosing an open source content management system, it's usually better to use an active project rather than a "dead" one.

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