CMS Content Management SystemA number of years ago if you wanted to update your website you either had to rely on your web developer or have a basic knowledge of HTML (web code). Those days are long over.

Today it’s expected that when one builds a new website that it has a content management system or CMS. A CMS allows somebody with no knowledge of computer code to make basic updates to their website like adding text, photos, image galleries etc etc.

Which CMS?

There literally hundreds if not thousands of content management systems on the market from free open source systems through to licensed versions. Open source basically means anyone can use it for free, but there are a few criteria. The beauty of open source is that you have thousands of people around the world working on the system to improve it. This can also be the draw back because the quality of plugins or modules e.g. image galleries, blogs etc can vary a lot.

A trap for players can be when a CMS is self hosted i.e. the website builder and CMS is integrated with the hosting. The disadvantage is that you have to host with them as standard and may not get to choose the country where you host (can improve SEO), the upside is that everything is in one place and trouble shooting and support is usually very good.

Which is The Best CMS?

If you take a look around you’ll find that there are a few “top” players in the web CMS field. Some of the top players are WordPress, Joomla, DNN and Drupal.

Most developers are either PHP or ASP. This is the type of code. Because of this they lean to a CMS that supports the language they prefer.

I’ve personally used a number of different CMS platforms and can’t personally write computer code so therefore have no bias to any one platform. The ease of use varies massively. Some are blogs that have been hacked to be like websites while others are drag and drop website builders.

The best CMS in my opinion is DNN or Dot Net Nuke. It’s a ASP.net system in other words it’s Microsoft based and it’s open source. There’s a large number of skin / theme providers along with very good plugins / modules.

DNN is the best CMS because of it’s flexibility, sure there are some constraints, but it is far, far more flexible than WordPress and anyone who can open and close a Word document can use Dot Net Nuke to update their website.

I’ve looked at changing a number of times, looking for the holy grail of content management systems but I always find my way back to DNN because of it’s simplicity, availability of programmers and modules.

If you’d like to find out how a Dot Net Nuke website could benefit your business or organisation just send us an email telling us your website CMS requirements.