Although I’m impressed with Mambo so far, and think that it will do what I need, I’m being somewhat cautious with my implementation. I’ve decided that I’m going to install it on a production Web site, but that first installation won’t be here. I want to make sure that I have a good understanding of its strengths and weaknesses before I go through the trouble of reworking this site and converting all of my content. Few things are more painful than having to revert after a failed migration.
If you’re looking for a content management system for your site, be it a personal site like this one, a large corporate site, or something in between, there’s probably a solution out there for you. I found the following resources very useful while I was doing my research.
- opensourcecms.com (built with Mambo) provides “try before you install” demos of many open source CMS packages including portals, blogs, forums, Wiki, and others. This site is specific to systems written in PHP, using MySQL, and running on Linux. It contains a short description of each product, and a fully operational demo that lets you drive the product around and even fool with the administrative pages. Their demo server re-installs the demos every two hours, so any changes you make to the configurations aren’t permanent. You don’t have to be afraid of goofing something up.
- CMS Matrix has a list of literally hundreds of content management tools, and a tool that lets you search and select by feature set, or select different packages to compare features. It can help you narrow the field quickly so that you can concentrate on examining just a few products in depth.
- Open Source Content Management is “the international association for open source content management.” They have lists of projects, a news feed, a features matrix, calendar of events, standards, and other things you might expect from an association of CMS developers and users. They also apparently have a Wiki, although I’ve not been able to access it.
- cmsinfo.org is an Internet community of CMS developers and users that provides news and information about open source web log programs and content management systems. It had some good news coverage in the past, but it looks like updates are spotty. I don’t see any news since December of 2004. Still, they have a list of open source CMS systems and some old news articles that will give you some idea of what’s available.
- CMS Watch is a commercial endeavor that supplies consulting and sells some industry-specific reports online. Their site has industry news, product lists, some general information about CMS topics, and articles about and reviews of CMS products.
Beyond that, you’re on your own. I’m still learning the lingo, and I don’t have much experience with any of the products yet except CityDesk and my ongoing education (for work) in Microsoft Content Management Server.
If you’re wondering what I’m talking about, check out the Wikipedia article Content management systems.