Can you help with my CMS choice?

[keithdevon]

Hi folks,

I’m putting together a proposal for an arts charity site. Their last one is terrible and costs them a fortune every time they want to add some content. They are very keen to be able to control the content themselves.

I need a CMS to be able to add pages, edit text and upload photos. The user interface needs to be very usable for non webby types. Any advice on which to go for? I’ve done some WordPress themeing but just feel that this isn’t a job for WP. Are there big differences between Drupal and Joomla!?

Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks,

Keith

[Luminated]

Well, Drupal is by far superior I feel (as well as more secure) than Joomla. But the back-end on both can have a pretty steep learning curve for both the developer and the client. And in both, there’s no such thing as a "page", especially Drupal. Content is organized via nodes, blocks and views.

Why do you think WordPress would not be a good solution? You won’t find an easier back-end than WP’s.

[keithdevon]

To be honest I thought that the WP back-end would be too much for these guys! Doesn’t bode well for the other options…

Here is what they need to be able to do:

• Create "member profiles" with photos, galleries and links[/*:m]
• News items, with previous items archived[/*:m]
• Lists of members, artists, etc.[/*:m]
• Annual competition info, including artists, prizes, sponsors, etc., archived yearly[/*:m][/list:u]
  Maybe WP is the answer. Just feels weird using a blogging platform for a serious organisation’s site!

[Luminated]

Yeah but WP’s back-end is by far the easiest. WP is moving away from a blogging platform anyway and is entering the realm of the CMS quickly. You can do all those functions rather easily with WP…but you’re right, it’s not going to support those features out of the box, whereas other CMS platforms will (especially user profiles).

I’d say your best bet otherwise is ExpressionEngine (which you’ll need to buy) or Drupal. Drupal is extremely powerful for an open-source platform and you can probably customize the back-end to be more palatable for the client (tons of Modules for that), but it probably will have the steepest learning curve for you.

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