Daniel G.
Head of Business Development and Strategy at Matrix IT / UniVoIP Systems
What is the best content management system?
I am currently struggling to implement a cms that will meet my needs. I think most of the problem is it's very hard to actually find a solution that lives up to what it preaches. "Easy-to-use" and cheap". We are trying to implement a hosted solution of Joomla!. Our goal here is to design what we need without it costing thousands of dollars (in our case our previous service providers always say one thing, getting it done based on the cost assessed and the time assessed never happens). We don't have an indefinite amount of time, there are many different moving parts in our operation that I have worry about going forward but I need this worked out first ! Our needs are as follows.
Low cost
easy to use
integrates with either Salesforce.com or vtiger
has payment gateway options to paypal
allows me to easily upload documents and videos.
easy to design pages. point-click-drop
updates inventory
updates accoounting
has integratable forum
allows for the creation of user profiles with different levels of access
available as a hosted solution
good quality -knowledgeable tech support available by phone that can guide me through what I don't know.
It is hard to believe that there is no solution out there which integrates these common functions and to be able to do so for a low cost. Anyone have any ideas ?
dgold@pineappcanada.com
Answers (15)
William R.
Co-Author & General Manager at The College Unicorn
Best Answers in: Search Marketing (4), Sales Techniques (3), Customer Relationship Management (2), Using LinkedIn (2), Advertising (1), Internet Marketing (1), Viral Marketing (1), Mobile Marketing (1), Corporate Governance (1), Project Management (1), Professional Networking (1), Starting Up (1), Enterprise Software (1), Software Development (1)
Hi Daniel,
From what you've outlined here,. I would recommend Interspire (see link below)
I've always had good luck with it,. and it's super easy from a "no code" user perspective. It doesn't hit all of your bullet points,. but most of them.
Links:
Rakesh K.
Infrastructure Managed Services, Automation, ITIL, Virtualisation, Support Tools
Best Answers in: Web Development (4), Using LinkedIn (4), Software Development (3), Professional Books and Resources (2), Enterprise Software (2), Computers and Software (2), Computer Networking (2), Customer Service (1), Education and Schools (1), Quality Management and Standards (1), Industrial Design (1), Business Plans (1), Starting Up (1), Databases (1)
Hi Daniel,
You need to further define as to
1. No. of Hits
2. No. of Transactions
3. No. of Users
4. No. of Admins
5.......
Because failing to know the load on the system will render system to be over utilized. Later you may criticize the system for what it is not suppose to do.
One cannot buy a pet cat & later expect it to roar like a lion :-)
I suggest you first try Alfresco & Magento.
Links:
If you are looking for free CMS software, none of the major ones will fully fit your bill, however, Drupal seems to be the closest.
Chris W.
Social Media Specialist at Q Social Media
Best Answers in: Computers and Software (1), Databases (1)
Hi Daniel
Try Joomla, we use it for our small business clients. As it's a flexible free CMS tool for us to keep costs down when building websites for them. And it's fairly easy to get them up to speed so that they can maintain it themselves for simple content changes, thus keeping their ongoing maintenance costs down. There is also documentation and a forum on their site if you need assistance on anything.
http://www.joomla.org/
Piotr K.
Technical Support Engineer at Luxoft for UBS Investment Bank
Best Answers in: E-Commerce (1)
Hi,
By looking at requirements, using commercial expressionengine you could possibly achieve most of it. There is also some thread on EE forum about integration with SF.
Alternatively, Drupal (open source CMS) has already some sales force module / api available out of the box (though some customization is surely required).
Both Drupal and EE are industry recognized CMS platforms, but EE is more lightweight and flexible.
Hope that helps a little bit.
Piotr
Links:
I have tested cmsmadesimple ( http://www.cmsmadesimple.org)
very good flexible and free
Jay S.
Visionary Entrepreneur, Online Strategist, Information Architect
Best Answers in: Web Development (1)
Firstly think about the features you need and then choose the application for this need. Doing it the other way round is truly the wrong approach.
Have a look at http://cmsmatrix.org/ to compare CMS engines and their functionality.
Hope this helps.
I would say that the Wordpress CMS is probably the easiest and most customizable CMS around these days. It is a very clean system as well. It isn't as clunky as Joomla or Droopal. And of course, it is free. However, it is a very high quality free CMS. Many sites with a large amount of content operate under Wordpress CMS. It is very SEO friendly as well with the proper plugins.
Links:
Johan D.
Technology Consultant & Strategist, Product and Business Development Executive
Best Answers in: E-Commerce (16), Web Development (2), Purchasing (1), Economics (1), Advertising (1), Internet Marketing (1), Organizational Development (1), Enterprise Software (1), Computers and Software (1)
Hi Daniel, I note that you and your team are currently working with Joomla, and I assume you have integrated a 3rd party e-cart plugin on the back to enable ecommerce. Note that you can integrate pretty powerful e-commerce platforms in the same way, from MagentoCommerce.com to openfreeway.org's products. Drupal with UberCart is a very popular and workable solution too.
I am assuming you want itemized transaction data in Salesforce? Depending on just how detailed you want this to be, there are other options to consider like OpenCart.com for example. You can customize the integration to fit pretty tightly into Salesforce though you would sacrifice itemized transaction data for summarized transaction data from what I understand.
Of course messing with mySQL and trying to synch the customer data there would be another exercise altogether ;) I think looking at vTiger I would consider trying to synch data on a shared DB instead. I'm no expert in this, but playing with vTiger since the Sugar split, I'm of the opinion that this may be the only way you can integrate closely. None of Magento, Freeway, OpenCart, Presta, or the many other e-commerce / CMS systems out there seem to offer any proper API to vTiger, or Salesforce for that matter.
Any good platform will offer Paypal integration for you.
OpenCart templating rocks, Magento templating is hard to understand at first, but much better than OSCommerce and Freeway still suffers from its OSC templating system.
Accounting integration is not a problem with any of the top e-commerce platforms, so you should fare well with that feature search.
Hosted solutions are available from any of these systems as well, though your specific needs may be better fit by implementing and managing your own system.
Document and video uploads are dependent on the tools available to you in the CMS module of these platforms. Magento I know handles this well, and I am sure with minimum effort you can add the same to OpenCart, Freeway and so on.
Customer support I would rather turn into 'community support' as I find for the most part, when it comes to CMS's and e-commerce platforms, the community pulls through for us every time, whilst the company or brand often fails to deliver top line support. I find OpenCart as the new kid on the block excellent with the founder intimately involved. OpenFreeway or Freeway has the same, and Magento support both in forums, wiki and hosted offers some good options too.
The very best of luck to you and feel free to ask questions anytime!
Robin G.
Manager- Social and Digital Media at The Times of India Group
Best Answers in: Web Development (2), Internet Marketing (1), Viral Marketing (1), Business Development (1), Interface Design (1)
Daniel,
If you are looking into Open Source, Drupal closest fits your need. I am Drupal to you as I have a solid reason for it, you can get Drupal customized accordingly to your needs and requirements in very less time period and will not cost a fortune.
Drupal will give your website a robust and multi-dimensional look; Drupal sites are much more flexible and highly secured as compared to any other CMS designed site.
We are one of the leading Open Source developers and also offer staff augmentation services in various Open Source technologies. Feel free to know more about us at our website.
Links:
I recently wrote a blog post about various types of content management systems with some recommendations for type. I divided my list into three categories:
* Simple CMS
Simple to integrate, easy-to-use, but usually limited in functionality]
* Hosted CMS
All-in-one hosted solutions which are ready to go. Simply style, add content and go. We are considering creating our own hosted CMS based on Wordpress.
* Self-hosted CMS
These are the types that have been mentioned here - you host it, set it up, etc.
You can read the article here: http://www.strategywebdesigns.com/types-of-cms/
Links:
Wallace J.
Multimedia Producer, i3D Programmer, Acrobat 3D PDFs, Android Apps, Virtual Worlds, iTV Design, Kindle/Nook/Sony eBooks
Best Answers in: Using LinkedIn (118), Computers and Software (27), Web Development (22), Business Development (20), Government Policy (18), Software Development (16), Work-life Balance (15), Internet Marketing (14), Staffing and Recruiting (13), Career Management (13), Small Business (12), Education and Schools (11), Advertising (10), Graphic Design (10), Wireless (10), Job Search (9), Search Marketing (9), Change Management (9), Starting Up (9), Travel Tools (8), Economics (8), Organizational Development (8), Manufacturing (8), Branding (8), Ethics (8), Energy and Development (8), Mentoring (7), Public Relations (7), Business Analytics (7), Enterprise Software (7), Health Care (6), Sales Techniques (6), Quality Management and Standards (6), Professional Networking (6), Blogging (6), Telecommunications (6), Occupational Training (5), Internationalization and Localization (5), Events Marketing (5), Mobile Marketing (5), Writing and Editing (5), Planning (5), Market Research and Definition (5), Product Design (5), E-Commerce (5), Customer Service (4), Freelancing and Contracting (4), Direct Marketing (4), Viral Marketing (4), Supply Chain Management (4), Professional Books and Resources (4), Communication and Public Speaking (4), Computer Networking (4), Business Dining and Entertainment (3), Hotels (3), Event Marketing and Promotions (3), Conference Planning (3), Conference Venues (3), Venture Capital and Private Equity (3), Government Services (3), Environmental Health (3), Customer Relationship Management (3), Lead Generation (3), Project Management (3), Distribution (3), Engineering (3), Business Plans (3), Green Products (3), Biotech (3), Databases (3), Information Security (3), Purchasing (2), Air Travel (2), Accounting (2), Financial Regulation (2), Offshoring and Outsourcing (2), Contracts (2), Corporate Governance (2), Currency Markets (2), Personal Debt Management (2), Wealth Management (2), Green Business (2), Business Insurance (1), Commercial Real Estate (1), Facilities Management (1), Car and Train Travel (1), Budgeting (1), Corporate Debt (1), Foreign Investment (1), Corporate Taxes (1), Risk Management (1), Compensation and Benefits (1), Personnel Policies (1), Public Health and Safety (1), Exporting/Importing (1), International Law (1), Treaties, Agreements and Organizations (1), Criminal Law (1), Finance and Securities Law (1), Intellectual Property (1), Employment and Labor Law (1), Guerrilla Marketing (1), Commodity Markets (1), Equity Markets (1), Nonprofit Management (1), Social Enterpreneurship (1), Inventory Management (1), Personal Investing (1), Personal Real Estate (1), Franchising (1)
Depending on your application, WordPress (Blogs) or Drupal would be your best bet.
SEO Expert Jeff Russell of SearchEngineEnergy .com would be a great resource.
Links:
Wallace J. also suggests this expert on this topic:
Arvind M.
Mobile Product Management and Strategic Account Management Professional
Best Answers in: E-Commerce (5), Using LinkedIn (2), Internet Marketing (1), Blogging (1), Computers and Software (1), Telecommunications (1), Web Development (1)
From your list, the only CMS which comes close to satisfy all your requirements is Drupal.
Drupal is a PHP based Open Source CMS. Hence it solves your Low Cost problem.
It has the following modules which can solve your problems.
1. Integrated Discussion Forum, Comments, Rating modules
2. Integrated Ad Module
3. Available as a hosted solution
4. Role based authorization of users
5. Payment gateway options to PayPal, Google Checkout and Other bank systems
6. Easy drag and drop features for UI
7. Friendly Admin interface
8. Video module for easy video uploads
9. Salesforce integration module - This helps Drupal system to integrate with SF API
I think it pretty much solves all your pain points. Moreover, developing custom modules in Drupal is very easy and it does not have performance problems in handling huge loads.
Personally, I would suggest Drupal and all of the above listed module can be found in the Drupal user community http://drupal.org/
Hope this information is useful
Drupal/Ning
My answer solely echoes a few prior; but, as a Joomla user moreso than Drupal, I am starting to lean towards Drupal for ease of use and weight. Each being Open Source, the one greatest detractor is the amount of time it takes to answer each question (or find the answer). Personally I deal with a new issue daily (managing five joomla based sites, three drupal and 10 Ning Networks).
We typically tie in a Ning/Wetpaint network to handle the Multimedia Social side.
