Website Advisor: Content management systems • Creating a professional website with CMS • CMS systems in comparison • Open source CMS • CMS facts and figures

Content Management System – what is it? Taken individually, these three terms are easy to understand. Together, however, they take on a very specific meaning.

When you have a lot of documents, it can be difficult to quickly find the one you need. Therefore, it would be good to have a tool that you can use to sort the documents in a certain way. Then, depending on your needs, you can sort the documents, for example, in alphabetical order or by date. This would make it faster and easier to find documents and manage them more efficiently.

So this tool would be a Management System for Contents. But that is not what we mean when we talk about a Content Management System, or CMS for short.

Very simple websites without technically advanced features or a complex User Interface (UI elements) can also be created with a Website Builder (also called Website Construction Kit). A Website Builder is a tool that allows you to easily create your website from pre-built building blocks via click-and-drop them with your mouse.

However, there are many technical limitations and virtually no room for creative ideas. This mainly concerns the placement of page content elements such as text, images, videos, … as well as the layout and structure of the site navigation. Website Builder offers limited functionality when it comes to customizing your Website.

If you want to have more than a simple online business card, a CMS (Content Management System) is much more suitable, as it offers more possibilities and can be easily adapted to your individual needs.

Unlike a Website Builder, a CMS can be easily customized with plug-ins or extensions. This gives you much more room for creative ideas.

There are hundreds of content management systems on the market today. With so many different CMS on the market, it can be difficult to know which one to use. There is simply no single CMS that meets all possible requirements.

A CMS is particularly worthwhile if the website has a lot of content.

• If you are using a content management system, you can install and activate a pre-made design theme. Or use your own theme after customizing it for the selected CMS. Each CMS has its own set of rules and determines how the theme needs to be customized.

• With a content management system, you can quickly and easily create, modify, or delete content (text, images, and videos) and web pages.

• As an author, you donʼt need any HTML knowledge to create or edit pages or content. A good CMS has an intuitive WYSIWYG editor. The acronym WYSIWYG means What You see is what you get

  All the popular CMS usually follow common web standards.

• Content management systems often have SEO tools on board. Some CMS require the installation of an extension for this function.

There is no simple answer to the question of which CMS is best, it depends on individual user preferences and needs. There are hundreds of content management systems out there. Many CMSs are open source software and each of them has its own strengths and weaknesses. The top 5 open source CMS are:

WordPress was originally designed as a blogging system. It combines two areas of application in one piece of software. For the basic installation, various extensions (plug-ins) are available, which expand the system to a full-fledged content management system. With a 65% market share, WordPress is the undisputed market leader among Open Source CMS.

WordPress is suitable for blogs and small to medium-sized websites. However, if there is a lot of traffic on the website, the demands on the database server are high.

WordPress is open source software and can be installed free of charge and used without restrictions for private and commercial purposes. Free download of WordPress.

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Contao is a kind of best-of-all CMS for medium to large websites. In practice, however, Contao is mostly used to create small to medium-sized websites. The CMS is very easy to use and requires no prior experience. More than 1800 extensions are available for professionals and interested users.

The Contao CMS is an insider tip and popular especially in Germany.

Even in its basic version, Contao is very lean and offers many features that other CMS need to extend. Contao has an intuitive backend and a clear admin panel. The CMS stands out for its compatibility with web standards and accessibility.

Contao is open source software and can be installed free of charge for private and commercial purposes. It can be used by anyone without restrictions. Free download from Contao.

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The open source CMS Joomla is suitable for small to medium-sized websites that do not require extensive rights management. Joomla is especially popular in the United States. In the early yeaars, Joomla impressed with its clarity. Only in the last few years Joomla has made significant progress again, for example in terms of search engine suitability.

Due to the large community, there are also several thousand extensions for Joomla. Joomla has a modular structure and is characterized by a high degree of flexibility. You can create your own templates by combining ready-made content elements. Joomla provides extensive CMS functionality without the need for extensions.

Joomla is open source software and can be installed free of charge for private and commercial purposes. It can be used by anyone without restrictions. Free download of Joomla.

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Drupal is a modular CMS that can be greatly expanded with countless modules. You can compare Drupal to a Lego construction kit with a lot of building blocks to build the system. The basic installation of the software is extremely lean and can be customized. The modular CMS was originally developed as a community solution, but itʼs now a full-fledged CMS.

Drupal is suitable for medium to large websites and is usually the first choice for user-generated content web-sites. The strengths of the system lie primarily in the community area. Basic installation already includes many Web 2.0 features. These include weblogs, forums and tag clouds.

Drupalʼs sophisticated permissions management is especially suited for extensive community websites.

Drupal is open source and can be installed free of charge for private and commercial purposes. It can be used without restrictions. Free download of Drupal.

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TYPO3 is an Enterprise CMS designed for professional use. The CMS is constantly being developed by an experienced team of developers and kept at the cutting edge of technology. Due to regular security updates, TYPO3 is considered to be the CMS with the highest level of security.

However, TYPO3 is also the most misused Content Management System because it is very complex and can do much more than most users need for their website.

In some cases, comparatively small websites are realized with TYPO3. In this case, the user makes much more effort than necessary.

Due to the complexity of the system, professional use of the CMS as a developer requires extensive specialized knowledge and ideally several years of experience in web development. For editors and authors, the system is relatively easy to use thanks to the individually scalable interface.

Using the Enterprise CMS usually means a longer training period for the website operator. If the huge functionality of TYPO3 is not needed for a website, a small, modular CMS is usually the better choice.

In principle, almost any conceivable web project can be realized with TYPO3. Especially for large, complex websites, the system impresses with its clear and user-friendly design. TYPO3 is especially recommended if several authors access the backend and each of them creates many pages, possibly in different languages.

TYPO3 is open source and can be installed free of charge for private and commercial purposes. It can be used without any restriction. Free download of TYPO3.

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The comparison only considers the top 5 CMS according to their worldwide usage, all other CMS are not included.

In a global comparison of these 5 CMSs, WordPress is obviously the dominant Content Management System in terms of the number of installations. The prominent position of WordPress doesn't mean that this system is always the best choice.

This comparison only shows the raw numbers for the top 5 CMS. The high market share of WordPress means that this CMS is probably the first choice for the average user. However, the dominance of WordPress doesnʼt mean that it is best suited for average use cases.

Due to its ease of use and excellent performance, we prefer Contao CMS for medium-sized websites.

If you are new to website building, you may have heard the terms theme and template. To avoid confusion or misunderstanding, I would like to briefly explain these two terms.

A theme is a fully styled layout composition for a website. The theme handles the appearance of the website items. It determines how headings, paragraphs, lists, tables, and other content elements of the website should be displayed.

A template defines the structure for certain page types or content elements. It also defines how the page is filled with content.

Note, however, that the terms theme and template are often used interchangeably in everyday language. In addition, some CMS (e.g. WordPress) refer to the layout as a theme, while other CMS (e.g. Joomla) use the term template for the same thing.