Why Choose An Open Source Content Management
Posted on | November 3, 2009 | No Comments
You are a growing small business that sees the value of online marketing. Your problem is that your web site has grown beyond its capabilities and now it’s time to think bigger. So you choose to build your site using a content management system or CMS.
Content management systems have been around for a very long time because they make it easier to create and manage sites of various sizes and complexities. With a good CMS a web master, marketer or business owner can update their site at a moments notice without understand the web technology the runs behind them.
There are many types of content management systems to choose from. There are robust server-installed applications such as Vignette, web-based applications like Blogger or you can develop your own application to your specific needs. What I’m going to discuss here are the pros and cons of a sub-category of server-based applications known as open-source CMS.
What Is Open Source?
“… Perens’ definition, open source describes a broad general type of software license that makes source code available to the general public with relaxed or non-existent copyright restrictions.” Wikipedia
Commonly this means that an open source software license provides the user access to software features and functionality and also to the source code it is developed in. This gives your developer greater flexibility when it comes to design customization and expanding features and functionality beyond the original design.
Why Choose An Open Source CMS?
License Costs: In many cases like Joomla!, Drupal or Wordpress there is no license fee which has lead to their incredible usage. This leaves more budget to go towards design and customization of your CMS.
Community Supported: Open-source CMS are often supported by a large community of developers with varying capabilities and expertise in programming and content management systems. Some of these communities are in the thousands and all have a shared interest in the success of the CMS. So you benefit from having a CMS with the latest technology and web components to enrich your web site experience.
Current Web Technologies: Licensed CMS may come with proprietary technology. Meaning the technology is unique to that product and cannot be replicated easily due to patent restrictions and specific copyrights. This can also mean problems in getting the proper technical support at a reasonable cost. Open source tools use widely accepted web technologies that provide greater flexibility and are easier to support.
Design Flexibility: unlike many proprietary CMS tools, open-source content management systems have a variety of design options, which comes with cost benefits if you’re a small business on a tight budget. Most tools come with default templates that can be tweaked to satisfy your style. There are numerous online resources that provide specially designed templates for a nominal fee. Or you can hire a designer to create a custom look from scratch.
Scalability: With any choice of CMS the feature options are endless. Developers all over the world work with passion to create useful tools and applications that easily integrate with open source CMS with minimal effort. Many of these tools also fall under open source licenses therefore are free. Also being open source your web manager or developer can take advantage of configuring the CMS source code for your own custom upgrades.
Quick And Easy To Deploy: I’ve created web sites using Wordpress, Joomla!, Blogger and Drupal in a matter of days. Of course they are generally simple sights. But the framework is there to expand on its content and features over time. Other paid for CMS applications can take considerably more time to install and configure before you’re ready to launch your web site.
Sounds Great So Far
With all of these benefits, why wouldn’t your choose an open source CMS?
Standards: Licensed CMS applications use rigid technical frameworks to ensure quality and consistency of each installation. Though the core open source content management system adheres to specific best practices, additional widgets or extensions created by other developers may bend or break technical best practices moving away from consistent open source standards. This may not mean much to small organizations but may become more relevant for larger business where with more complex needs comes increasing needs to adhere to standards to reduce potential risks.
Quality Assurance: Licensed CMS tools are quality tested to ensure the best results on all platforms and browser configurations. The quality of widgets or extensions created by the open source community is dependent on the due diligence by the individual developer. It is common to find extensions that may not work across all browsers or between MAC and PC platforms. This may not be a great worry for small business sites. And with the right developer these issues can be easily resolved during the project development phase.
Support: With enterprise applications like Vignette the quality of the tool is well supported by trained professionals. Support staffs are readily available to help diagnose problems and provide resolutions. Also your fees may include regular technical updates and fixes. With open source tools it is up to you or your web team to conduct your own diagnosis, upgrades and support. Though there is many online resources and forums to find solutions to commonly known problems the effort is on you to sort it out.
Limited Enterprise Type Capabilities: Open source CMS are great solutions for small enterprises. However if you are large organization with various departments and users accessing you CMS to make updates you may face varying limitations. Enterprise-strength licensed applications usually come with enhanced publishing workflows, sophisticated user management tools and the framework to syndicate content between multiple domains and web sites. If you need this level of complexity open source applications may not have the correct scalability for your business.
Tags: CMS > Content Management Systems > Drupla Development > Joomla! > Open Source > Wordpress
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