Open-source CMS software Discussion

I've been dreading, avoiding and postponing my business website redesign for some time now. I basically pulled it down months ago (most of my business is from word-of-mouth anyway) and just left a link to my blog (which was never intended to be more than a form of catharsis for me) and a simple portfolio site hosted elsewhere. But I need to get off my arse and turn it back into a proper business website. So I've started looking at ways to best do this, and while it seems like overkill, one of the open source CMS packages looks like it might be something I could use, thinking that it might be something upon which I can build; content seems to accumulate quickly.

That said, I'd be curious to hear the thoughts of people who are familiar with CMS. Are they really worth the trouble for a small business? How easy is it to integrate other packages (e.g. WordPress, an e-commerce solution, etc)? Are they more vulnerable to defacement and intrusion than other options? Is upgrading painful or overly time-consuming? etc etc

And, if you would be so kind, could those of you familiar with these apps either suggest or warn against one of the open-source solutions currently available. I've been playing with demos at http://www.opensourcecms.com , but I don't trust myself to make the best decision doing only that.

Many thanks.

When starting out, a CMS really helped my company ... mostly because I was too busy writing the internal programs to worry so much about an intrernet presence. So I guess if you need to cut corners, sure. Keep away from most *nuke systems, though, as they are usually full of bugs, security leaks, and poorly written code.

If you don't know the languages (PHP, etc), fiddling with a cms is an easy way to learn. That would bring you to my ultimate suggestion: write your own.

Edit:

As for intergrating packages ... well, usually, it doesn't work that way. The CMS you choose will have modules that you can add or delete: forums, commerce systems, news articles, etc.

Csven,

I've run a selection process for a CMS, albiet at a much larger scale than the sole-trader level (Assumption from your post?)

From what you have written it seems you haven't decided on a feature set you need and to be honest, till you know what you must (and would like) to do, no tool is going to be suitable.

My recommendation is that you list out what you need the site to do and then crossmatch those requirements against the various products ... this is not a decision to leave up to 'strangers' on a forum

From a personal perspective the most important aspect of a CMS is how easy is to the get information into it and to deliver that information where and in which format(s) you need. That is, the balance between structured (database friendly) and un-structured data and the relationships between it.

Lastly, if you are a tinkering kinda guy please have a look at http://www.zope.org/ or more specifically http://plone.org/

Regards
Leon

This integration is the big reason I was asking. And one reason why I'm still thinking that it might be better to start coding my own (even though I don't really have the time).

Listing out site requirements is what I'm hoping to avoid actually since I'm expecting any current requirements I might have to change over time. So flexibility is really what I'm most wondering about. Which goes to your comment on getting information in and out in the formats needed.

Thanks for links. I'll check those out.

Yep, that is a bummer... knowing you need a CMS, but not exactly what for )

In the ideal world you'd have personal information management tool that worked a bit like a wiki/scratchpad to enter stuff, yet automagically, produce well structured blogs and commerce sites

Anybody know where I can get me one of those?

L

And when the web really goes 3D, today's flexibility is probably gonna look pretty stiff no matter what I do or decide.

Well, maybe that's my answer. Use... whatever.

Just thought I'd mention that so far Joomla looks pretty nice and appears to have a pretty active developer community bridging it to other open source apps (like WordPress, osCommerce, aso). Guess I'll give it a spin for a little while to see how I like it.

Gotta appreciate open source code.