My vote goes with Joomla.

 

Reason: Last week a client wanted his website to be made with Joomla. Being a good boy I thought 'give the customer what they want' and installed latest Joomla v2.5. I've dabbled with v1.7 in the past so I thought I would give it one last go. It was HIDEOUS! What an utter waste of time.

 

Why do clients insist on using this crud?! Do us all a favour Joomla and close the project down.

I didn't get on with it either, although I'd chuck in a vote for CMS Made Simple because the name lies.

Hahaha what was wrong with it Oak? I find it a bit bulky and unmanageable myself.

CMS Made Simple

 

 

Glad I never went that route then. I did toy with the idea for one site a while ago but chucked it out.

 

I also trialled Drupal in the past and that's another one I never 'gelled' with (although mrchristoph did something clever with it recently so maybe it's worth another look).

 

Still, it's Joomla that really get's up my nose. Anyone here actually like it, and if so why?

Hahaha what was wrong with it Oak? I find it a bit bulky and unmanageable myself.

 

urgh, it was just such a pain. When you compare it with (dare I say it) Wordpress, it's just so awkward. Uploading themes and the like, the whole admin experience was bad.

Oak, have you ever tried SilverStripe? I find it to be easy to install, template and configure. The admin section is very straight forward and so far I've not had any problems with educating the client on effectively using it. It's my cms of choice tbh.

 

Well worth a go.

Oak, have you ever tried SilverStripe? I find it to be easy to install, template and configure. The admin section is very straight forward and so far I've not had any problems with educating the client on effectively using it. It's my cms of choice tbh.

 

Well worth a go.

 

I've heard of it but never tried it yet. I'll download it and give it a go, thanks for the tip

Worst CMS I've ever used? Well there are thousands of CMS products out there. I'll have to put my vote in for...WordPress. (Excuse me while I dive for cover.) As a blog, it is an okay product, but the "CMS" part has always felt bolted onto the side of the product because it was a blog first, CMS second and the organization of the product is clearly prioritized that way.

 

I'll also put my vote in for any product that doesn't come with an actual caching mechanism out-of-the-box (i.e. without requiring a plugin and therefore caching isn't officially supported or thoroughly tested). Which eliminates 99% of the CMS products out there including WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla.

 

I'll also put my vote in for any product that claims it is a CMS but doesn't have good out-of-the-box SEO options. You know the type: A trailing '?' at the end of a URL with some identifier so the page can be found in the database.

 

These things don't make those products bad but they do drive me nuts because it requires a lot of unnecessary work to get them to be functional and ready for real-world use and/or requires a lot of extra training.

I hate Joomla also, but I only have experience with the older versions. My last company used to make sites with CMSMS (CMS Made Simple) which was also a bit of a pain.

 

And yes - Drupal is the best, seriously. It takes time but it's so, so worth it

Edited May 8, 201214 yr by mrchristoph

Worst CMS I've ever used? Well there are thousands of CMS products out there. I'll have to put my vote in for...WordPress. (Excuse me while I dive for cover.) As a blog, it is an okay product, but the "CMS" part has always felt bolted onto the side of the product because it was a blog first, CMS second and the organization of the product is clearly prioritized that way.

 

I'll also put my vote in for any product that doesn't come with an actual caching mechanism out-of-the-box (i.e. without requiring a plugin and therefore caching isn't officially supported or thoroughly tested). Which eliminates 99% of the CMS products out there including WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla.

 

I'll also put my vote in for any product that claims it is a CMS but doesn't have good out-of-the-box SEO options. You know the type: A trailing '?' at the end of a URL with some identifier so the page can be found in the database.

 

These things don't make those products bad but they do drive me nuts because it requires a lot of unnecessary work to get them to be functional and ready for real-world use and/or requires a lot of extra training.

 

I gotta say, I think those are pretty weak reasons.

I'll also put my vote in for any product that doesn't come with an actual caching mechanism out-of-the-box (i.e. without requiring a plugin and therefore caching isn't officially supported or thoroughly tested). Which eliminates 99% of the CMS products out there including WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla.

 

Um. Actually, WP has an object cache, it just doesn't have a full-page cache.

Wordpress. It makes people think anything is possible.

Edited May 8, 201214 yr by pandadoodle

I gotta say, I think those are pretty weak reasons.

 

Agree with BM.

A huge trade off is made when deciding what to put in as default and what to leave to plugins and developers. I'd rather start with a nice clean slate and add what's needed than start with a mess of a system and try to clean it. Makes no sense otherwise.

I think the danger with WordPress is that it becomes the "default" and you don't really use the right CMS.

 

But that's not WPs fault, that is the fault of the developer, it doesn't make WordPress the "worst" CMS.

I think the danger with WordPress is that it becomes the "default" and you don't really use the right CMS.

 

But that's not WPs fault, that is the fault of the developer, it doesn't make WordPress the "worst" CMS.

 

Exactly. Especially true when you have clients asking for WordPress when all they want is a 4 page static site that they have no intention of ever changing. Sort of shows that the WordPress PR machine must be top notch.

Up until WP3 i also used to offer Joomla and Drupal services to clients. I took the decision to drop this in favour of the new flavour of WordPress and haven't looked back. Of course if the project really requires them, i'll use them.

I remember when wordpress was a blog and then someone said i know we can make this a cms, then one day it become a shop and now some crazy things like social network platforms a way for estate agents to sell homes and other jazz.

 

It has its merit when used correctly and I know plenty of people make money from using themes. Its just I think and this is my view! That the industry would be better off people didnt use it so much for client work when its simply not needed. Or charging £1200+ for a wordpress site that is a no frills cms...

I remember when wordpress was a blog and then someone said i know we can make this a cms, then one day it become a shop and now some crazy things like social network platforms a way for estate agents to sell homes and other jazz.

 

It has its merit when used correctly and I know plenty of people make money from using themes. Its just I think and this is my view! That the industry would be better off people didnt use it so much for client work when its simply not needed. Or charging £1200+ for a wordpress site that is a no frills cms...

 

 

If it has taken me X amount of hours to build a WordPress site for somebody, and I charge Y amount per hour, and £1200 is what X times Y comes out as, then £1200 is what I'm going to charge.

 

Why can't it have become a fully fledged CMS? I'm struggling to understand this notion that because it started as a blog platform, that it shouldn't be used as a full CMS.

...the industry would be better off people didnt use it so much for client work when its simply not needed. Or charging £1200+ for a wordpress site that is a no frills cms...

 

Damn right.

The bloody Indians are loving palming off their basic themed versions of WordPress that have been badly adapted and it's damn annoying. Also it doesn't take hardly any work to create a fully functioning CMS out of WordPress so charging £1200 is a bit steep.

If it has taken me X amount of hours to build a WordPress site for somebody, and I charge Y amount per hour, and £1200 is what X times Y comes out as, then £1200 is what I'm going to charge.

 

Damn right again

 

Why can't it have become a fully fledged CMS? I'm struggling to understand this notion that because it started as a blog platform, that it shouldn't be used as a full CMS.

 

It is a fully fledged CMS. If people have issues with using it as a CMS then i'd like to know what because that generally means they don't quite know how to use it to the best of its abilities.

Edited May 8, 201214 yr by MikeChipshop

So your going to charge £1200 for a simple CMS no frills text editior I'm talking for what in essence all you do is create a theme? As the back end is there for you.

 

I know my pricing can be considered 'high' but id never dream charging that much for something thats already put together and i dont charge per hour to my clients anyway ive never gotten away with it

Edited May 8, 201214 yr by pandadoodle

I do have beef with people that take £20 themes, tweak them a bit, and suddenly the price is £1000. That I do disagree with because it's just blatantly dishonest.

So your going to charge £1200 for a simple CMS no frills text editior I'm talking for what in essence all you do is create a theme? As the back end is there for you.

 

I know my pricing can be considered 'high' but id never dream charging that much for something thats already put together and i dont charge per hour to my clients anyway ive never gotten away with it

 

If that's how long it has taken, then yes, of course. Obviously the time taken is going to depend on the complexity of the project, and a basic WordPress site is probably not going to end up costing £1200. My point is, I'm not going to not charge a price just because I've used WordPress, I'm going to charge on a per hour basis. It's a case of how long, not what with.

I do have beef with people that take £20 themes, tweak them a bit, and suddenly the price is £1000. That I do disagree with because it's just blatantly dishonest.

 

I have a problem with most people who use themes full stop and charge anything more than the price of the theme and pass it off as their own work

If that's how long it has taken, then yes, of course. Obviously the time taken is going to depend on the complexity of the project, and a basic WordPress site is probably not going to end up costing £1200. My point is, I'm not going to not charge a price just because I've used WordPress, I'm going to charge on a per hour basis. It's a case of how long, not what with.

 

No thats not the point I'm making either, I never said anything like that. I'm simply saying I have issues with people using wordpress for a basic cms site and then charge 1200 to implement it.

So your going to charge £1200 for a simple CMS no frills text editior I'm talking for what in essence all you do is create a theme? As the back end is there for you.

 

£1200 is 40 hours of my time. Assuming 4 hours (ie 10%) for project management, that leaves 36 hours. Call it 16 hours to design a site - at a bare minimum that's the following templates:

 

• Homepage
  
• Single page
  
• Single blog/news post
  
• Blog index / archive (assuming category / tag / author / monthly / yearly all use the same layout)
  
• Contact form
  
• 404 page
  
• Search results
  

 

and 20 hours to code it, including browser testing. That's not an unrealistic figure by any stretch of the imagination, and I usually end up including one custom post type and taxonomy in that figure too.

 

Edit: anything less than 40 hours of budget means cutting out nice to have but not 100% essential stuff, like the editor stylesheet.

Edited May 8, 201214 yr by Renaissance-Design

I think everyone has a different understanding of what i class as SIMPLE here.

I think everyone has a different understanding of what i class as SIMPLE here.

 

I think what Chris posted above is simple yet warrants the budget.

May be you should define 'simple' a bit clearer.

For anything simpler, like a CMS without blog/news functionality or custom content types I don't use WordPress. That's a no-brainer. For a simple site there's always Wolf, and for clients who just need to make small edits to existing content (without adding pages) there's Unify. Horses for courses and all that.

 

£1200 is what it costs to create a simple WordPress site (as opposed to a complex WordPress site with multiple custom content types and taxonomies, maybe a forum or shop or other bolt-on).

Edited May 8, 201214 yr by Renaissance-Design

Every one has different views. I won't go vote against any particular content management system, although few of them really are "tiresome". But I feel Drupal is still a better option when compared to other open-source content management systems.

I prefer CMS that I can add to my site (such as Pagelime or SimpleCMS), rather than a CMS where I have to build a website to their requirements (such as Joomla or Wordpress). I find this more flexible.

 

Is there any reason developers use Joomla? Does it offer anything special?

This is a really tricky one as different CMS's are made for different people.

I know that WordPress is simple, but it's made to be simple - for people who want to design their first website by themselves.

From personal experience, I know that Joomla's quite a b**ch if you're new to it, and some people will like it and others won't.

Others like Drupal are less known but more popular in a way as they are both advanced and easy to set up - as opposed to Joomla which is advanced and generally harder to use.

 

So, overall, it's hard to make a decision, but it's important always to keep those factors in mind.

Err I like Joomla.

Does what I want.

Find it simple to use as a CMS.

Found extensions for all the things I have needed.

Creating template was easy enough.

Err I like Joomla.

Does what I want.

Find it simple to use as a CMS.

Found extensions for all the things I have needed.

Creating template was easy enough.

Exactly some people will find Joomla easier and less annoying to use than others! Just I find it hard to use personally which is just me I guess :/

Exactly some people will find Joomla easier and less annoying to use than others! Just I find it hard to use personally which is just me I guess :/

 

Well a lot of people seem to agree with you. I just think its more apt at doing something people force WP to do.

I just think its more apt at doing something people force WP to do.

 

Example? I struggle to think of anything Joomla can do better than wordpress

Joomla is a traditional CMS where as WP is an over stretched blogging platform. On large scale developments this is apparent. To get WP to perform anywhere name the same you need to hack the PHP.

 

The single thing we notice more than anything else about people who try to run WordPress as a CMS is that they have 3 times as much work to do compared to if they had a proper CMS in the first place. And the result is still not as good.

Joomla is a traditional CMS where as WP is an over stretched blogging platform. On large scale developments this is apparent. To get WP to perform anywhere name the same you need to hack the PHP.

 

 

 

I can't take that article seriously. It's so blatantly written by somebody with a pre-conceived opinion rather than an open mind. For example:

 

 

There are numerous problems here. Trying to load up WordPress to do the job of bigger and more capable applications doesn't work well. When the page count in different sections doing different jobs starts to climb - with a checkout system, several content sections, and a blog as well - then management and SEO problems start to appear.

 

What problems?

 

I would agree WordPress is not ideal for commerce. But plenty of people run it as a full CMS with no problems.

Edited May 31, 201214 yr by brightonmike

I can't take that article seriously. It's so blatantly written by somebody with a pre-conceived opinion rather than an open mind. For example:

 

 

 

 

What problems?

 

I would agree WordPress is not ideal for commerce. But plenty of people run it as a full CMS with no problems.

 

 

Couldn't agree more. Pretty sure it's a Joomla developer trying to convince prospective clients rather than a well rounded article.

Would Expression Engine and Ektron be the better solutions for something large scale anyway? They seem more enterprise level. A bit better tailored to businesses.

Well the problem with this topic is that it is very subjective and there is no definitive answer. I personally wouldn't use WordPress for a large development without having a good reason for it, but for bogging sites it would be my first choice.

Edited May 31, 201214 yr by WBC