Doing some research to try and identify the best platform to use to create a website and document management system for a local history group. Ideally this would be a CMS or website builder to allow them to be self-sufficient but with enough developer tools to create a decent web front end, with a database in the background to store and manage up to 500 photographs and 500 documents (in pdf). From a user pov it would need to have pretty decent search functionality to be able to put logic operators (AND, OR, NOT etc).

 

Any recommendations? Cheers

Easily achievable using ExpressionEngine (core version) and the excellent Low Search addon (http://gotolow.com/addons/low-search) which will give you near unlimited ways to set up a search facility. I actually quoted for a similar site a while back which had a lot more features (didn't get the job in the end because their funding failed!).

Cheers for the advice. I've not actually used ExpressionEngine before but from reading up on its functionality and addons then it looks like it could be a possible solution. Out of interest what ballpark was your quote in?

Can't tell you exact figures but the client had a £10k budget which included web site, branding, marketing materials - the full monty

Have you looked for a proper website builder? I was in a similar situation. I searched a platform for the creation of my site, and didn't have any experience. Having read a large amount of articles on the Internet, I found one forum and was suggested to choose one of the most popular website builders on http://www.mgwebmaster.com/free-website-builders/. I am very thankful to that guy as this article helped me a lot. It is possible to see all pros and cons of the builders, so you can compare them. I chose Web.com as it provides me with a good e-commerce functionality and a great number of templates. I'm not sure this builder meets all your requirements, but I hope this article will help you too. Good luck!