People review and evaluate Content Management Systems (CMS) for a variety of reasons. Perhaps you are starting a new web project for yourself or a client. Maybe you are taking over responsibility for a site and want to improve and enhance it. Or maybe you run a consulting firm and are hoping to standardize on one development platform after having tried or recommended several different ones. In any case, a good CMS can be so vital to the ease and success of a project that it's an important decision, and you need to make a good one.



Of the literally thousands available, there probably is no single CMS that will fit everyone's needs. Various systems offer both drawbacks and benefits, naturally, depending on the precise needs. Obviously, you need to choose the CMS that has the proper set of characteristics to meet your online publishing needs. However, you need to do this in such a way that you also advance your business strategy. The right CMS will support you in these ways, while the wrong one can bog you down and create more problems than you originally had.

What do you expect?

You must carefully and precisely define your needs (and/or your customers') or you can waste time and money. The fact is, there are probably well over a thousand CMS available, from excellent to useless, but they do fall into several general types. The selection process begins with an understanding of what's what and who's who in this game.

You may hear the term "homegrown" applied to products that are developed and supported by individual development firms for their own projects. The big advantage, of course, is the ability to work with the company to customize the system to your specific requirements and change it whenever you so desire. However, you will be totally dependent on that single, often quite small vendor for essential bug fixes, updates and enhancements.

The commercial offerings of CMS offer a range of features, options, customizability and, of course, pricing. A major plus of using a commercial CMS is that you will get immediate delivery of a (usually) proven and (usually) standardized solution. Without a hands-on test or on-site experience with a particular CMS, it is extremely hard to evaluate quality, dependability and usefulness.

"Top dollar" versus "open source"

There are, of course, a few "high-end" vendors with "top dollar" packages that have solid reputations. They have proven their value by offering robust, ready-to-use, "enterprise-grade" CMS solutions. The downside is that they have also proven how much they can charge for the quality that they offer. Of course, if the pros and cons weigh out a certain way for you, this may be the route you will take.

There is an entire range of CMS software called "open source," where the core code is freely available. Some creative vendors have taken the open source code and packaged it into customized packages available at low and no cost. The primary advantages are tied to cost and usability, in that you will rarely be paying any license fees, and you will always be able to customize the system to your needs. There may be occasional disadvantages with some products developed this way, for instance, the lack of commercial-grade dependability, "iffy" security and the absence of support.

Narrowing the field

You will likely end up with a "short list" of CMS candidates after you have defined your needs, listed your (reasonable) expectations and investigated some of the more popular offerings. Perhaps you have even installed a demo, taken a web "tour" or used a full version of the software at the vendor's location (or another company). Whatever the source of the CMS, you should expand the short list by noting the following next to each candidate package:

TCO - Yes, the old "total cost of ownership" calculation rears its head. Whether it's project-based, or your decision is about what your own firm should be using, you need to consider the time and effort involved in custom development, as well as service, support and possibly even hosting. Don't forget one-time costs such as deployment as well as ongoing ones like training and updates.

Licensing issues - Will you be allowed to customize a commercial CMS to fulfill your customer's or your company's requirements? You also need to know if there are limits on the number of concurrent users or sites tied to a specific installation. Don't forget to find out if there are "subscription" costs or other fees.

Technical considerations - If you plan to host your own application, is the infrastructure "install ready" and do you have the expertise to be the system administrator? You might want to consider a CMS that leverages certain components, such as your operating system and web server, that you already use and that you are familiar and comfortable with.

Decision time

The popular online software guide ITerating suggests the following method of weighting criteria to help you determine overall product:

Functionality - 35%

Usability - 15%

Security - 10%

Performance - Scalability - 10%

Architecture - Quality - 10%

Support - Documentation - 10%

Adoption - Community - 10%

This list, of course, is just an example and can be modified however you want, assuming you have the technical know-how. You also need to factor in your own selection criteria, particularly as regards your in-house expertise for installing and maintaining a CMS. By specifically defining your criteria, establishing a relative importance for each individual criterion and creating a customized structure for choosing the right CMS for your particular situation, you will more than likely end up with the right one. Don't be in a hurry, and don't forget to ask questions if you are unclear about anything.