This website was created to help web designers choose a CMS solution, but anyone looking to create a community website can benefit from the reviews here. We've kept the reviews short, highlighting the big points. For a more thorough look at each CMS, use the links at the bottom of each review to visit the CMS's home page and download area.
When designing a website, careful consideration should be put into how the site will be updated. Creating a solution which allows the client to manage the content onsite means less headaches for you. However, coding a custom CMS can be a daunting task, and time consuming for even the saviest web programmer. By employing an modular CMS solution, especially an open-source CMS, you can reduce your development time without sacrificing customization abilities. However, to fully leverage any open-source package a high degree of familiarity is required. Advanced modifications take an even higher degree of knowledge about the specific CMS. Consequently, a great deal of thought should be put into choosing the right CMS before committing the time to learning one package.
There are many open source offerings which offer a great deal of options in features, level of customization, and ease of use. Whether you would like to create a blog, an image galleries, a Digg clone, a del.icio.us clone, or a mashup of them all there is an open source CMS which will fit your needs. If there's not a package that does exactly what you want, if you get creative you can base your software off of an open-source package.
We hope this website can help as a quick resource for those looking to explore the CMS options available. In the reviews, we've tried to point out the pros and cons from a designer / developer's perspective as much as possible, to help you avoid potential pitfalls. Any constructive feedback is always appreciated.