3 Top-Rated Content Management Systems (CMS) You Can Consider For Your First Website!

I have narrowed down my list to three most widely used CMSs according to this survey. These include WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal, all backed by PHP and MySQL.

1.  WordPress

Launched in 2003, WordPress sees itself as the largest self-hosted blogging tool in the world. A whopping 58.7% chunk of CMS market confirms its indeed taking the lead.

According to statistics, two years ago around 74% websites were relying on it.

So let’s find out whether it’s suitable for your needs.

Pros

User-Friendly Interface: WordPress scores the highest points here thus making it the number one choice of bloggers with minimal knowledge of web design.

Open Source: Doesn’t need any license to operate. Moreover, with a huge user and developer community willing to share their code, it makes documentation and tutorials easily available.

Availability Of Multiple Themes And Plugins: With thousands of free themes and plugins, you don’t have to pay any extra money.

Cons

Security Issues: It is very vulnerable to attacks hence additional security measures must be deployed when launching a website containing sensitive information, on this platform.

High Page Load Time: This can happen due to a lot of standard code that might not be the requirement of your website.

2.   Joomla

Joomla is a powerful and efficient CMS that runs on most servers without trouble. It is better suited for social networking and commerce websites. It takes pride in the fact that it is used by some big names such as IHOP, MTV, Citibank and Harvard University. Unlike WordPress, it is designed for developers with sound coding knowledge.

Pros

User Authentication Facility: It offers ease of user authenticationthrough Google, OpenID and LDAP among others.

Availability Of An Array Of Add-Ons: It provides a wide assortment of commerce and business add-ons which is particularly suitable for small businesses who intend to make their basic website more interactive and unique.

Cons

Limited SEO: In comparison with WordPress, Joomla requires a lot of coding to achieve the same level of search engine friendliness.

Paid Plug-Ins: Some plug-ins are not free as compared to Drupal and WordPress.

Migration Issues: Migrating from one major version to the next can be an issue as far as third party extensions are concerned. Joomla keeps moving to latest versions regularly whereby breaking extensions so migrating to a new version is not a simple task.

Takes time to master the layout.

3.  Drupal

Popular for its powerful backend that has the ability to support thousands of pages and a million users per month, Drupal has been around since 2001. Some high-profile companies that use Drupal include The White House, MIT, Sony, New York Observer etc.

Pros

Flexibility: From simple blogs to complex interactive websites, Drupal offers immense flexibility making it a perfect solution for large, evolving businesses with dynamic, continuously altering business needs.

Security: Any open source platform is a potential target for hacker attacks. Drupal counters this by implementing prompt and reliable security updates.

Cons

Complex Coding: It may take quite some time to understand the flow of processes and coding thus increasing the project's time and budget.

Lack Of Support: Does not provide much unofficial support other than own documentation.

Conclusion

When choosing the best CMS there is no one-size-fits-all approach. It depends on the purpose of your website. However keeping in mind the above-mentioned points you can judge which functionality shall be vital for the survival of your website.