NYCPHP Meetup

[Andrew Yochum]

On Sun, Oct 31, 2004 at 09:47:19AM -0800, Hans Zaunere wrote:
> 
> > I am currently looking for a very good CMS that has
> > good colloboration functionality to build a web site
> > from. I am looking for a cms that is very customizable
> > and modular with good performance and security.
> 
> Security is going to be a trick...
>
> > The following are the CMSs I am looking into so far.
> > XARAYA, PHPNUKE, MAMBO, TIKIWIKI...
> 
> Don't use PHPNUKE - in fact, don't use anything with the word "nuke" in
> it...

I concur.  The nukes and their forks are often trouble.

I've always liked TikiWiki a lot.  Though, it was still *very* slow last
time I used it (3+ seconds per page render).  In fact, I just went to
the TikiWiki homepage at http://tikiwiki.org/ and at the bottom the
timing information says:
    [ Execution time: 6.07 secs ]   [ Memory usage: 1.56MB ]   [ 359 database queries used ] ...
6 seconds... :-(

> > Just starting out with PHP so I dont have much experience
> > with programming. I am hoping to get some feedback/suggestion
> > from folks that have worked with the above CMS or others worth
> > considering - Thanks!
> 
> http://oscom.org can also be a resource.  It's generally a matter of
> trial and error, but I can say Mambo, Midgard, eZ Publish, Drupal have a
> generally good reputation.

I like Mambo and eZ.  Each has its place.  I haven't used Midgard in a
while, but liked the framework.  The Midgard CMS I believe is what used
to be Nadmin Studio, a nice GUI on top of the framework.

The process of choosing an OS CMS is tough and is often trial and error
as Hans said.  You may very well try a few before you find one that you
like or does what you need.  Another good resource is the CMS Matrix at
http://www.cmsmatrix.org/ for comparing features and finding ones you
may not have heard about.  http://opensourcecms.com/ lets you try out
various ones from their own demo installations.  This can save you time
in your evaluation process.

Since you're just starting out I might suggest Mambo, but that depends
on what you're looking to do.  It does not offer flexible content types
and can often lead to messy and duplicate URLs for pages.  But it does
offer a really nice flexible system for building entire sites w/o coding
anything but a simple template.  The most recent release is leaps and
bounds greater than previous releases in terms of UI, features,
flexibility and stability, which were good to begin with.  Mitch might
have a bit to say about all of these things.

> Another thing to keep in mind is cost.  If you're willing a little,
> you'll probably end up with a solid CMS.

Though, you can spend a lot of money on a product and still spend a lot
of time/money customizing it to get what you want.  There are always
trade-offs.

HTH,
Andrew