CMS Programs: Choosing the CMS Program that Works

For anyone who doesn't already know, CMS (Content Management System) programs are the newest craze among aspiring, young web professionals. They are open source software programs that allow web developers, web designers, web masters or one who aspires to be any one of these, access to database and community building web site software for free! They typically come with predefined Mysql databases, PHP code, log in abilities, and more at your finger tips and fully customizable. Anyone beginning their CMS journey will likely try out 10-20 different CMS open source software programs before deciding on one that works for them and what they want to do. Personally, I have tried close to 20 different CMS programs, and have come to my own conclusions.

What type of website are you looking to create? What is required of your CMS program?

CMS Programs can create Community websites like Myspace, Bookmarking sites like Digg.com, Portal Sites for businesses, E-Commerce sites with shopping carts, Blogs like Blogger!, Forums sites, Image Gallery Communities like flickr, and basically any other website requiring dynamic PHP and Mysql databases.

The great thing about this free software is that you don't need to be a web programmer to use it. It's built with full wysiwyg interface in it's backend capabilities. The downfall is that it's difficult to decide which one you are going to use, and a lot of times the CMS programs won't have a lot of documentation available...since, it is free.

While it may be difficult to choose a CMS Program that works for you, it is much easier to know when the CMS Program will not be useful for the site that you want to build. First step, is to plan out the list of functions and abilities that you will need for your website. This includes: Image Gallery, Forum, Bookmark ability, user publishing, user profile additions, etc. Once you know what you want your CMS Open Source Software program to do, you can start to narrow down your options.