Subject: Which CMS ??

Everyone says: 'It depends on your needs'. It's not helpful but it's also true. And the article you reference seems to be sensible.

Maybe it's helpful if I briefly explain why this site is built in Plone. Right now, knowhownonprofit is at the start of the beginning. We know, and knew when planning, that the shape, look and functions of the site are likely to extend and change - perhaps dramatically - as we find our place in the world and work out what our users want, need and respond well to.

So we needed flexibility and lots of plug-in functions which we can try out on you guys. Plone has hundreds, maybe thousands, of add-on 'Products' which provide everything from Google single sign-on to full e-learning environments. Some are brilliant, most are rubbish, and there a lot in-between which are good enough to live-trial an idea.

We also needed a very solid core of functions within which to manage security, authentication and user details. Plone is built on a system called Zope which has brilliant user-management and decent security.

Plone is also relatively simple and robust for editors and site managers. It does content management, navigation organisation, publication workflow and so forth smoothly and reliably. Out of the box, Plone is accessible (eg for blind people) and very very good for multilingual sites. And plenty of not-for-profits use it, so there are useful ready-made plugins for the kind of functions you are likely to need.

But Plone is hard for developers. If the developer is you, and you want to do much more than it allows out of the box, choose something else unless you can write Python comfortably and are prepared generally for a learning wall as opposed to a learning curve.

This site may not stay in Plone: there are well-known problems in scaling Plone to deal with the sort of very large community we hope to serve in three or four years' time.

I have made a couple of Drupal sites and didn't enjoy the experience at all. It seemed to me to combine complexity and inflexibility: lots of plug-ins but most of them not-quite-right and little ability to customise without getting right into the machine-room.

Joomla I haven't used but colleagues speak well of it.

The other system I would recommend looking at is WordPress: it's much more than a blogging system these days and would be my first recommendation for organisations new to CMS who have a small or non-professional web-editorial and technical team.

Thanks Mark..  Those pretty much are the 4 that we are looking at.  My personal  experience is with PHP/MySQL so I was initially drawn to Joomla or Drupal but we had already included Plone and WordPress in to the discussion. 

Plenty of food for thought, thanks again.

On a slightly different point, but still in connection with the 4 CMS systems above,  have you come across any good plugin or solution for IP redirection based on geo-location?. 

You want to do something like sending a user to their nearest regional site?

The redirection should be straightforward once you have their co-ordinates in the standard lat:long format. We implemented the getting-the-co-ordinates bit in Zope/Python/Postgres a couple of years ago and it was reasonably straightforward. The main problem was getting useful results for users outside the 'metropolitan' countries, particularly if their net access is via satellite.

There's a geolocation 'product' for Plone which probably doesn't work out of the box, from a brief look at it, but would be a start.The Google Gears Geolocation API provides access to a free Google-managed location provider together with the tools needed to use it.

So one way or another it shouldn't be too hard to do.

Isn't the Google gears thing a client side plugin? AFAIK, it's designed for if you want to connect a GPS device to a web site - e.g. to do a Google map on a GPS equipped phone.

If it's helpful, here is the link to the Nonprofit Technology Network's CMS Satisifaction Survey, which covers Drupal, Plone, Joomla, Convio, Antharia, Blackbaud, Wordpress and more.  The survey can be downloaded for free from NTEN's website here.

@shaydowney: Geo-location based on IP is pretty easy, either using a hosted service like HostIP or a client library for MaxMind's free GeoIP database. For the latter, here's a four line example in Python:

http://pastie.org/364546

Re CMS decisions, we're plumping for Drupal, on the grounds of extensibility, community support and our perception of a growing Drupal movement in the non-profit sector. However, Wordpress has the best UI, and is great for small sites with simple workflow requirements.

Agree with @amysampleward's comment above about the NTEN CMS Satisfaction Survey which provides a really useful insight.  Also from the recent past in the days of the ICT Hub, a useful publication is available for pdf download http://www.icthub.org.uk/publications/ICT_Hub_Content_Management_Systems_Guide.pdf aimed at managers in the sector to give an overview and to help with decision making regarding CMS.

When looking at the different options available, you need to think about what you want from your site now and in the future. You will want your site to work now and expand as you expand and grow.

Other important areas which you will need to look at when looking into a CMS:

• Will it produces pages that are standards compliant and accessible? (providing your layout and structure of your site has been enabled to do so).
• How can you get additional support if you have problems, or if you need additional functionalities built? Will you be able to find a developer with the skills in that particular CMS to help?
• You may need to budget for an annual maintenance contract to keep the software up to date.

When looking at CMS, look what they can provide and deliver for your site. You may still need a website developer to create the background structure and layout for your site but you will be in control of the most important area of your site - the content. If you choose a system which is easy to use and learn you will be more likely to use the website and keep it up to date. If you are working with a volunteer or developer to create the site for you, you should ask them for some training in how to get the best out of your new system.

Final tip - Just because 'Organisation X' uses one particular type, doesn't mean it is necessarily suitable for your needs. Ask other organisations what they use, what they like and don't like about their choice of website software.

Most CMSs have vibrant and responsive communities too, so investigate and use their forums and get as much advice for your needs to help to make an informed decision.

Other links to have a hands-on test of the various CMS to gain a basic understanding of how they work include -  www.cmsmatrix.org and www.opensourcecms.com

Personally, I'm a big fan of the up and coming MODx for its ability to make sites easily accessible and adherence of web standards as a developer, designer and trainer to orgs using a CMS to manage their sites.  I also often work with Drupal, Wordpress and beginning to work again with Plone too. All the above have strong development communities and are widely used in the third sector.  Most developers will be a fan of one CMS or another, and we're an enthusiastic lot which is why decision making for those on the outside can be difficult when we all evangelise on our favourite choice of CMS!

To me, no one CMS is the total solution, the choice is made after careful consideration of what the site will be doing now and hopefully long term, the capacity and ability of the main users/updaters of the site too.  All the main well used open source CMS's (including more that I haven't listed here but are good to work with too!) have some excellent features.

Good luck!

Thanks to you all for your advice..

We used to use Drupal but seemed to clunky for what we wanted. We do still use drupal with civicrm to manage our donors and supporters but we now use Wordpress for our main website.

We have just installed Salesforce, donated by the Salesforce and installed by Sho-net, who charged £3,000 for the consultancy plus helped us out with another IT problem for free.  NCVO members get the software donated and then pay for the consultancy.  We are just at the beginning of using the CRM but so far it seems very helpful indeed.

Have been looking at this too - I quite like the look of Wordpress for a flat website, Joomla! seems a bit too geeky for me!

We went with WordPress but that was pretty much based on the fact that local UK expertise was mostly WP based. We have an HTML portal front end at www.lovewhitley.com and then I look after the social action project at www.lovewhitley.com/restore.

To be honest all of these CMS' still look a bit scary. A good template and good training is the key to my heart!

Dave Gregory
Christian Consulting Services

I, personally, will always use WordPress for any type of site I create. I have tried others, including Joomla etc, and have always gone back to WordPress. I did use Habari for a while and I did quite like it, but due to theme creation being rather difficult, WP got me back again

Anyone ever heard of the Effect Engine CMS by Cozality? Apparently it is designed specifically for non profit organizations... judging from the "INTRODUCING" on the billboard on their homepage, must be a newer product. Looks interesting... very thorough and doesn't seem too expensive.

I am finding Joomla very interesting as we are currently updating our website Charity Accounting Services using Joomla CMS. It is free, seems easy to navigate and expandable as your requirement changes.

Golam Morshed