David Russell

One of the greatest innovations of the dynamic web is the content management system. It is easier than it ever has been to publish Web content. Today’s web applications give us power over our content we only dreamed of back in 1995. In fact, anyone who can interact with a Internet-connected computer can publish to the Web using a wide range of tools, from a simple blogging service to a feature-rich CMS. There is no longer the need to know HTML and CSS to create and style web content. The CMS handles that for you.

So with the advent of the modern CMS we can now forget about depending on a hired service or developer to update our content. Instead, we control and maintain it. Of course, service providers and web developers still need to eat too and there will always be a market for content management at that level. Even though we enable many people in our church to publish content to theaterchurch.com, I’m still publishing a large amount of content by hand and I’m constantly developing new web applications and systems for our content to be delivered through. A CMS is not a replacement for a good web developer. But it can be a tremendous aid to everyone, including the web developer, in keeping content fresh and accurate.

There are a few content management systems that stand above the rest:

• ExpressionEngine: In my opinion, this is the best CMS on the market, especially within a similar price range. It does require some up front development to really open up the power of the system. But once it is set up, EE offers the kind of flexibility found in systems that cost 100 times as much. I’m dead serious. For non-profits, a license for ExpressionEngine is $100. Dirt cheap. The Core Version, which has fewer features, is totally free. Even dirtier cheaper.
• Drupal: Another flexible system, Drupal really shines in a community-driven environment. Drupal can do a lot and the latest version is really fantastic. It is open source and free.
• Textpattern: Though I’ve had relatively little experience with Textpattern personally, I can recommend it based on the experience of friends who develop with it. I’ve seen some amazing Web sites powered by Textpattern and the community behind this system is strong. It is very much worth considering. Textpattern costs nothing.
• WordPress: I’ll probably get a few hate emails for calling WordPress a CMS; many people consider it purely a blogging platform. But WordPress is powerful and very user-friendly. And it can handle the basic necessities for managing a full-fledged site. I have built many sites with WordPress and it continues to shine. The drawbacks to WordPress are few and far between. It is open source and free.

Notice a trend amongst these world-class systems? They all have a free option! Free is good. They also happen to all run on PHP and MySQL. Of course, there are other systems that utilize other technologies. Find what fits best for you and your server environment. I do highly recommend these systems and their platforms.