As users spend more time with digital media on mobile apps, companies are exploring innovative ways to keep their website visitors engaged, convey the intended message, and persuade them to buy. A content management system makes it easy for businesses to keep website visitors engaged by efficiently creating, publishing, and managing digital content. Many companies even use content management systems to create a collaborative environment where employees work and communicate seamlessly.

At the same time, themes, plugins, extensions, and modules provided by robust content management systems help developers build custom websites quickly. Every business has the option to choose from a wide range of content management systems. Some of these CMS are open source and free, while others are commercial. A business can always consider using an open source content management system (CMS) to create a website and manage digital content without incurring additional costs.

Overview of 7 Widely Used Content Management Systems

1) wordpress

Usage statistics published on various websites show that WordPress currently dominates the global CMS market. Apart from being easy to use, WordPress also simplifies web application development by providing a wide range of themes and plugins. Additionally, members of the WordPress community continue to upload new themes and plugins regularly in line with emerging trends in web development. Developers can take advantage of themes, plugins, and add-ons to quickly create custom websites according to precise business needs. They can even take advantage of an open source WordPress plugin like WooCommerce to create new eCommerce websites and add eCommerce functionality to existing websites.

two) Joomla

Joomla allows developers to develop, customize, and maintain websites without spending additional time and effort. It is even considered as the best CMS for small businesses and startups. While using Joomla, a developer can take advantage of a variety of plugins and extensions to create websites according to the different needs of small businesses. Also, they can use various commercial extensions and plugins for Joomla without increasing project overhead. But Joomla does not allow developers to choose from a large number of website themes. Developers can still use specific plugins to add email forms, blogs, discussion forums, and image galleries to the website. Similarly, Joomla makes it easy for developers to add shopping carts and integrate point of sale (POS) systems and manage inventory while developing eCommerce websites.

3) Drupal

Drupal makes it easy for developers to create websites that provide a richer user experience while adhering to search engine guidelines. The SEO tools provided by Drupal help businesses divert more search engine traffic to their websites. Many developers turn to Drupal when a website has many pages or is accessed by a large number of users. Like other content management systems, Drupal also allows developers to choose from various themes, plugins, extensions, and modules based on their specific needs. These third-party modules and services even help developers add functionality to the website without writing additional code. However, Drupal is considered by many developers to be more complex than other content management systems. Some programmers even write additional code to customize the Drupal application for precise business requirements.

4) Magento

A business has the option to choose from various editions of Magento. Magento Community Edition is open source and free. Despite being a CMS, Magento is very popular as an eCommerce platform. Out-of-the-box and customizable themes provided by the CMS make it easy for developers to quickly build, configure, and launch robust eCommerce websites. Developers can further speed up eCommerce website development by taking advantage of the robust features provided by Magento, including product catalog, option to add multiple attributes to a single product, customer grouping, billing setup, billing and shipping. Developers even have the option to take advantage of a host of free and paid plugins provided by members of the Magento community.

5) TYPO3

The open source content management system is compatible with all major operating systems and web servers. TYPO3 is also considered more flexible and extensible than other open source content management systems. TYPO3’s modular design makes it easy for developers to create and configure websites of various sizes. At the same time, web developers can easily customize and extend TYPO3 through the use of specific extensions. TYPO3 further simplifies digital content management by allowing developers to define multiple website content types and manage digital content across multiple publishers. Developers even have the option to modify or restructure the default structure of a web page without any restrictions. However, TYPO3, despite being easy to use, has a steep learning curve. Also, it requires additional server space to accommodate additional modules.

6) Plone

Despite being open source, Plone markets itself as the enterprise CMS. A company can use Plone to integrate multiple databases, web servers, business solutions, and content functions. Plone also provides a set of features to manage the entire content lifecycle. A website administrator can use the features to create, publish, store, and manage digital content, as well as implement searching, content blocking, and version control. At the same time, Plone helps web application developers keep website and digital content secure through its Python-based backend. The Diazo-powered theme engine provided by Plone helps developers design custom websites quickly. At the same time, plugins for Plone make it easy for developers to add functionality to the website and manage digital content efficiently.

7) blogger

Blogger was originally developed as a blog publishing service that supports multi-user blogs. But nowadays, many companies use Blogger like other content management systems. Blogger has constantly evolved to simplify and speed up the development of various websites and blogs. In addition to being part of the Google ecosystem, Blogger also offers custom styling, customization options, and custom domains. The custom domains provided by Blogger make it easy for small businesses and freelancers to quickly set up and launch their websites. At the same time, a user can simply use their Google account to set up and manage websites with Blogger. However, Blogger lacks some of the robust features and extensions that other open source content management systems offer.

In general, a company has the option to choose from a wide range of open source content management systems. But content management systems differ from each other in the category of features, themes, plugins, extensions, and performance. Therefore, it becomes essential for a company to evaluate the pros and cons of each CMS according to its short-term and long-term needs.