CMS Smackdown

We met to discuss different CMS's (Drupal, Plone, Joomla, with mentions of Word Press)

Notes from Session

Open Source CMS Smackdown

Michelle Murrain

Idealware study/research –

people in attendance – mostly familiar w/ 1 cms, interested in others – some multilingual cms people

major strengths/weaknesses of cms for non-profits

idealware – drupal plone joomla – for 85% of cases the cms would do most of what non-profits needed (blogs, documents, etc.)

all 3 platforms – similar functionality major differences in philosophy – each are different, and the differences might be better depending on what the non-profit needed

another conclusion of report: major question who to work with (vendors, consultant, who would do building), not what platform was

each cms maturing and undergoing big changes

questions:

goal: introduction to cross-referencing the platforms

(not many people in audience actually making decision between different platforms)

point: webstacks (pre-built drupal, joomla, plone – may not have all the features of building your own cms system)

why would you build your own? – can have something working (simple) in an hour

add-ons, modules, ___ - names of extra features for each cms

all 4 have tons of developers focused on platforms all have tons of modules and features – everything from soup to nuts core developers and people building add on features

mention microsoft office / vs open office

general open source cms benefits – can add features in a day or afternoon you can find the solution you are looking for

modules/addon: drupal/joomla plone: python

philosophical: differences: security/development joomla: ease of use is an important philosophy joomla + wordpress similar ease of use, but joomla is more complex joomla – not as much functionality in the core software – prompts lots of addons

michelle: all cms's have small core as major philosophy

plone: formal process / review to get into core 'plip' plone improvement process with tests - drupal also has this is a requirement

joomla 'white paper process' – with discussion

google groups for discussion in drupal: public discussion process – ('white papers')

plone – has a framework team – and a release manager – plone foundation pays that person

joomla (used to be mambo) – paid for extensions/templates/addons – huge 3rd party ecosystem to build productized – not getting their stuff to go into core, but trying to get people to work on the core core because the economy doesn't support it

kosher for people to sell components in joomla – everything in plone tends to be gpl

drupal – service oriented - paid to customize – modules never sold – reused components contributed back

joomla – many people earn living off customizing + deploying for a company/non-profit lots of free things

GPL code - open code = customers can give it to anyone ongoing discussions about avoiding legal hassles recently: removed a lot of non-gpl licensed extensions, recommended creating a 'lite' version of extension

'miro' is parent company of mambo – miro wanted to own it – so there was some gpl confusion and that was why joomla was started

joomla very end-user centric drupal very developer centric more student + women drupal developers joomla – more end-user base – joomla – most installs is joomla

installing from prebuilt (ex. Dreamhost)

plone 'secure scalable harden robust' – not easy to put on server (zope-- not lamp based) – hard to get from local site to server – recent advances 'built out' repeatable deployments, varnish/ load cacheing. Ec2/rackspace cloud – expandable with click of a button – usually requires hiring and integrator.

Different kinds of 'easy of use' – content enter vs integrator -

from non-profit manager perspective – (non profits don't care about the technical aspects) - all systems good for adding content, some easier for doing more complex things – none of them will confuse user for basic functions

most important thing for most non-profits is who they are working with:

plone good at document management (but drupal and joomla also good)

drupal's taxonomy is an advantage over joomla drupal – fine grained permissions joomla – user experience

3 cms – can't turn on/off parts of code (have to edit the template, no buttons) – so for admins changing layout of pages easier in cms's

integrator – someone putting together system for someone else (some not for profit, some are for profit)

word press: great for simple needs – but need a good hosting system because you have to patch it constantly

joomla – [missed this – anyone?]

drupal – complex taxonomy – social networking

plone – internationalzation, version control, different grades of public/private workflow (notifications and queues all out of the box)

internationalization – which system is best? - plone/drupal pretty close – then joomla – all pretty good spread of cms's across word – (check out right to left) - joomla – add on for all pages to be able to flip – all have these available addons

lingual plone – multilingual content – all have admin language packs

search in chinese – difficult algorithm to figure out (because languages have no spaces, very fascinating)

Acquia – group of members of drupal core team – funded by famous venture capitalists – (drupal users groups on front page of new york times) – lots of financial backing – drupal 'safe to move your fortune 500 company to' - sequoia -

acquia to be the red hat of drupal

viewed credibility between people with net worth 9-10 figures

transparent about process (acquia is)

scalability – all capable of 10 million a day with no scaling when people log in – there is personalization that can't be cached – (which is when using ruby and other systems to deliver the content )

decoupling interface of adding content – but delivering content handled with a different system

main points: doesn't matter – but vendor does matter

talked about difference between systems