The document discusses different content management systems (CMS), comparing features of open source and paid CMS like WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal. It outlines various factors to consider when choosing a CMS like installation, theming, plugins, ease of use, security, and scalability. The document also addresses stakeholder needs, project requirements, and questions to ask to determine the best CMS for a particular website.

1. CMS Meetup Comparing and contrasting Content management systems

2. What is a CMS? Framing the debate.

3. Wikipedia says A content management system (CMS) is a system providing a collection of procedures used to manage work flow in a collaborative environment. These procedures can be manual or computer-based. The procedures are designed to do the following: Allow for a large number of people to contribute to and share stored data Control access to data, based on user roles (defining which information users or user groups can view, edit, publish, etc.) Aid in easy storage and retrieval of data Reduce repetitive duplicate input Improve the ease of report writing Improve communication between users In a CMS, data can be defined as nearly anything: documents, movies, pictures, phone numbers, scientific data, and so forth. CMSs are frequently used for storing, controlling, revising, semantically enriching, and publishing documentation. Serving as a central repository, the CMS increases the version level of new updates to an already existing file. Version control is one of the primary advantages of a CMS.

4. I say it's a pre-fabricated (pre-fab) house. It's all about what needs to be done.

5. Open source versus closed source Brief comparison of open source, hosted and paid

6. A few major CMS's Wordpress Joomla! Frupal Modx Silverstripe (paid) Mediawiki Concrete5

7. Others http://www.onehippo.com/en/products/cms http://pyrocms.com/ http://typo3.com/ http://www.cmsmadesimple.org/ http://www.dotnetnuke.com/ http://umbraco.com/ http://www.phpwcms.de/

8. Great comparison resource cmsmatrix.org

9. Playing with fire Although CMS's are often sold as empowering the client to take charge of their content, they also empower others. Sometimes they can also wind up disempowering.

10. Why a CMS? User editing Development flexibility Add-ons and plugins

11. Stakeholders – The Who of You What are the stakeholders trying to do? Identifying objectives and audience Project needs Dealing with edge case scenarios?

12. Points of Comparison Budget Time constraints Technical ability Design ability Content creation and updating Current add-ons and resources Need for training CMS support base. How active? Personal experience Open source as delegation Add-ons. A Blessing and a Curse. Cross conflict resolution.

13. Purposes Add/Edit content Management Theming Maintenance

14. Elements to consider Installation Theming Plugin/ Theme availability Ease of plug-in writing OOP/MVC? Internationalization Language Usability Versioning SEO Permissions Support Performance Interoperability Flexibility Built in applications Commerce

15. Questions Why are visitors visiting? What do they want to do? How big is the site and what kind of site is it? What will they want to do in the future? How easy is this to install and theme? How easy is it to add and edit content? How easy is it maintain? What is the upgrade process? What features does it have “out of the box” or free? Does hosting support the system? What's the learning curve? How often are free addons maintained? Legacy and backwards compatibility? Does it conform to users mental models? How much support is there on the main site, forums and related sites? How long has it been around? What are the long term costs, if any? How easy is it to make new plugins/addons? Is it a stable system? How secure is the system? Do they follow best practices? How well will the system scale? Are there many people who can develop/extend/maintain this system? Is the project – client/user, developer, designer oriented? Can I hand this off to someone else? Ethical considerations.