Drupal, Joomla, Wordpress - are they right for you?

Opensource content management systems (CMS) can save most organizations time and money while providing them with a site that is more effective than a custom handbuilt Web site.  Custom sites and CMS sites eventually merge as the high end custom sites will include CMS components for the owners to make changes themselves.

CMS systems are site frameworks that give designated users the ability to

• create new pages,
• edit existing content,
• place graphics in pages,
• embed video,
• and just about any other content type you want into the Web site.

Most CMS systems are built on database engines that live on your Web server and which help organize and store site data.  The other main piece of CMS systems is a scripting language that works with the database of data to render pages as needed from component parts (page templates, text, specific graphics, etc.).   The most common database on the Web is MySQL, and the scripting language that works well with this database is PHP.  These two cornerstones of many CMS will run on Linux or Windows servers, but are more "native" to Linux servers running Apache Web servers.

The most challenging thing for most people is installing, trouble-shooting, and customizing the initial CMS framework so that it provides the look, feel, and functionality that is needed for a given organization.  Strategic Help and World Web Systems provide CMS hosting, installation, and customization.