Which CMS is best?
Recently I developed a new website for my local church, Elim Christian Centre. While the old version looked fine we had a big issues with management and updating. Here’s the problem…
- I couldn’t find the time to continually add every news story or announcement.
- Few people at church had the skills or confidence to help with the site
With these problems in mind it was important the new version could be managed by several people easily without fear they might destroy the world with a click on the mouse. I needed a Content Management System, one which was free, very user friendly and had lots of features to bolt on.
Looking into open source CMS my options turned out to be endless… Wordpress, Drupla, Joomla, Simple CMS, CompactCMS…. Each system sold itself well and each had unique benefits over the others, but what one should I use?
After much research I decided Wordpress was the one for us, here’s why…
- Easy to install on PhpMyAdmin
- A free themes gave me the basics of my design
- Cool plugin’s could do the fancy features for me
- The admin area is simple, clean and very edgit proof
Since we launched our new several people have helped manage it. This makes my life a lot easier and keep the site more informative and fresh for viewers.
So my question is… which CMS (open source or not) is best when designing a classy church website that is visually pleasing, functional and easily managed for non-IT people at church?
Answers on a postcard please 
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Thank you for this site guys, I find it very useful!
I agree, Wordpess is a superb CMS with many excellent features. I have used it to develop several small sites and blogs. I think given time it will distance itself from simply a blog CMS to a complete website CMS.
Wordpress comes out on top for a myriad of reasons. It is so easy to work with and has a large community. I also used it on my church and ministry website and it was the best thing we ever did! New features can be added with minimal fear of messing up the code and their are always updates that makes the experience better!
I’m a big fan of Joomla (www.joomla.org). Its got a huge user/developer base and the available templates are great. Rockettheme has low pricing with really high quality themes and the license restrictions don’t apply to non-profit sites. I’ve built a few sites with it and like it better than WP for a church site.
Expression Engine all the way. It’s a true CMS, with unparalleled flexibility, a superb community and strong tech support, unlike WP which is just a blogging platform.
Thanks for your website ideas
God Bless you