Great Post, I like!

Joomla has to be on number 1, Drupal 3rd and WP 2nd.

Soon there will be mine CMS in this List

Where’s Concrete5 on this list? It’s one of the best upcoming CMS’ out there!

Joomla > Drupal

Has anyone used firerift yet? (http://firerift.com/)

It’s been out just under two weeks, looks great, but not been able to try it out properly yet. Just wondered if anyone has had a chance to use it yet?

Modx should of been in that list, or does it not count because it’s a ‘cmf’ ?

I Can’t stand Joomla, It’s just so overbloated and slow.

MODx should be on that list. It is one of the best out there. http://modxcms.com/

Has anyone used firerift yet? (http://firerift.com/)

look at that now

looks like just the perfect sol

thanks for the post, mate

joomla it’s the most powerfull cms, because they have a powerfull comunity behind.

And you can make templates easy like you do in wordpress.

Check out Umbraco. umbraco.org . It is not a bad CMS. Free. Really cool features. Large community base and lots of documentation. 4.0 just came out. You can edit directly in the page, Upload an XML and Flash file then open the CMS editor and the editor will update the XML to update the Flash content. Version control. The works. Made all by one guy. Freakin’ smart dude. Pretty versitile.
Never messed with Joomla.
SilverStripe looks pretty cool and easy to manage. Might give Wordpress a run for its money. May give it a try.
Wordpress will probably be a staple for easibility. No expert but versatile.
Drupal just looks cumbersome.
CushyCMS is nice but I don’t like how the free version acts. Easy to use but you can’t really save over old images. It just creates a new one when you upload it. Very limited too. But I guess that is why you would buy the full version instead of using the free version.

Take out Silverstripe and put MODx. Then this list would be complete.

No Squarespace on here? Talk about usable..

Awww… what about Modx. Totally deserves to be on the list.

MODx

Also CMS Made Simple. http://www.cmsmadesimple.org/

Constantly being updated/improved, it’s open source, great community, super easy to install and upgrade and you can customize everything.

Its quick and has tons of extentions that you can choose to implement if you want…meaning its not bloated as hell like Joomla.

Really cool that TYPOlight is in this list. Perfect CMS System with a nice Community in Europe. Nice to see that also american Users know this System. Greetz from Germany.

If Cushy is even mentioned PageLime (pagelime.com) should be mentioned before it. Cushy is stale and a terrible presentation for clients. They use a form based interface that gets super confusing if you have a lot of edits. It borders on scary to me that with all the better ‘CMS Lite’ options out there CushyCMS still gets mentioned in any top 10’s. The internet’s “Thought Leaders” need to do a real researched Top 10 without just rehashing the same old guard over and over again.

WordPress is an excellent blogging platform; but CMS? You’re extending the model heavily to do so and arguably hacking it to achieve a CMS-like system.

I love Wordpress of course….

&

I like Joomla too…amazingly, it’s just too widely featured….really slick…

All the webdesigners should give Expression Engine a try (the core version is free), it’s the most brilliantissime cms I have seen so far.
So powerful, so easy to work with, you can really make what you want to, the way you want to.
And the support is amazing.

no Concrete5!?! man….you guys are missing out!

don’t you think E107 would deserve a place in your top 10 list?

nice post though

Glad to see ExpressionEngine was included. Sometimes the price puts people off but if they really looked into it they would find a mature product that frees them of the headaches of some of the other systems.

What?!? How did SharePoint not make this list?!?

I’ve been using Wordpress for a while now, and whilst it can be used as a CMS, one thing that bothers me is how much hacking you have to do to get it working in exactly the way you wish. Sure, the hacks work, but there’s a part of me that doesn’t like hacking software. I want elegance. How many blog posts (most likely served by Wordpress, to be fair) are about ‘wordpress hacks’.

In fact, Mindy Wagner explains the deficiencies of Wordpress very well.

I’ve just been doing some reading about ExpressionEngine, and it seems very elegant indeed, and of course, it’s naturally more of a CMS than a bastardised blogging tool.

I can’t believe concrete5 is not one here! That’s the best CMS ever. PHP & MySQL database driven. If you make a mistake, roll-backs to previous versions are a breeze.. It’s actually a very minimal framework and CMS, so it combines the best of both worlds. You can check it out at http://www.concrete5.org/.
Currently, they have their sight set on Drupal and Joomla, and it’s a far more robust CMS w/ an excellent community of support.

It seriously astounds me that ModX never makes these lists. It’s a ridiculously powerful CMS that’s not overbloated and yet has tons of available plugins and modules. Could you guys send them a bit more attention please?

HI ALL

I HAVE A QUESTION

what cms the easyiest to add a theme forest template , other than cushy cms

thanks in advance

Will

evidently u’ve listed the cms in descendin order of popularity, Great to see wp on the top.,,, i must say wp is the best (at least 4 a noob like me)
the other day i was trying out joomla and i found it hell lot confusing and complicated… just wish if wp had a well built-in forum functionality…

Definitely ModX is missing. Way better than most of the tools in that list. So powerful and so easy for both designers and developers.

i use concrete5 (concrete5.org) . In context editing, open source, easy to upgrade and theme and a good set of core plug-in’s as well as 3rd party add-on’s. I’ve found it’s easiest to use for my clients.

Where’s MODx CMS?

People should really take a look at this wonderful CMS.

Silverstripe, Concrete5 or EE are good, but definitively not as flexible as MODx is.

Fair enough, MODx Revolution is coming and that’s gonna be awesome!

Im after a simple CMS just like Cushy cms, Unify (http://unify.unitinteractive.com/) or Grab a perch (http://grabaperch.com/)

But free and self hosted.

Thanks

Ainda há dúvidas que o Wordpress é o mais utilizado e melhor CMS?

Well that was a not-so-helpful list of the 10 most *popular* CMS systems, not necessarily the 10 most usable systems. Neither Joomla nor Drupal is all that usable, at least if you want to move beyond their default set-ups. They have the power to be flexible, but it’s not easy to do.

A review of CMSs truly evaluated by usability would be much more useful.

Thanks allot for this post, I was looking for CMS systems to compare them and get to know there positives and negatives, so I can build one which I can use in future projects and (hopefully ) only combines the best.

Really dissappointing article. These are simply the most popular CMSs. Where are the usability facts? I would say that most of these are a pig to use for both developer and user. Sit a non-tech person in front of each one and see how they get on.

Re: firerift. It requires JavaScript to be enabled (to see content on the front end) rendering it practically useless.

Aww.. you left out my favourite one… Chyrp! http://www.chyrp.net. It’s what tumblr would be if it was a CMS.

I have recently started using Concrete5 http://www.concrete5.org/
I am surprised it is not on this list? I have been impressed with my experience so far.

I love WP as you can effectively get a site up and running within a day (from PSD to XHTML) and you can push it’s functionality to accomodate most sites needs.

Joomla is also great but I feel the back end is over complicated and creating themes is a little mroe complex than WP.

I found Drupal confusing but that may just be me not giving it enough time. I haven’t trie EE but am fluent with CodeIgniter so I may give it some time when I get some.

So for me, overall, WP is the winner.

Good post, but MODx takes the cake in my humble opinion. If you are a web designer, MODX beats everything on this list. I’m in love with MODx.

http://modxcms.com

Textpattern Rules

typo3 ??????

Concrete5 should DEFINITELY be on that list!

The one piece that most of the larger CMS’ leave out is usability for the end user. Sure it might be easy and flexible for the developer, but it’s not the developer who’s going to be maintaining the content. You should be able to sit a client in front of a computer and it should be dead simple for them to do basic updates on their site, or add pages, blog posts, etc, with minimal help.

I have used Concrete5 for my last 4 projects and it has been a pleasure to work with. I have only had to spend about 30 minutes with a client to show them all of the functionality in the site. Though simply by showing them the login page, they were able to figure out how to edit pages, add a page and add content blocks to pages without my help.

As for development I can get a site up and running in about a day now. At least something that doesn’t require customized functionality that isn’t already in the app store.

Relative newcomer to add to the list: Webvanta. See http://www.gbeddow.com/post/27385-building-a-web-site-using-webvanta. IMHO a good contender, geared more toward web designers than other systems.

cmsmadesimple.org

This is by FAR the easiest CMS to template, and works awesome for small sites. Its also the easiest for a client/editor to manipulate content. They have a great community, a wonderful core, and some good plugins. Its GPL, and i use it any time I get a chance.

For bigger projects, I’m a Drupal guy.

Joomla joins the list only because of user base. Depending on your point of view on what usable means, I’d have to disagree.

I agree with Carlos, Umbraco needs to make it to this list. And I’m particularly disappointed to see that Symphony CMS (http://www.symphony-cms.com) didn’t make the list.

I don’t like using Joomla or drupal, the back end seems confusing.

I’ve used cushy for small sites and it works well, especially for the client who wants to just post content.

EE is great and if you have any PHP knowledge it’s a snap to learn. All you need to do is go through the tutorial here http://www.train-ee.com/. Be warned though working with EE might lead to full on CodeIgniter.

I might have to give WP a try.

thanks DJ Monzyk

checking it out NOW!!

What About PageLime?
Can anyone else boast a 5 minute install, support for includes, permissions for users, and smooth back-end all without a database?

I encourage you all to check it out http://www.pagelime.com

I really like joomla. I know there are several issues, but for private pages and easy things, it is good enough. Definitly a super easy handling. If you have to use different userrights, so you have to use drupal or typolight.

Hope joomla will get things right with 1.6.
It has potential, a lot of.

What about plone!?

Alfresco is in a league of it’s own. It’s the only CMS on the list that has the power to withstand a corporate environment.

Personally, we use OpenText to manage several corporate websites.

Im always drawn to wordpress, i did consider using drupal recently but changed my mind.

1. WordPress
2. Joomla
3. Drupa

Drupal is a good CMS. It’s a little steep learning curve for visual designers, but once you get the basics down and get it running it’s fairly easy to add new modules and I’m glad I decided to try I will be slowly switching my sites to this system. I wish there were more templates and regions. Right now there aren’t too many beautifully designed Drupal sites, but I think that’s being addressed.

I’ve used Cushy and it works great, but there’s one I found that does the same thing but a little better called Surreal CMS. It even works with cushy tags.

1. Typolight

I’m a huge fan of ExpressionEngine. I’ve tried CMSMadeSimple, Drupal, Joomla, TextPattern and maybe five others and nothing compares to ExpressionEngine. It’s probably my being bias, but no way Drupal and Joomla belong ahead of EE in lists like these.

Also, for those that are simply turned off by the price of EE, there is a completely free “Core” version which gives you all kinds of great features. These types of articles always fail to mention there is a free option with EE.

hmm no asp.net CMS……. So sad

MODx – very powerful yet accessible. I’ve converted most of my WordPress clients to this system unless they are heavy bloggers. MODx can handle that as well, but WP is just better suited ‘out of the box’ for that type of application.

Joomla is a dog. Try some of the other CMS systems out and you’ll quickly see that it is far more difficult to extend/work with. Yuck!

Another vote for MODx. It’s powerful & easy to use. As a designer, I want to be able to create any website design/look that I want, without all the hassle of hacking and writing an insane amount of code just to get your look workin on a cms.

Drupal seems to have a bit of a learning curve.

Expression Engine & Firerift look pretty cool.

I’ve tried all these and more, and my absolute favorites are MODx (which is missing from this list much to the readers loss) and Drupal (powerful!).

Seriously, if you haven’t checked out MODx CMS, you should.

No ModX in this list?

/walks away

Seriously you should try ModX. I tried a lot of these CMS but in my opinion ModX is the most flexible one – escpecially in a developers point of view!

Oh noes, How can you make a top CMS list without Umbraco?

http://www.jboye.com/blogpost/who-should-be-on-your-cms-shortlist/

MovableType not present? wtf?

I think Typolight is the best CMS of all. I use it for almost all my projects and never missed a feature I couldn’t develop myself. It is very easy to implement your own modules.

I have tried many of the listed CMS, but the last three years I have stayed with MODx, and thats where I’m gonna be. At least in the nearest future.

Anybody who would like to experiment is welcome to try my personal CMS, simple, which I built for my personal site and then later released.

http://mpierce.pie2k.com/pages/16.php

It is not as robust as the others listed here, but I believe it’s easy to use. If anybody would like to try it out I would really appreciate it if you could leave some feedback for me by way of the e-mail form on my site.

EE all the way. I’ve tried almost all of the others and, like the previous guy said, nothing compares. You can pull off just about anything on your site fast & easy and not feel like you are re-engineering half the system to make it work.

You really need to try it out if you haven’t already.

ps – Last time I touched drupal I found myself thinking the designers must have TRIED to make it as unintuitive as possible.

joomla rocks and Joomla is the best i have ever seen and wordpress too …
these 2 are my fav….

I have used all the above but think SiteFinity is the best!
Its API is very easy to hook into for developers such as myself and I have had clients say its user interface is alot easier to understand than Drupal.

IMO, MODx should be on the number one spot. It’s incredibly content author – friendly. Because ‘User friendly ‘ is a bit ambiguous in this context: is the implementer the user ? or the developer ? I really think that drupal shouldn’t be so high in this list (and neither joomla for that matter). Drupal IMO has a very very confusing ‘backend’ (or is it a frontend with editing features? ) and I ‘ve seen many author getting lost or not understanding why their freshly added content doesn’t appear under this or that section.

I will state now that MODx should have been there…. Joomla is a joke… Drupal is over-rated

Wow. I’m really surprised that (the award winning) ModxCMS was not included in the list! I use it for 99% of the sites I produce.

I’m a Drupal fan myself, but I’m surprised Plone didn’t get a shout out at all. It’s considered one of the top three open source cms’s, along with Joomla and Drupal. BTW, it’s weird to even call Wordpress a cms. It’s an awesome blog tool though!

hmm what about TYPO3?

why isn’t it listed?

The thing is, all these CMS’s usability depends on what you need them for. For a large corporation with multiple sites, thousands of users, and tons of interaction, Wordpress would probably be last, Drupal first, and Joomla third.

For corporate-style sites with a few users, a couple blogs and some categories for a few different purposes, Joomla might be first (b/c of wide availability of themes and some components, which almost always cost $$).

For blogs, Wordpress owns the category.

Thanks a lot for sharing the list. The following might be a good addition to the list. Ofcourse, these are mostly targeted at simple websites.
- Nanocms (http://nanocms.in)
- Pritlog (http://pritlog.com – more of a blog)
- Getsimple (http://get-simple.info/)

So many different opinions. I personally love WP and cant see anything getting much easier than that. Reading some of these comments, I reckon I will try Modx! Looks good.

Thanks for the post it was good reading.

i’v seen them, they are incredible
i hope that my CMS be better http://frme.at/p/JC19r i need reviews from your community

1. modx

dont really need anymore choices than that.

As already mentioned, MODx should also be on this list. Anyway, thanks for great article!

If you like CodeIgniter, I believe EE has the best of features that eventually make it to CI, or at least that is what I gather from reading the forum. I’ve never had the chance to use or see EE in action, but if it’s as great as CI, it’s no surprise that it is here in the top 10 list. I’ve been sort of a CI evangelist lately, and wondering about EE or Ellis Lab’s hosting.

joomla’s number 3? wow! Joomla shouldn’t even be on that list…

I’m a massive fan of Wordpress, simple to use and simple to learn (as a developer). Unfortunately I’m not familiar with the remaining CMS products listed so I cant comment on those.

Just letting you all know that we launched a new content management service that provides designers, developers and site owners an easy way to get content managent into an existing web application. Take a look at http://www.orthor.com and let us know what you think.

I use wordpress and joomla. I find it realy easy to work with. I just started using drupal and wil soon learn more about alfresco.

There are a bunch of others that I though we far more useful than some of the ones that listed. Here are a few that I like:
CMSMS http://www.cmsmadesimple.org/
FROG the PHP version of radiant http://www.madebyfrog.com/

Great round-up as usual. The only one I *don’t* have any experience with is CushyCMS, but that’s about to change. Sounds like the perfect option for low-maintenance clients. Thanks guys.

No DotNetNuke???? From a user point of view it is soo much easier to use…

Not a very big fan of Joomla myself. I am wanting to learn wordpress/drupal to develop websites but each system has its own learning curve. While wordpress is easy, both joomla and drupal are more complicated and you’ll have to invest yourself into these systems if you want to do anything meaningful with them. I prefer the simplicity and power of wordpress but there are many systems so why not experiment with a few? Drupal is definitely easier to manage if you work more on the coding side.

I always enjoy lists like this. You want to start an argument? Just say your CMS is best. The thing is that nobody is looking for exactly the same thing in a system.

I’ll certainly put in a plug for MODx, which is not perfect, but is extremely flexible, highly capable, and easy to understand. I have tried most of these, and each has its plus points. Glad to see my favorite as number 1.

When you really become a CMS geek, it’s endless, there are just tons of systems, and many good ones that could fill a list

I have been working for a month on a Joomla site that is horrific, so naturally I’m strongly biased against it. But I will spare you the extravagant dirty language that it inspires.

http://www.modxcms.com
you forget it
it’s one of the best 10 cms

What about DotNetNuke?

I know most design sites never think past PHP, but DNN is full featured, has tons of add-ons, and is pretty easy to install.

typolight is awesome! if you are really into it… joomla! should not in the list, concrete5 is simple & beautiful for both developer/designer & end user

i really like 2 CMS, wordpress and joomla, because they both trying for better in market for all user friendly environment.

Dang, Typo3 didn’t make the list.

wordpress … !!!
what about movable type … ???

wordpress rock,

I havent had much experience with Joomla, but i love Drupal and Wordpress they are both easy to use and extend. Although Drupal does have an steep learning curve, but once you get to know it, its like you can’t live with out it. I would love to see some more tutorials on Drupal..maybe ill create one for nettuts.

Big fan of CMS Made Simple. I’ve tried a lot of CMS applications and I liked the stripped-back “developer” approach of CMSMS.

In saying that, I think any CMS can be great if you know how to use it and take advantage of what it can do.

No doubt Wordpress is #1 here. I’ve worked with some giant, corporate-sized CMS’s before (SiteCore, etc.) and Wordpress is so much more powerful than people realize. Especially if you combine it with a “liquid” theme that gives you full power to customize every piece of it (like Headway for example: http://www.headwaythemes.com)

I use Drupal too and that CMS has a much bigger learning curve at the start, but once you get the master pages of your site setup and the IA smoothed out you can really launch your site to the moon with Drupal – no limits.

Wordpress is no no, because it updates so often. It is nightmare to upgrade all installations of WP to all servers.

Very very strange that concrete5 isn’t in the list. Absolutely the best CMS at this moment.

I am using MODX and I find it very flexible too.
http://www.modxcms.com

Wordpress really isn’t a CMS. And i can’t believe that you missed TYPO3. It’s really really powerful.

Good post. Although I feel all of the CMS’s mentioned provide over the top features that are unneeded making them overly complex. I personally like CMS made simple, very easy and good to work with.

no modx? modx is so easy to use.

joomla is very slow, wordpress is only for blogging and drupal…. drupal is not so bad but it has very stupid things and sometimes it anoys… I can’t name the CMS I’ll call perfect.

DotNetBlogEngine – basically a blogging platform but the ability to extend it with widgets and extensions is just amazing!!! And probably THE easiest platform to create themes for. You can create a theme in seconds. Add the content place holders in the master page and ur good to go….. well worth the look! Very easy to install too!.

I’ve looked at most CMS’s on the list – and used Wordpress and Textpattern on sites but for Usability if you’re building a small to medium sized site CMSMadeSimple is the way to go. WordPress and Textpattern are blogging tools easily extensible – out of the box it’s CMSMadeSimple for me!

This post has to be a joke. Drupal one of the must usable platforms? That’s a joke. Drupal is confusing and complex even to me as a seasoned developer. My clients have to request us to change some of the smallest things.

Joomla too, it’s an alright platform for what it was specifically designed for, but extending it in any way shape or form becomes very tedious, even for simple things.

Wordpress, again as a CMS, before lots of tweaking and hacking and module implementing, it’s not a CMS, it’s a blog. Only after a seasoned developer works at it does it become a worthwhile CMS.

I’m insanely surprised that Business Catalyst is not listed here. In my experience it is THE most usable back-end platform. No question. Client’s of mine on all of the CMS systems we develop on contact us LEAST when their site is on business catalyst. 2nd least when their site is on Expression Engine.

Therefore in my opinion I would say number 1 most usable is Business Catalyst, Number 2 most usable is Expression Engine.

For the record if any are curious as to what my background is with these systems and how i can say what i do:

I’ve been developing on Drupal for 5+ years. I’ve been developing on Joomla/Mambo for 4+ years. I’ve been developing on Expression Engine for 2+ years, and i’ve been developing on Business Catalyst for 1+ years.

Reading the comments, it looks like not many people at all agree with the author. Maybe it should be re-named, “top 10 systems Glen Stansberry likes”, Rather than “Top 10 Most Usable Content Management Systems” because let’s be honest, that’s a big floppy joke.

I’m totally agree with begs. Why is wordpress on the list and TYPO3 not? So far, it’s okay for me that wordpress is on the list, even I don’t think that wordpress is a “real” cms. I discussed many times with friends about this, if you want to sell your costumer a professional website then you have to offer him a “real” cms. What about localization or versionning in wordpress? just to list 2 points… Don’t think I want to flame wordpress, but there are many cms that can’t do the half of what TYPO3 can…

Let’s not forget there is also FROG CMS [ http://madebyfrog.com/ ] witch is the php clone of Radiant CMS.

What about MODx?

I know it’s relatively new, but it is absolutley fantastic!

I think everyone should check it out, it blows Joomla out of the water.

http://modxcms.com/

Typolight as a good balance.
It has also a lot of unique and useful extension, especially the catalog module wich allows you to build, display and filter..catalogs(real estate ads)
The only downside is the lack of templates.

http://symphony21.com/ wins hands down.

WordPress wins hands down for me but god I hate Joomla. To the author, please user cap’s on ‘Wordpress’ = WordPress.

I think that TYPO3 is missing, it is a really powerful system.

Your Message… I think you’ve forgotten SPIP (http://www.spip.net), it should be in this top ten list:
if you’re designer, with SPIP you can publish the design you want and most importantly you don’t need one year of training to be able to build a great website.
Just one question: why Joomla ? It’s the most awful CMS I’ve seen for end-users !
Regards

Emmanuel

dou you know a cms where you can have more than one text column per page?
I just know typo3 and typolight!
And when you start making custom pages you need this feauture…

and ofc multilanguage with just one Tree! (Only typo3)

Due to extensive work use, I would have said: MODX & TYPOLIGHT
MODX: design a css mockup, then just add some modxtags inside boxes & voilà!
TYPOLIGHT: give client ability to generate forms, polls, without calling you; + as modx, create the design then place tags; + ability to manage a great variety of page templates inside the same unique site

The title is “Usable CMS’s” yet the entire post could be called “An overview of CMS’s”. Nowhere does it talk about user interaction, interface design or generic usability.

Come on nettuts, you can do better than this – at least title the posts sensibly.

If the author disagrees: on what basis did you pick these as ‘usable’ rather than ‘popular’?

Another interesting CMS is Magnolia; it is a JEE application that allows to create a custom CMS in minutes!

Hmm, WordPress as a CMS. Ok, it’s possible but it really lacks features that most enterprise CMS’s must have.
Have a look at Janus Boye’s short list – a good article that I concur more with:
http://www.jboye.com/blogpost/who-should-be-on-your-cms-shortlist/

It’s been good to read about all the other CMS options people have mentioned. I wasn’t aware of some of them. Being relativley new I’ve been experimenting with Wordpress and Joomla but I’d like to look at Drupal next.

good post, for bloggers wordpress is no, 1 but joomla is also good CMS and has beginner to advance level features and components.

Programmers seem to love Joomla, maybe because they’re the ONLY people who can work it out. It’s bloated, the code is bad, and it’s insanely complicated to use, not to mention that it’s incredibly difficult and time consuming to design for and template. I used it twice and never again, can’t stand it.

Glad to see Textpattern on this list, I haven’t tried cmsmadesimple or Drupal, but textpattern has to be up there as one of the easiiest to use and design for.

If you just want a simple portfolio site, Indexhibit is also a good option.

http://indexhibit.org/

When seeing the title of this post I thought it would be about the usability of the backend, rather than just a list of CMS’s and their overall features.

I tend to rule out many of the major systems simply because the design of their admin interfaces are unfathomable to most (non-technical) clients – they simply can’t use them without supervision, which kind of defeats the point of providing a client with a CMS in the first place.

Drupal, Joomla and Typo are just too technical for non-IT savvy people to use. Expression Engine uses a lot of blog-centric terms, and Textpattern doesn’t have WSIWIG.

With this in mind I think the newer versions of Wordpress do a reasonable job (although if you are using it as a straight CMS the language used – ‘posts’, ‘categories’, ‘tags’, ‘links’, etc can still be hard to explain to clients.

I find that SilverStripe does a good job in terms of backend useabilty, and am glad to see it in this list. The admin interface is very easy to get to grips with, and you can make it so that the WSIWIG editor uses the same CSS as the target page. The version control means you can easily fix restore the site when a client makes a mistake. The best bit is that all the pages are displayed on the left as a hierarchical list, and you can simply drag and drop them around, delete, add and rename them on the fly. Clients seem to find this feature very intuitive. They also like the price (free).

Shame it’s not more popular, as the community and available plugins are a bit slim at present. Would love to see it flourish…

I love using Wordpress, I think it’s excellent and getting even better all of the time.

Personally I use wordpress a lot but as a CMS it is still not quite there but as blogging platform it’s brilliant.
Expression Engine is also a great CMS and very easy to configure a simple back end for clients.

personally i am very happy with joomla, great community, can get done almost everything. it have couple of flows here and there, but overall it’s a great cms.

I’ve only used wordpress for cms but you do have to do a lot of customisation, however for the smaller site cushy cms is great.

wordpress is simple to use but i found b2evolution better for handling larger blogs without hacking it so much.

i looked at joomla and drupal but after reading some books, i think joomla is more appealing and i will be using it to develop a fitness site for my first attempt at it. wish me luck!

Hey what’s with concrete5? http://www.concrete5.org

You forgot Concrete5, for me the best CMS at the moment.

I think that Chyrp (http://www.chyrp.net) is also a very good content management system. I love it for its simplicity.

The biggest problem that I come across is finding a CMS that allows one to edit an EXISTING site, without having to import the site into a CMS. At my day job, we have 15,000+ pages, and I sure do not want to migrate each page into a CMS. Cushy might be the closest option, as one can add div tags to make the content editable.
In the end, I ended up building a solution that allows users access to edit all of the content in existing web pages. Security is enforced by Active Directory groups (users must had AD credentials, AND they must belong to certain security groups that control granular access). The actual editing is done with tinyMCE (what a great, great program). The header and footer of each page are saved to session variables; the user edits the content; everything is then packaged together and sent to an reviewer before going live. It works for us, and our users, and that is the key.

As for the list of CMS’s above, I prefer WordPress; as the author stated, the documentation is par none.

Come on !

Joomla fits only when you have very easy requirements from a client, that is to say, only small changes. (and because i don’t want to tweak in joomla). Personnaly i don’t use it, i tried (the Joomla framework too, without the cms part), but can’t get into it.

Then, there are TOO MANY extensions !!! I don’t like this kind of validation system from the team receiving all submissions. You can do a crappy extension with bunch of bug and security holes and it’s accepted. Damn, why don’t they keep only the well coded extensions that really work ? the number of extensions will be divided by 3 or 4.

Sometimes, you have to try dozen of extensions doing the same thing, before finding the one that suits to your need.

So Joomla in TOP 3 … i don’t agree …

i’ve tried Wordpress and Modx as CMS….Modx is is really fantastic to use and create templates…Wordpress is a little bit more complex!
At the moment i’m looking for a free asp cms….

Which CMS is the best for multimedia content for artists, video and music?

This list is subjective. Of course in te context of “Usability” as the title says, I’d go for

1. Wordpress
2. Joomla
3. Drupal

but when it comes customising site functionality and true scalability, I’d list

1. Joomla (can you say MVC baby?)
2. Drupal
3. Word who?

I’d like to point out http://habariproject.org and http://symphony-cms.com/

Both excellent CMS frameworks. Symphony takes some learning and many look at Habari as simply blogging software. But if you read up on it..its much more. And it’s easy to add content types, etc.

Firerift looks interesting.

I thought this was a misleading post. It’s more like a Top Ten Most Popular CMS list. Many are not at all usable, especially to a client. Drupal is a great example. It’s not usable, it’s confusing as hell, I am not kidding. Have you used it? The admin area is a mess.

ExpressionEngine is not far behind.

WordPress has done a good enough job, but of all the items on this list, that’s the only one that should be on there.

I agree with many commenters: Many others, such as Chyrp, are far more worthy of being on this list.

cargo collective is very simple and overall great. still in beta, i believe.

MODx is the next big thing!

Where’s CMS Made Simple?

Seems like everyone is agreeing to disagree so, I’ll throw my 2 cents in.

I started in Drupal and then began working Joomla. Honestly I much prefer Joomla to Drupal. I find Drupal to be far less intuitive, theme-ing is not nearly as easy and searching for extensions is a pain.

Mostly just used WP for blogging in the past but, have been recently exploring it’s CMS capabilities. I think it’s a very good solution for non-techie clients that need to update multiple sections of their site.

Hi – which CMS is most Flash/Actionscript friendly ? I have used Drupal, but found it difficult to deploy AS3 based navigation system due to byzantine nature of Drupal theme subsystem.

I’m building a site for a basketball team. They want to be able to add game recaps, photos, news stories, game stats, all on the fly. They want to be able to add an image and a story to go with it. The image would be in a slideshow on the homepage.

What CMS out there can be able to do this? Any on this list?

Thanks,
Daniel

I used EE for three months now and I LOVE IT!
Custom Fields, Custom Status…it just sooo great

Take a look at the EE 2.0 Preview Video.

I use drupal %100 and LOVE it… but I will say that it is really frustrating to learn and un-user-friendly out of the package Once you learn it though, it practically has no limit with what you can do.

I used joomla a lot when I was first learning web development… and I liked it because I could just throw in a plugin and voila I had a new neat feature… but it is TERRIBLE to customize and theme. It has probably improved a lot since I last played with it.

I have not used wordpress really at all, but I think that it is quite an awesome cms. It has a much prettier backend than drupal (damn you! *shakes fist*) and caters from beginner devs to the very experienced! I would like to learn it someday because sometimes drupal is a bit TOO robust for small sites.

@Daniel, you can definitely do that with drupal! cck and views modules will handle that for you and allow you to re-purpose content throughout the site

Is this list just for PHP/Python CMSs?

I’m loving Umbraco at the moment. It’s fast, powerful, and has a passionate developer community to go to for help.

I use dbCanvas for my hosted cms sites. Its has a lot of elbow room for developers and is easy as hell to skin. (http://www.dbcanvas.com)

WP is rightly on No.1 spot. it can be used in various ways these days, it’s truly a platform that is modular – CMS of the future.

As a web developer, I have yet to find something that WordPress can not do, but for a beginner wanting a CMS, it might be better to try something like GetSimple CMS (http://get-simple.info/).

I have yet to see much of anything about Concrete5 on nettuts…for SHAME. I guess its my cue to create a tutorial and submit it

Interesting that TYPO3 didn’t make the list since it powers some very high profile companies like http://webex.com

Just a little information correction:

Drupal’s website is Drupal.org.

Drupal.com is operated by Dries, who created Drupal and is the project leader, but the .com site is not where the CMS lives.

Concrete is definitely something worth considering for this list. I actually wrote a “first look” post about it on my blog, might be worth reading as an introduction:

http://webandyou.avelient.com/2009/07/16/first-look-concrete-5-cms/

Otherwise a great list…certainly introduced me to some CMSs out there that I hadn’t ever considered before! Thanks!

I wonder if no one has ever heard of Contenido? … it’s OpenSource
I use it a lot and I was never disappointed.

Check it out at http://www.contenido.org, if you want

Short, good article on how to choose a CMS:

http://www.r42.ca/r42-blog/October-2008/How-to-choose-a-Content-Management-System

to select one CMS above another will be debateable all the time, coz everyone have its reason to use a CMS. But I appreciate your posting because of many good comments on it.

sure i have to bookmark this article to visit it and its comments later

Can anybody tell how is dotnetnuke??

Wait, Joomla?!
That’s a horrendous CMS that should be destroyed as soon as possible. For all the claims that it is very flexible and stuff, it’s a horrendous piece of software in comparison with Drupal, Wordpress and the sort. It’s ugly, not user friendly (the installation might be, but the rest is certainly not) and it’s damn slow. Not to even start on the complications when you try and add pretty URLs to the system. Eurgh.

You forgot CMS’es that should certainly be there. FrogCMS – madebyfrog.com
concrete5, symphony, Firerift (just been released, absolutely fantastic), tyop3, modx….

This most certainly isn’t the top 10 most usable content management systems, but merely the most widely used and available. Having a million extensions to hand means absolutely nothing about the CMS itself, in fact, it could possibly mean that the core is so basic, that developers have had to make tons of extensions to meet their needs.

Of course, it’s not fair to say you are wrong, because you may have never explored the other options, but as you can see from the replies, it is quite clear that this is a very dubious list. Before you can list something like that, more options must be explored.

No Typo3, but Wordpress….lol lol lol!

In my opinion Typo3 is one of the best Open Source cms, in Europe its the biggest one. And don’t forget the next version, with the next generation php framework flow3 and Typo3 5.0.

maybe now that people believe that one system is better than another we can have some screen casts here on nettuts. Id like to see some screen-casts going over the install process and theming of joomla drupral, Expression Engine and MODx.

I prefer wordpress because of the plugins. I have found a few very resourceful stat plugins that give me information that exceeds google analytics.

thx – 10 is better than 365 – this my impression looking at CMS – for each day of the year one CMS.

In my opinion, I prefer Wordpress because it’s definitely the best to install, to edit, to install plugins and so on. It has the best folder structure, easy to find files inside its folders. Create a theme for WordPress is easier than every CMS I’ve ever used.
For me, this top 10 is absolutely correct.

i like the joomla , coz its best and lots of feature is missing in wordpress , well wordpress is still for blog whatever people say “not a blog – its cms” im familiar with both of one but i feel more friendly in joomla

Well, Word press is useless when u download it. It’s just a blog and if u want to turn it into a reasonable website then u will have to tweak it to hell. Didn’t use drupe a lot, but when I did I thought it was some kinda user unfriendly

Very Nice article. Please also list Top 10 Social Bookmarking PHP Scripts. I mean open source web applications for starting social bookmarking sites.

Doooh, you forgot to mention the BIGACE Web CMS

sorry to echo the other comments, but here goes:

modx is missing from the list !!

it really should be in the top.

I’ve bookmarked quite a few new cms mentioned in the comments…

Keep in mind that the more popular something is, the easier it will be to find help with that particular system. Although if it’s so easy you don’t need support, well that’s the type of interface that every cms should aim for (the ones for clients anyway). Good discussion, just remember to use the right tool for the job. Sometimes you may just want to build a complex application for yourself, in which case usability becomes a bit less important.

I was not impressed with Joomla at all. I am pretty loyal to WordPress. The additional plug-ins greatly increase its functionality. I have not worked with Drupal or any of the others as of yet.

One of my clients keeps asking me if I could use Joomla. I haven’t ever used Joomla but am using wordpress at the moment and I just love it! Now I just need to find a way to convince my client to use wordpress

I am not sure about Drupal being usable, but Wordpress is very userfriendly, apart from that there is also stuff like Texty which aim to be ‘the beginners CMS’. I am in agreement that Joomla is one of the best cms out there, but I see wordpress is more popular.

You shouldn’t use the term “usable” if you don’t really talk about “usability.” From a UI/usability standpoint, Drupal is at the bottom of the heap. You’re also generating some confusion as to whether you are ranking the software or just making an arbitrary list.

The list is indeed arbitrary, full of apples and oranges. What is a “content management system?” Wordpress and Textpattern are blogs with very limited layout control without getting into deep theming complexity. They do basic semantic, SEO page content very well. Alfresco is a document manager. Drupal does content management and much more out of the box. Joomla is an application framework with basic content management functionality until you add more.

One big correction: “However, the Joomla theme and extension community relies more on paid plugins and themes, so if you’re looking for customizations, be ready to pay.”

The mass-majority of Joomla extensions are free of charge. Joomla has more good free templates than Drupal, and fewer than Wordpress. All three have great commercial themes, and Joomla templates are the least expensive. With Drupal it is necessary to pay for quality, and it will cost $500-1000 per theme. Wordpress, $70-100. Joomla templates are generally sold as part of club memberships–access to all templates for 3 mos, 6 mos, a year… So you get more for less.

In really happy to see Silverstripe on this list. I’ve tried Wordpress and loved it and when i wanted to use another CMS Drupal and Joomla were far to confusing.

Silverstripe is fast, easy and robust. best of all it has a full set of tutorials to get you started.

http://doc.silverstripe.com/doku.php?id=tutorial:1-building-a-basic-site

My usage:

1. ModX – 90% of the sites
2. Wordpress – 8%
3. Frog Cms – 2%

We have recently started to use Silverstripe and I must say that the core is very cleverly thought out, making it ideal when building midsized web sites. As a designer it´s easy to build templates.

The cons is that the documentation is lagging a bit and the people behind Silverstripe doesn´t respond that quickly to questions on their forum. Some of the code doesnt follow the rules they have set up. But it is surely a promising platform and we will keep using it.

i love wordpress but i want to use less RAM.
Or have a light version, only core, and expand with plugins o modules if you need more features.
And official plugin for ad real CMS functionality

Whether you like Glen’s lists or not they always bring an assortment of interesting comments. From the comment gallery I will certainly check out MODx

Thanks Glen and everyone!

I’ve been working on Wordpress, and I’m not sure what you all mean by “hacking” – for me, rewriting code or adding plugins isn’t “hacking”, it’s work. We’re web designers, not Facebook users. I’ve been able to get Wordpress to do just about anything I’ve wanted it to do.

This design community suffers a lot from SEO marketing. It seems no one can have a calm conversation without using words like “absolutely astoundingly brilliant” to describe things. Nothing we’re talking about is either astounding or brilliant. None of it. Good, sure. Great, sometimes. But not astoundingly brilliant. No.

Nice post. Silverstripe is my favorite CMS by far. I use it for everything these days.

For the ‘10 Most Usable CMS’ I don’t really get why Joomla and Drupal are rated so highly. Yes they are good content management systems but there is a big learning curve for both them. I have had to coach the majority of clients to use both Joomla and Drupal. I have only had a to coach a handful of clients to use Wordpress.

Have anyone tried the Roxen CMS ?

Nice Blogggg
Nicee PosT

ThankS 1000 !!!

Nice post, however, just like a lot of these best of lists, it lacks a comparison. Which features are present in the one which in the other etc..
This would make the list more objective.

Don’t get me wrong being a negative.. Just being sharp

I’m currently working as a developer on OpenCMS and i’m very glad not to see it in this list…it’s one of the worst pains in the ass i’ve ever experienced.

I’m another one that always use ModX and really surprise that not many article mention about how easy and flexible it it.

I still don’t get why Wordpress and Joomla are so popular. I’ve used both and can’t stand either. I personally have switched to only using Textpattern because I feel it’s the best and easiest for granular control (i.e. the fact that I’m a control freak).

nice to hear that there’s a lot of good CMS..
thanks for the post!

i love joomla

“Hi – which CMS is most Flash/Actionscript friendly ?”

The only cms I have experience integrating with Flash is EE, and it’s super-easy. Just make a template that builds XML instead of HTML and do the typical XML request in Actionscript. I want to come up with a good way to do remoting to EE, but haven’t had the time.

Wow, the comments are heavily recommending Modx! When i didn’t see Modx in the article, i was second guessing my decision to learn it. Now that i see the overwhelming support in the comments, i’m glad i made my decision. Modx is truly great!

Plone is definitely the best. I don’t know why it hasn’t been mentioned at all…

I was really shocked as I saw this list and didn’t find ModX!!! Then I began reading the comments and the pain has gone =P…when the autor doesn’t know the best CMS/CMF around, it’s not that worse, as long as the community does know where to go!!!

Joomla and Wordpress, of course…

No Website Baker? I think overall for clients this is the best to present to them very easy to learn or am I just biased?

There is no way any of these systems can even compare to wordpress. You have thousands of excellent, customizable plugins ready at your fingertips. They’ve won the race for a very long time. Great read up, Brilliant!

Interesting post but seems to be a very narrow view.

1. End-user (ie author, editor) usability is more important than developer usability. Some of the CMSs you quote are just awful.

2. The review fails to consider any CMSs that you need to pay for. I think you’ll find that most on this list fall well short of some of the commercial platforms.

Silverstripe isn’t really that usuable! I was also infected by this whole energy that was going around this CMS, but it definitly disappointed me. For me as a designer SS is a disaster. Since i am not into OOP or huge PHP Frameworks, i am still not able to set up a normal formular with e-mail validation und spam protection without heavy knowledge of OOP in SilverTripe.

Also the Community isnt really growing anymore and some basic features most CMS offer aren’t implemented yet into SS, like Mass-Delete of Comments or different Language Packs.

Well some people even consider WP as a CMS
Of course it can be pulled of with some plugins, hacks and some bending.

So very surprised to see the number 1 blogging tool on top of a CMS list

As someone who’s relatively new to content management systems this has been a great read! I wasn’t aware just how many options there are out there, and certainly not the capabilities of each. I recognise well-known CMS’s like ‘Wordpress’ and ‘Joomla!’, but believed these were only for blogging; I’ll now be looking into these options closer!

A basic option not listed is Adobe’s own ‘Contribute’, which integrates with Dreamweaver and other Creative Suite packages. I’ve had quite a bit of experience using this, and found it useful for simple user requirements like updating text only on set pages. It also has inbuilt settings that only allow the user to update only certain areas of a page, and completely restricts them from accidentally editing the coding – very useful when dealing with customers who do not have any web skills!

I’ll be looking into these more advanced options, they seem to be very powerful! Reading the comments on each has been an interesting insight into how everyone works, would anyone like to recommend the best (and most user friendly!) package for a beginner?

oh it’s amazing…
joomla… drupal…

are you all crazy!!!!!???!??!

create you own cms!

this post (from Glen Stansberry) looks like a small comment vs. yours comments!!!

#1 = Drupal

I agree that the initial learning curve is a bit steep & maybe even steeper than others. But that’s mostly due to the (initially-foreign) terminology. However, once you wrap your brain around it, lightbulbs start going off left & right in your head due to its near-infinite possibilities & extensibility. There’s not one project that Drupal hasn’t been a good answer for, no matter simplicity or complexity. The admin_menu module really cleans up that clunky interface. Try the Acquia Drupal install if you’d like even more functionality out-of-the-box. Lastly, Drupal 7 code freeze just happened so new (& vastly improved, especially from a UI perspective) version should be out in a few months.

Not all CMSes are everything to everyone & different crowds (end users, content authors, devs, designers, etc.) will have differing viewpoints. But whichever CMS you choose, you’re going to have to invest *some* time into learning its system, backend, etc.

A few years ago, I went to cmsmatrix.org & after nearly a full year of testing almost every listing, I chose Drupal & am glad I did. WP is #1 for blogging but calling it a full-blown CMS (out the box) is a bit of a stretch. Joomla is a pain to work with & good luck spending countless hours trying to figure out how to get clean URLs working. That said, Drupal is more of a CMF (Framework) due to its vast extensibility.

Here’s 3 CMSes that should be on this list:
1) ModX = ease of use & extensibility (great call, commenters
2) Plone = great CMS but since it’s Python-based, easily overlooked
3) MovableType = really powerful & PERL-based which makes its codebase easy to read & very clean (again, since its based on PERL, easily overlooked)

I would NEVER use a Microsoft-based CMS as I hate bloated, proprietary technology that’s so easily outclassed by its competitors (besides, IIS sucks!).

Good starter article but more apple-to-apple comparisons would be useful. However, the comments are a goldmine & shows the variety that is the nettuts readership.

After reading about all the support for MODx, I decided to check it out. I came across an amazing set of tutorials at http://codingpad.maryspad.com/beginner-tutorials/ and all I can say is OH WOW!!!

MODx is like the missing link between Wordpress and Drupal.

It surprised me to see Wordpress as the number 1 here, but that has come up in several conversations over the past week, so I guess it really shouldn’t be that amazing to me.

Thanks for condensing this. Quite helpful.

I have not used any of the tools mentioned in the article for web development, but I am familiar with most of them. I arrived at this site in a competitive search for content management tools (what the article refers to as ECM), i.e., managing business content from audio files to videos to text documents and spreadsheets. I think it would be helpful if we differentiated between the broader concept of content management and the more focused concept of web content management (WCM?). They really do have very different purposes. It was a confusing to read the article from this point of view, because the tools are not all aligned in their focus. It would also have been useful if the author had clearly defined the type of content management that was being reviewed and then the criteria that was used to rate each tool. I think this would have helped commenters focus their responses as well.

wordpress still number 1 for blog very userfriendly.

Joomla is so 2005. How is its sloppy, table-based output anything but unusable?

Personally, I’m having a hard time imagining needing anything besides Wordpress and MODx.

Also, isn’t Alfresco in the ECM market? I thought of it more of a Sharepoint alternative. I guess technically it’s a CMS but then again so is Sharepoint, and that’s pretty darn usable (excruciating to design for, but extaordinarily simple to use).

I hated Drupal, it had too many features that I didn’t need and got in the way. I couldn’t find anything in the admin panel, and designing templates for it was a nightmare.

To echo all those who have said it already…no Concrete5? Since finding Concrete5, I have used it on every site I have built. This article needs a part 2 with Concrete5 on the list

CMSMADESIMPLE!! and have you guys seen http://digitaluscms.com/ looks promising!

Joomla is by far non developer friendly it’s very hard to do what you really want and you need to hack many core and module files for that.
Drupal is much much more friendly if you mess with codes. Template system really owns Joomla.

Only way i can see people saying that Joomla is better could be because it easier for noobs to setup website, but if you want something highly customised it sux.

HI EVERYBODY!! PLEASE READ!!!
Sorry for yelling, but there are so many comments I guess nobody is reading anymore…

I’m a web developer and I’m looking for a CMS. I tried (a very little) WordPress, SilverStripe, Drupal and now I just installed ModX.

I need to build very customizable sites (for clients). Usually I develop in Dreamweaver or Aptana, but I need a CMS and I’m having problems for “translating” my development from Photoshop /HTML to a CMS Theme.

This is what I think
WordPress: TOO blog oriented and the Theme part is not easy either
Drupal: Too big, I think my clients will feel lost (obviously i could teach them)
SilverStripe: Really like it, but it’s extreamly slow and I think is not really very customizable, like adding content in side bars, etc.
ModX : just trying now.

I think I will try Drupal, any comments? The main feature I want is to be able to create side bars and other “areas” where the user can add their own content. I think this is possible with Drupal, am I right?

MANY THANKS!!!

please….e107.org is way better than any of these

oh yes… you al crazy…

I will try ModX, sounds interesting…

We are currently working on our Joomla! 1.6 Framework release, Nay-Sayers be warned it is going to change many ideas about what a CMS should be

-J JED Core Team Member
-J Dev Team Member
-J S&I Team Member

What about Roxen? Has anybody used that CMS… and no mention of Alfresco… curious

You forgot CMSMS or CMSMadeSimple!

For 2 years in a row, it is on the list for Packt Publishing’s CMS evaluations, how could that be missed or not looked at?

Well I guess I can jump in on this…

I personally use Wordpress for the majority of my sites due to it’s unbelievable simplicity.

However, I have tried Joomla and Drupal for quite some time.

Here are my ratings:

Drupal – Most Powerful and Easily Customizable CMS ever developed.
Joomla – Is the Second Best CMS.
Wordpress – The Most Powerful Blogging Platform and the Third best platform for CMS.

CMS:
1. Drupal
2. Joomla
3. Wordpress

Blogging:
1. Wordpress
2. Drupal and Joomla (Just because they are both way ahead of the competition and they both can be used as a Blog out of the box.

Where’s e107?

As there are lots of options regarding management systems, I think people have to be informed.
I’ve been searching for documents about management and I found this site: Yellow documents.
Cheers,
Dean

What about ezPublish? An un-sung hero of Web CMSs

Can anyone show me a couple of sites that are running MODx CMS?

I’d like to know if I can take my own PSD design, code it, then install MODx. I don’t want to use a template. I hate it when I’m limited in design.

Some MODx pro please inform me.

Joomla is most Popular and User friendly and mostly using

Most usable and most popular is not always the same thing, wordpress got the top spot here with the remark “it is the most popular, what is there more to say”. But the fact remains that wordpress is bloated and slow compared to many other blogging platforms. I agree that wordpress is very usable and it is quite good but it is too much to give it the place of “most usable cms”.

What about Pixie? That’s really user friendly!

Another hand raised for MODx !!!

Dot CMS is very powerful CMS, and I think that wort saying.

And what about CMS made simple?

Drupal and Joomla cannot compare with the new generation of CMS: Modx, Silverstripe, Expression Engine.

Why don’t we create a poll and put some votes in?

Joomla….

like a friend of mine said once: “the only thing thats missing is the “World Peace extension” they already have all others

I think it’s so funny how people show case a CMS by linking to sites that use it. Not much help really, given that it’s the admin interface in a CMS that makes the difference, if you take it as a given that you can do whatever you want with the front (let’s face it, any CMS that doesn’t let you do that is going to leave you with sore shins and elbows).

Someone mentioned how hard it was to manage content in multiple taxonomies – we’ve been using Infomaxim for a while now for sites like http://www.gadgetguy.com.au and it’s flexibility is outstanding… just a thought – not always the best is the most well know…

Thanks for the condensed article and also all the comments …

In terms of flexibility and usability, we’ve been using Infomaxim now for two years. Managing content that lives in multiple taxonomies? No problem. Versioning, roll back, granular permissions, integrated analytics, a reporting tool with drag and drop config, content manage any database you want, add your own fields on the fly without knowing SQL, your database or having to modify the back end… it just works. These guys have been quietly beavering away at this for 10 years now and it’s amazing more people don’t know about it. Frankly, their marketing sux, but the product is very cool.

I’m surprised to see Joomla and Drupal on this list. From what I’ve seen, the learning curve tends to be pretty steep.

What about Compass CMS?
http://www.compasswebpublisher.com

Joomla is EVIL!

modxcms.com should be on there.