Been there. Some of the custom CMS apps we’ve used are literally five years behind the curve. They’re always “working on” some “new” features for the “next release”. When you suggest an open-source software (preferably WordPress), some people snicker and say “but we paid ten grand for this!” Hugely expensive automatically means good to some people. I’ll stick with WordPress.
I switched from my own home rolled CMS to WordPress back in 1492 with Columbus, and I haven’t looked back. Honestly, WordPress provides a great platform for external development and despite the ‘update’ that they posted I think that its one of the better CMSes available. It does what I need plus so much more.
i’m currently thinking what exactly differs those “common” CMS with WordPress. Many of my friends asked me about this when I decided to move my focus from DragonflyCMS to wordpress
I firmly believe that CMSes are the new text editors– every geek seems to want to create their own.
Whenever a geek tells me that they are writing their own CMS, or thinking of doing so, I tell them that they probably don’t have anything worthwhile to say. If they did have something to say, they would install one of the numerous CMSes freely available (always directing them to WordPress first) and start creating content immediately.
I’ll have you know that I have one some new users for WP using this argument. 🙂
Andrew, I would read the article’s comments, but the ZDNet comment system is horrible to try and read, and even more frustrating to try and respond to. That is the largest reason, why I tend not to even read articles on ZDNet.
Mr_Andrew comment there of “tying your business to a 3rd-party CMS is risky at best, disastrous at worst” is absurd, and doesn’t follow the evidence in the software industry and most other industries. A more sensible expression would be “tying our business to a customized system with one or few experts is risky at best, disastrous at worst, unless you are the developer and then it is great for job security”
I hear that a lot of people who earn their salt selling Linux services work on customization / security for corporations.
Seems to me that’s the way to head with WP: since it’s such a rock solid blog platform (I’ll spare you my standard rant about that sad excuse for an editor.) it only makes sense to extend and optimize ala “Pure Code Alternative to Plugins” … get bbPress and MPMU into the mix …
What I’m looking at right now is along the lines of “How to choose between Drupal and WP, and why that question is wrong in soooooo many ways”.
” … you will be suprised how many sites are powered by WordPress that look nothing like what you are used to seeing in WordPress powered sites, these sites look nothing like blogs or your average cookie cutter themed site, these sites have been tweaked […] So this is the first post of many to come where i will feature such sites …”
I actually wrote a CMS once, but only because writing the CMS was actually easier than trying to integrate an existing CRM with an existing multi-thousand page site. And believe me, I tried. Static pages stayed, and all new pages were in the new CMS… and from a visitor’s standpoint, both types of pages (Static and CRM) had to look & feel the same. (We didn’t have the manpower to convert all existing static pages to CMS pages, so we got creative.) Plus, we have dual navigation (country and topic), which no other CMS seemed to be able to support. So a custom CMS was the only solution there.
But almost all new sites I build use either WordPress or Drupal or parts of the custom CMS I built.
I do have to say, for a new website or blog, and existing Blog/CMS like WordPress or Drupal is so much easier to use. I have to agree, existing solutions, in most cases, are the way to go.
Why do things the simple way when you can make it “better”? ;P
Anyway, I recommend WP to friends, and drupal to companies. But when it comes to me – I like my hand-coded PHP framework the best. That way while it might not be the easiest way – It is WAY faster (minus extra WP/Drupal features) and I can improve my knowledge and make something new at the same time.
It all comes down to who will be using it and what the needs are. (and if they IT guy knows what PHP means). If you want the knowledge and experience – building a CMS is a lot of fun. But if you are a company, go with the tried and true.
After all, no need to jump from one opinion extreme to the other – they all have their target use.
Mr. Dignan is seriously naive; he’s the perfect example of someone who only understands the extent of his writing an article and it magically appearing on a website.
While WP can be used as a CMS (which is how I personally use it), it lacks the strength to replace an actual enterprise level CMS as would be required by ZDNet.
Honestly, I’ve worked with more CMS than I can remember names of. PHPNuke (shutter), Joomla, Drupal, PHP UPdate, Fuzzy CMS, Subdreamer – and while each of these have something great to offer, the bottom line is WordPress does generally the same thing, only better.
The only complaint I have is the inability to integrate PHPBB with WP. I know that there is the ‘SimpleForum’ plugin for it, but PHPBB has a lot to offer … if there was a good way to get the user data from WP to the forums or visa versa, WP would be unstoppable in my mind.
Andrew – The company I work for run about 4 or 5 very popular websites with WordPress and get around 20k hits a month. If that guy was slowing down dramatically at 800 there is something wrong with his server or his site an dI doubt highly that it’s WP’s fault.
I am a teacher in the NYC and the DOE uses a CMS to power their websites and the individual websites for each school. I was asked to build the Website for my school Harry S Truman HS and I immediately turned to WordPress (I use it on EVERY blog/site that I run except 1) and set up our site. After it was completed, I went to the training to learn how to use the DOE CMS for the city-hosted Truman site, and I said to the trainer- “why not use WordPress instead of this program”. I was told that they never heard of WordPress. I laughed because how can a programmer be that closed-off to the different programs already offered? And to be honest, the CMS that the city uses IS clunky and unnecessarily congested. I wish I could give you an inside look, but if I don’t lose my job over this comment, I would definitely lose it over that.
“At ZDNet we use WordPress for blogs…”
You’re the man Matt! 😉
Doesn’t is a CMS WP??
Been there. Some of the custom CMS apps we’ve used are literally five years behind the curve. They’re always “working on” some “new” features for the “next release”. When you suggest an open-source software (preferably WordPress), some people snicker and say “but we paid ten grand for this!” Hugely expensive automatically means good to some people. I’ll stick with WordPress.
I switched from my own home rolled CMS to WordPress back in 1492 with Columbus, and I haven’t looked back. Honestly, WordPress provides a great platform for external development and despite the ‘update’ that they posted I think that its one of the better CMSes available. It does what I need plus so much more.
WORDPRESS RULES!
I think that is a good way to sum it up in 2 words?! Otherwise one could write a book on why it is the best 😉
Juanpa – that is some stunning english there! 😉
I’m really sorry… I’m from Argentina, and here we don’t speak english. Our primary language is spanish…
Thank you
i’m currently thinking what exactly differs those “common” CMS with WordPress. Many of my friends asked me about this when I decided to move my focus from DragonflyCMS to wordpress
I firmly believe that CMSes are the new text editors– every geek seems to want to create their own.
Whenever a geek tells me that they are writing their own CMS, or thinking of doing so, I tell them that they probably don’t have anything worthwhile to say. If they did have something to say, they would install one of the numerous CMSes freely available (always directing them to WordPress first) and start creating content immediately.
I’ll have you know that I have one some new users for WP using this argument. 🙂
WOw!
Take a look to this… http://www.webstandards.org
They use WordPress for the site…
You’re the man Matt!
I love WordPress using as a CMS, just need to get the URL structure sorted (ie. without category-base) and it will be perfect.
“WordPress using” ha, must’ve caught Juanpa’s bug.
Read the article’s comments. A bit more perspective.
…and by comments I mean this.
Andrew, I would read the article’s comments, but the ZDNet comment system is horrible to try and read, and even more frustrating to try and respond to. That is the largest reason, why I tend not to even read articles on ZDNet.
Mr_Andrew comment there of “tying your business to a 3rd-party CMS is risky at best, disastrous at worst” is absurd, and doesn’t follow the evidence in the software industry and most other industries. A more sensible expression would be “tying our business to a customized system with one or few experts is risky at best, disastrous at worst, unless you are the developer and then it is great for job security”
I hear that a lot of people who earn their salt selling Linux services work on customization / security for corporations.
Seems to me that’s the way to head with WP: since it’s such a rock solid blog platform (I’ll spare you my standard rant about that sad excuse for an editor.) it only makes sense to extend and optimize ala “Pure Code Alternative to Plugins” … get bbPress and MPMU into the mix …
What I’m looking at right now is along the lines of “How to choose between Drupal and WP, and why that question is wrong in soooooo many ways”.
p.s. “Powered by WP” reads in part:
I actually wrote a CMS once, but only because writing the CMS was actually easier than trying to integrate an existing CRM with an existing multi-thousand page site. And believe me, I tried. Static pages stayed, and all new pages were in the new CMS… and from a visitor’s standpoint, both types of pages (Static and CRM) had to look & feel the same. (We didn’t have the manpower to convert all existing static pages to CMS pages, so we got creative.) Plus, we have dual navigation (country and topic), which no other CMS seemed to be able to support. So a custom CMS was the only solution there.
But almost all new sites I build use either WordPress or Drupal or parts of the custom CMS I built.
I do have to say, for a new website or blog, and existing Blog/CMS like WordPress or Drupal is so much easier to use. I have to agree, existing solutions, in most cases, are the way to go.
I’ve tried a lot of ’em- WordPress rocks the hardest!
Why do things the simple way when you can make it “better”? ;P
Anyway, I recommend WP to friends, and drupal to companies. But when it comes to me – I like my hand-coded PHP framework the best. That way while it might not be the easiest way – It is WAY faster (minus extra WP/Drupal features) and I can improve my knowledge and make something new at the same time.
It all comes down to who will be using it and what the needs are. (and if they IT guy knows what PHP means). If you want the knowledge and experience – building a CMS is a lot of fun. But if you are a company, go with the tried and true.
After all, no need to jump from one opinion extreme to the other – they all have their target use.
Mr. Dignan is seriously naive; he’s the perfect example of someone who only understands the extent of his writing an article and it magically appearing on a website.
While WP can be used as a CMS (which is how I personally use it), it lacks the strength to replace an actual enterprise level CMS as would be required by ZDNet.
Honestly, I’ve worked with more CMS than I can remember names of. PHPNuke (shutter), Joomla, Drupal, PHP UPdate, Fuzzy CMS, Subdreamer – and while each of these have something great to offer, the bottom line is WordPress does generally the same thing, only better.
The only complaint I have is the inability to integrate PHPBB with WP. I know that there is the ‘SimpleForum’ plugin for it, but PHPBB has a lot to offer … if there was a good way to get the user data from WP to the forums or visa versa, WP would be unstoppable in my mind.
Andrew – The company I work for run about 4 or 5 very popular websites with WordPress and get around 20k hits a month. If that guy was slowing down dramatically at 800 there is something wrong with his server or his site an dI doubt highly that it’s WP’s fault.
I am a teacher in the NYC and the DOE uses a CMS to power their websites and the individual websites for each school. I was asked to build the Website for my school Harry S Truman HS and I immediately turned to WordPress (I use it on EVERY blog/site that I run except 1) and set up our site. After it was completed, I went to the training to learn how to use the DOE CMS for the city-hosted Truman site, and I said to the trainer- “why not use WordPress instead of this program”. I was told that they never heard of WordPress. I laughed because how can a programmer be that closed-off to the different programs already offered? And to be honest, the CMS that the city uses IS clunky and unnecessarily congested. I wish I could give you an inside look, but if I don’t lose my job over this comment, I would definitely lose it over that.
I love WordPress.