This is the third part of a ten part series called; Building Your Own Website. This part will deal with CMS – Content Management Systems. As always the focus will be on simplicity and cost efficiency.

Please see the Preface for the directory.

The most important thing you need to keep in mind when choosing a CMS is that depending on your choice you may need to be self-hosted (see my tutorial on hosts). You will also want to have some idea of the size and scale of your planned website as certain CMS’s better suit larger sites.

I will focus only on free and self-hosted software.

Choosing a CMS

Let’s have a look at some of the better known CMS’s.

WordPress – Started as blogging software, WordPress has exploded into a full on CMS in recent years. I very happily use it for all of my sites. I the case of my art gallery site I use WordPress along with bbPress (forum software by the same folks as WordPress and ZenPhoto gallery software. WordPress has an extremely helpful support forum and well established community. Recently it has introduced an instant upgrade feature that has saved me a lot of headaches. More than anything, though, I get the sense that the folks behind it are very dedicated to it’s continual improvment.

Joomla!

No matter which of these you choose you will not go wrong. Most people who swear by their CMS have never tried another. The most important thing is to spend a little time getting a feel for each system and to go with the one that best suits your criteria.