When WordPress is not enough: Real CMS power required
WordPress is probably the most popular blogging software for bloggers worldwide, but sometimes, we may have bigger ideas requiring bigger features than WordPress can possibly handle. That includes all the other blog scripts as well. Sometimes, we may not want to “blog.” In fact, some of us may not be interested in that whole blogging thing at all. That is when you may need a dedicated CMS (Content Management System) script.
For instance, WordPress is not good at publishing different forms of content and displaying it in predefined sections, easily and quickly. More importantly, WordPress is not adept at managing a community. This lack of depth extends beyond just the templating aspect. Although there is more awareness of WordPress’ potential beyond just blogging, it makes a poor version if compared side by side with a pure CMS.
Sure, you can hire out a good and expensive programmer to create a custom theme that won’t look anything remotely resembling a blog, modify the code a great deal, and end up with something decent, but couldn’t you accomplish the same with a free Open Source CMS system?
This dilemma of choice is being played out every single day, thousands of times. Web developers who want to switch systems, old timers who want to switch from HTML to PHP, publishers who want to upgrade/downgrade their sites…..and so forth.
I used to be one of these, but guess what – I’m still asking the same questions… 
WordPress powers small to large blogs very well indeed. It was meant to do that. This site showcases many well designed WordPress sites, but…. I couldn’t help noticing that none were really complex sites.
Now, here’s a Textpattern showcase site, to compare. In fairness, Textpattern was never a pure blog system, but a true type CMS with blogging functions.
Can WordPress run a newspaper site? Here’s an example of WordPress running as a newspaper site.
Hmmm, good effort with WordPress, but this is something Drupal was expressly designed for (LIME is a Drupal powered site).
WordPress still has potential in becoming a more powerful CMS over time, but there are also valid arguments why some webmasters would choose one of the CMS scripts over WordPress. The way I see it, there is a limit to WordPress and what it can do, even though it’s currently well able to go beyond normal blogging functions. Maybe in future developments?
There are so many good Open Source CMS systems, (and commercial ones too), that it is almost impossible to find the “best one.” Amongst the free Open Source CMS’s, Joomla and Drupal are by far the most familiar faces. In fact, Drupal was the overall winner of the recent Open Source CMS Award, while Joomla picked up the best Open Source PHP CMS award. As for the best commercial CMS, I’m guessing it might be Expression Engine.
How about the http://www.expressandstar.com online newspaper website. Recently attracted attention from Matt Mullenweg who regarded it as the best WordPress newspaper website.
We, as a department of the parent company, created it, and have just re-launched the Shropshire Magazine ( http://www.shropshiremagazine.com ), again completely powered by WordPress.
We’ve very happy with it. But would still be open to something else, depending on the project though.
Thanks! Yours is the best example I have seen YET of any WordPress news/magazine site. Only thing though, it shows up as left aligned on my browser.
This is the kind of site I want to see WordPress being able to do, being too much a WordPress lover as it is. One question, did it take a lot of modifications to the code? I am one of those hoping for WordPress development to head in the direction of a full-fledged CMS.
Be careful when choosing a CMS. Although Joomla and Mambo are very good CMS, you gotta make sure that it will fit your needs in the long run.
I’ve had several bad experiences with Joomla. After my clients had been using Joomla for sometime, they wanted to add this and that to their website. So I tweaked Joomla a little. Now they wanted another feature for which there wasn’t any Joomla plugin. So I modified Joomla some more. And then came time for a Joomla security fix. Oh! the pain! So I needed to install a fresh copy of Joomla, reimport all the content and modify the source code again!
So my point is, if a CMS does the job for you “out-of-the-box”, then fine. But you should avoid tweaking it to death cause eventually you won’t be able upgrade it anymore.
Drupal actually ranks as a better CMS to me, compared to Joomla, but Joomla’s templating aspect is a lot better. Thanks for the reminder on Joomla, it can be a beast. Even Textpattern is not easy to change around the look, because of having to change the core templating codes each time you want to add a new template. Lately, I have started to become hooked on playing around with all kinds CMS scripts again. I am planning to do a project which I don’t think WordPress is suited for and choosing the right CMS for the job will probably take a while…
Ultiately whatever CMS/CRM that someone chooses would come down to their needs. Stating the obvious, you do have a validated argument.
when we evaluated joomla vs. drupal, we initially chose joomla because of its intuitive user interface and ability to be internationalized. we do, however, consider drupal to be more flexible and scalable.
I like joomla because it’s got a huge online community, thousands of plugins/modules/components and easy to create templates. I find the admin intuitive but perhaps not the easiest for training non tech savvy clients to use. Drupals main strength for me is in user management & acls, otherwise Joomla wins as OS CMS for me.
I prefer Joomla because it’s more intuitive, ability to be internationalized, and you can find a lot of plugins and components. For users, after 2 or 3 hours of learning, they can create menu and articles. And a lot of templates are available if you don’t know how to create one.
I wish I had a cool blog like yours. I would love to start one myself with Wordpress but I’m affraid I’d give it up too soon ^^’
The example links you give are excellent. I would never have guessed the newspaper site was powered by WordPress, though I have to admit the Drupal site was better looking.
It is true that WordPress doesn’t do complex sites very well, but that may not be such a bad thing. I take the view that complexity can drive first-time visitors away.
Taking all things into consideration, I think most people looking to build a web presence would be better off using Site Build It (just follow the link above, on the right hand side of this page).
Ben
Its true that WP is no where close to a CMS like Drupal or Joomla but then it is not menant to be a full fledged CMS, the examples you showed def. makes WP looks bad in front of lime.com which is powered by Drupal but to get Drupal looking like that requires extensive redesign also.
i am using wordpress some time now and i don’t quite agree with what you are saying. i use wordpress for my clients because of the easy to use control pannel , and have never had a problem with the design/cms functionality of wordpress. I’m not saying wordpress is better than drupal or joomla , no , but for ease of use wordpress stands out. That’s my opinion anyway!
Hi Eugen,
Yes, nowadays WordPress can be used to layout a magazine style site, but back when I posted this, it was not that popular an idea, and there were very few themes with “magazine style.”
I can’t believe all these crappy sites popping up with magazine style themes &c. . I can’t still tell there wordpress themes.
Search on Google “photoshop tutorials”. I think tutorialized.com is the only one in the top 10 not running wordpress.What happened to the good unique sites that are customized programmed? To me it just no say talent, and that the site is run by someone who doesn’t anything about programming. Myself I programmed my own CMS after I couldn’t find anything that suited my needs. But it did take me prior 2 years to learn PHP.
@ Keldorn
LOL, yeah you have a point. A few years ago, there were very few WordPress magazine sites, but today…phew! Does make you feel a little old generation doesn’t it, learning and building your own CMS? That is still something to be proud of.
I use to love wordpress and thought it was the best, but when I got my hands on Drupal, everything changed. I think it has a steeper learning curve, took me a good 2 to 3 months to get the hang of it and program my own theme. All I can say is, download Drupal and get the Views and CCK addons and you’ll be amazed. Since I found out about them, I haven’t touched Wordpress and until your try Drupal for a month or two you just can’t comprehend how much better it is than Wordpress. As you can tell I am a bit of a Drupal fanboy
Drupal is by far the best CMS I’ve ever used, it took me a while to learn though but the time was worth it. Its perfect for all types of sites but I must admit Wordpress is miles ahead for blogging.
Does WP have plans to be able to handle communities in the near future?
-jack
Agreed WordPress is not adept at managing a community, but you can easilly use some different system which you don’t need to instal on your sewer. I prefer ning.com. Thanks for the link to the open sources CMS.
Drupal is by far the best CMS I’ve ever seen.Its perfect for all types of sites but I must admit Wordpress is miles ahead for blogging. Thank you for the post.
Have any of you ever used Semiologic Pro? It’s an seo-friendly platform that takes Wordpress to another level of usability. It’s not an open source modality (sadly) but it certainly possesses the functionality and more of some of the best high-end CMS’s around.
I know that when I worked as an SEO consultant for Yellow Pages Online, we commissioned the application of a Wordpress blog to be the platform for an article directory website we were building. It had to be so customised that it ended up suffering more ‘breaks’ than a 90-year-old anorexic falling off a ladder!
The plug-ins were the worst. Oh, well, the equal worst if I want to be pedantic…because right up there with the plug-in fragilities were the issues around duplicate content caused by the multiple category urls.
The worst thing about Wordpress – security! no one seems to mention the fact that if you integrate wordpress into your website you open an entirely new door for hackers to get in and it seems quite easy. know someone who has been hacked twice, lost his blog and the whole site! Overall, there are better blogging sytsems out there but for a commrecial site, I would recommend building your own bespoke blog!
Excellent article thanks for all the resources, I have a feeling this five minute break may drag on a little whilst I look through the links you provided, cheers. I’ve been using an intergrated wordpress blog for the best part of a year now and haven’t had any problems thus far, I really like the plugins I have found too, I do like drupal as well. Thanks again for the info
I has made on Joomla few different sites. This is big news site when posted every day TV and Newspaper information. Also made small toy-shop for my friend . My blog about CMS Joomla. I think that I can do all.