Overview of free CMS for website. Analysis and comparison of CMS for website

 Effective functioning of any website (website for business, online store, or even a business card website), as well as realization of the most advanced and individual tasks, usually depends on the correctly chosen СMS (Content Management System) engine, on which your website is planned to operate

 It is clear, that in order to prefer particular engine, it is necessary to understand benefits and drawbacks of each one of them.

So, below you can find the brief overview of the most powerful and most popular CMS, which are free, and thus the most widely used versions, as a free engine is not a bad engine indeed. This is open-source software, and so there is a possibility to personalize your website to the maximum. After having studied all the obvious advantages and weaknesses of each of them, after studying this article, you will determine without any problems which CMS is the most preferable for the solution of your tasks!

Joomla is a free content management engine. The main peculiarity of this system is in its capability to extent its functionality by means of additional modules, which could be either ready-made and downloaded, or you can write them by yourself.

Joomla`s peculiarity is in the interface, which is rather clear for the user, and capability to adjust to any functional requirements. It perfectly suits business cards websites and business websites.

Advantages of Joomla CMS:

1. Simple and convenient administration
2. All-round, applicable for solution of a plenty of tasks
3. There are a lot of plugins, modules, extensions
4. Simple adding of new modules
5. Variety of free and paid templates
6. Frequent update of the engine itself and additional modules for the website operation
7. The novice user can easily manage the administrative panel of the website

Drawbacks of Joomla CMS:

1. Website performance decreases when very large websites (for instance, if the website is used as online store or blog)
2. It is sensitive to cyber-attacks; additional security settings are required
3. Website promotion process requires careful and fine-tune configuration

All the aforementioned drawbacks can be eliminated.

 Advantages of OpenCart CMS:

1. 1. Open platform
   2. Free
   3. Great and multimedia functionality of this CMS will let you easily customize the online store with regard to your needs
   4. Graphic design of this system impresses with its vast possibilities. One can get there: the number of the website visitors, and the most popular goods, the geographical map, and understanding from which part of the world the purchase is done
   5. Wide range of modules
   6. Different payment options for products are implemented (PayPal, MasterCard, Qiwi, WebMoney, Visa)
   7. Great SEO modules are available
   8. Very popular among the programmers

 Drawbacks of OpenCart CMS:

1. Low interaction characteristics with the user without the additional modules (“duck tapes”)
2. Mostly non-cross-formatted. Suits only online stores or online catalogues
3. Easy to customize, but requires much time and resources

MODx is created by developers for the developers. This engine is very complicated for the common user. It requires strong technical support. The cost of the development on the basis of this engine is quite high.

 Advantages of MODx CMS:

1. Multitasking! Implementation of any type of website: either online store, or web business card is the peculiarity of MODx. Everything depends on the “programmer`s hands.
2. Perfect for SEO promotion, as far as you will never see the duplicates of the pages unless you create them by yourself. No “waffle”, everything is clear and to the point, you will never see any needless lines of code as well.
3. Is completely under your control, of course, if you know how to manage this CMS. Experienced specialists may correct every pixel you do not like.
4. Clean and silent installation to hosting without needless modules and all kinds of additions. Clear kernel is installed.
5. Simple templates. No puzzles, your template is a common html code.

 Drawbacks of MODx CMS:

1. Clear and fine-tune adjustment requires good programming knowledge. But it is quite convenient and simple CMS for further administering.

The majority of IT specialists consider this CMS as the best engine for keeping personal blogs and for the news sites. It is also possible to create the resource intensive sites on its basis, such as online stores, online catalogues, and business websites. It makes short work of the simple business card website.

 Advantages of WordPress CMS:

1. Wide range of free and paid templates, which allows choosing the unique style for your website.
2. Convenient graphic interface of the website management. After the short-term studying you will feel like a duck to waters.
3. Wide range of the ready-made and time proved modules
4. Perfect performance, but definitely with little website content.
5. SEO component will provide good positions in Google and Yandex searches.

 Drawbacks of WordPress CMS:

1. Low speed of click-through, slow images loading. One can even pay no attention to it on the good hosting, due to the fact that this “engine” is very resource intensive, and on the bad hosting the problem will be more remarkable. 
2. Unofficially, hacking is no big deal with regard to this system. Good developers know how to fight such hack attacks.

Drupal content management system differs from the others by very powerful engine, which is able to hold heavy loads.

 Advantages of Drupal CMS:

1. Multitasking performance of this system is impressive. It gives an opportunity to create websites of the whole variety of subjects: from business cards websites to the fully-featured giant online stores.
2. No CMS may be developed without a community. Each module or add-on, in addition to the official documentation, is also tested before being posted on the website.
3. It is considered to be the best among its CMS peers; if your website is intended to be heavily loaded with the visitors, choose Drupal.

 Drawbacks of Drupal CMS::

1. Very complicated for administering; without studying documents a common user will not be able to manage even the simplest tasks.
2. The cost of the websites development on the basis of Drupal is considerably higher
3. Immense load of the server. Requires very powerful equipment from the hosting.
4. No built-in modules for SEO promotion.
5. Requires strong technical support.