HELP - CMS advice needed

[Cache-man]

Hi all,
I am looking for some advice on choosing a Content Management System (CMS) for building a review site.

The site is for a new hardware enthusiasts society that I am setting up at my University (Lincoln), which aims to be able to provide computing support and advice to other students and/or anyone who requests help.

I will also be reviewing various pieces of hardware I am able to obtain too.

I really like this site from what I have seen of late (It is my favourite of the hundreds of sites i have looked at for research over the last month or so), so would like to adopt a similar approach, with a similar forum setup.

I'm not really much good at web design/coding, but am keen to learn in spare time. I have so far learned that i need to use a CMS of some kind (as opposed to designing page by page in html), but there are so many CMS's out there to chose from. Where I need everyones help here is selecting a good CMS, so would greatly appreciate recommendations from anyone on which to use and which to avoid.


I currently have a student who is keen to use PHP-Nuke, but I've heard its not very secure.

Mambo has been recommended, but someone else told me it's 'buggy' to use.

And Ian tells me that this site is based around vBulletin, but that costs $160 for a license!

.....any others that are good that i dont know about?

 

[Ian]

I've found that site I mentioned a while back which list all the open source CMS's available : http://www.opensourcecms.com/

I would wholeheartedly recommend Mambo and phpBB/Invision for a CMS + Forums. vBulletin is great for forums, but I've modded it into a CMS as well - I'd have gone with the above route had it existed when the site first started (it would take weeks to transfer to Mambo for an existing site).

Your best bet may be to install a few of the popular CMS's and have a little play with each of them, no doubt one of them will stick out as one that you like and feel would be easy to use (some can be a little complicated!).

 

[Techy]

XOOPS is free and secure, not as much functionality as vBulletin but should give you enough to get you going.

J

 

[Techy]

just to add xoops can run on either apache or IIS.

 

[Cache-man]

Thanks so far. I think we're going to be using Mambo to start with for the CMS, and still not sure about the forum.

I would still welcome comments from anyone regarding to CMS and forum selection, as I would like to hear a slightly broader range of opinions and recommendations.

Has anyone had any good or bad experiences with any particular CMS or forum?

 

[Cache-man]

have been looking at the phpBB site, and have been playing with it with various styles and features - It's pretty amazing stuff and its free (due to being open source).
So that's that decided, phpBB for my forum. I just have to decide how to style it all now which I think is going to take some time.
Cheers Ian, also cheers Tecky XOOPS looks really good (still not 100% which CMS yet though)

 

[Cache-man]

Are ther any opinions or comments out there about Simple Machines SMF CMS (http://www.simplemachines.org).

Has anyone used it succesfully?

 

[Cache-man]

OK then, so I've played with phpBB and SMF forums now with my nice new cPanel hosting (Many thanks to Chris at Liquid Pulse), and I still cant quite decide which to use.

phpBB has many more readily available themes, which would just enable me to simply get the forum up and running with a choice of good themes (and then learn more about how to customize the styling later), and minimum fuss, although i have heard it is quite unsecure, and requires constant updating.

SMF only appears to have a few standard looking themes available at the moment, but seems to have many more powerfull features, and apparently is slightly more secure, which would mean I would have to start off with a poorer looking forum, but I am willing to learn all of the styling methods as the site and forum grow.

So, I would just like some opinions from anyone who has used either of the above, and which one you think i should use. There are some VERY cool looking themes for phpBB, yet SMF seems more secure (apparently) and is easier to control. I will learn the styling for both eventually, but this wont happen overnight, and i need to get the forum running ASAP.

 

[Cache-man]

Please test the boards and let me know your opinions! Thanks in advance.

Right OK, please read the last post (#8). I still would like advice, so for those who havent used them yet, I have created some test accounts for you all to try out the features for me for both phpBB and SMF forums.

The boards are only test boards so don't have much content, as I have just been playing with them for testing, so please feel free to login and use the admin features and let me know what you think to each one. Feel free to create/delete boards/topics/posts and change themes etc so you get a true feel for all the features.

The locations are:

SMF test forum - www.cache.lqdpulse.com/forums.smf
phpBB test forum - www.cache.lqdpulse.com/forums.phpbb

user: test
password: test

Please let me know ALL of your opinions as to which one to use.

 

[silver]

similar to phpnuke is postnuke, which slightly better written (last I looked through the code)

I find choosing a cms very hard as I like to fiddle with code and am very picky,. if you want well written then check http://www.drupal.org - it has to be said it may not be that easy to get to grips with but the code is very clean in my opinion

I guess that's how I feel about a lot of CMSs - they all seem like you have to learn a lot abt how the CMS sees the world before you can get going,. really the CMS should be obvious in operation but I've yet to find one I could label intuitive!

let us know if you find one you like!

Sil

 

[KGB-911]

phpBB gets my vote, it is very easy to use, and looks good - i use it all the time!

 

[silver]

for forum s/w - it's hard to beat VB,. it's very nice to use but not free unfortunatly!

Sil

 

[Ian]

Please let me know ALL of your opinions as to which one to use.

phpBB looks better, has more support and people are used to it - I'd go for that one. The other one did look ok though.

 

[Cache-man]

for forum s/w - it's hard to beat VB,. it's very nice to use but not free unfortunatly!

Sil

If the site becomes a success then I can warrant spending money on it, but for now i would like it to cost me as little as possible, and there's nothing cheaper than FREE. SO, I'm really only looking at open source alternatives. But you might be right, from what i've seen, VB does seem hard to beat.

 

[silver]

in the free side of things, check http://www.xmbforum.com/ - we're using it at http://espyer.com/forums/ it's v much in beta stage (or alpha perhaps!) so not really ready for the masses but def one to watch

Sil

 

[Cache-man]

I've had a look at XMB forums, and i must say i'm quite impressed, but as I'm new to forum building/managing I'm going to stick to either phpBB or SMF, as they seem the most popular and are easily set up from my cPanel hosting.

I'm still torn between SMF and phpBB, I've changed to a different theme on the my SMF testing forum (www.cache.lqdpulse.com/forums.smf) if anyone's interested in exploring it.

The general concensus from everyone here seems to be swayed towards phpBB, so I'll probabally end up using that. Just need to find a theme thats suitable that I can mimick with my wesite (and/or vice-versa). I do however like the feel of SMF, and may use that if I am able to customize it enough (maybe edit a few themes together to get what I want).

Decisions, decisions....why are they so difficult?

 

[DssTrainer]

I think the choice is easy: http://www.dragonflycms.com

Its built off of phpnuke.. but it has the greatest amount of security holes filled, they've modded nuke and phpbb so much that they made it into their own CMS name and its currently the hottest and fastest CMS out there. I personally am tired of phpbb for forums, but they've done a great job preinstalling and integrating it seemlessly into Dragonfly so its actually really nice. Plus down the line people are making mods to integrate IPB and VB3.

 

[jelian]

ez-cONTENTS

Try EZ-Contents

I have never seen a CMS so easy to learn and use

 

[Matt Jason H]

www.cmsmadesimple.org