What Web Masters Need to know about chosing a CMS?

Hi,

http://opensourcecms.com/ might be useful to you - it let's you test loads of free cms systems without having to install them!

For me, the things I look for in a CMS (in no order) are:

• Can it be templated easily? I don't want something that looks like a clone of every other site. I want something that's flexible, not one that lets you just change the color scheme and graphics, and that's it. I want to be able to change the structure of the elements.
• I want something with support, lots of it, free and paid support. I'm not a programmer, so if I need a new function for the CMS, I need someone who can do it.
• Search engine friendliness. Something that generates unique titles, meta tags, produces decent urls is good.

More questions

• There's alaways a trade-off between usability & functionality. Do you want something that's super-powerful (lots of features) but more difficult to use or something that's simpler but easeir to use?
• Is FLOSS (free/libre, open source) important to you or not?
• How much do you want to pay?
• Are web standards important to you? What about CSS-based layouts?
• Is there specific functionality that you definitely need for your site (i.e. a blog, a forum, ability to integrate with other systems etc.)

One of the other posters mentioned power and flexibility and i agree.

systems like Joomla are great but offer some limited flexibility. Also with Joomla you have to consider the cost of a good custom template.

templates for these systems can be very expensive to hire out ($200+++) or very complicated if you want to create your own (research and coding intensive).

You would also probably need to have an expert consultant you can talk to if you plan to make a big site...however some of the forums (like the Joomla forum) are very good.

But they can be work intensive and complicated....so you should make sure it is worth it and the best option for your particular project.

You may also consider that custom CMS systems can be created that are far far less complicated. You can hire a coder for stuff like this on popular sites like rentacoder.

some CMSs just have TOO MANY features and are more complicated than are what is needed.