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Sometimes, configuring Wordpress sites for my clients becomes unnecessarily complicated because I'm working against what it was originally developed for (as a blog rather than a traditional CMS). However, the ease with which clients can use Wordpress has been a massive advantage and kept me coming back to it as my preferred 'CMS'.
I've looked at Textpattern which looks ok, but isn't as easy to set up quickly as WP and has limited plugins etc. Joomla and Drupal are too difficult for my clients I've found - you have to get your head around the logic behind the developers, which isn't the same as the layman, and I've taken a look at a few others but when someone asks for additional functionality, I find myself lost at where to start.
As I'm a freelance web developer who works alone, what is the best way to deal with these types of situations? I'd like to find a simple PHP/MySQL-based CMS that allows upgrades to functionality (I know a bit of php), so should I be building my own CMSs with a developer for clients to make my life easier? Or is that re-inventing the wheel and there's a suitable option already available?
I'm happy enough to purchase a CMS/a licence if that's the best way.
Any ideas welcome,
Thanks
dc
[edited by: engine at 8:32 am (utc) on Oct. 16, 2008]
[edit reason] fixed link [/edit]
Add one grain of salt.
So here goes...
There are a handful of CMS that allow both options - free or nearly so for the CMS with the possibility of also purchasing support. So as a freelancer, you could try to go one of those routes and do what you can for the client (install, design work, themeing, module/plug-in installation, etc), but if you want something complex or get stuck, you could call in the cavalry.
There are also many shops that center on a CMS or maybe a couple (say a LAMP and a Windows-based one for a range of clients) and after deploying dozens of customized sites on that platform, they are as good as the approved providers for commercial CMS, but much cheaper. So you could contract out work to them.
Then there are shops that have developed CMS in-house that they licence, but also of course can provide in-depth knowledge and customization. So you could look around for that and see if they're willing to work a deal with you in terms of licensing/support. These would likely be the hardest to find.
Finally, there's the "serious" commercial CMS. My wife's company is stuck on a commercial CMS which was pricey to begin with, has limited capability and is incapable of producing a page that would pass a validator. But it gets better. The fees charged by the approved providers are highway robbery in my opinion. For example, the company, which for various reasons doesn't do any coding in-house, wanted to change the link colors - three lines in the single CSS file (87 lines including comments) the site uses. They were even given the numeric color code the company wanted. The vendor-approved support provider came back with an estimate of $700.
I might understand if they had never worked together and that fee included getting up and running with a new client, getting server access and so forth, but this is the company that designed and implemented the system and does regular maintenance and tweaks, so they already have all the server login info, know the site and the system and interact at least monthly if not more often with the client.
Under those circumstances, I can't imagine this taking more than one hour, including estimating, delegating, editing the very simple CSS file, testing and billing. That's $700/hour to do a simple CSS edit.
So my bias leads me to think the following, though perhaps Fortune Hunter's friend has had better luck. Whether you go commercial or open source, beyond simple installation support it is always going to cost you money to have someone come in and work on your site. The commercial vendors, if they provide support beyond installation support, it will be fee-based and not cheap. If they have an approved list of support providers, the cost will be high and the pool of providers will be limited.
If you go with one of the big names in open source (Joomla, Drupal, Typo3, etc etc, or DotNetNuke etc if you want to be on a Windows platform as some of your clients may wish), there is an army of people who know them inside and out and you may be able to find a crack developer locally. On the net, you will find shops that specialize in that platform. If you find someone who has written one of the more complicated modules, that person likely knows the system really well and is probably cheaper per hour than the support staff at the commercial CMS, but can get things done very quickly.
So, in short, I would say that the key is finding a good programmer who knows the CMS well, whether it be commercial or open-source. That may take a bit more effort with a more "community" system (open source or not) than it will with a straight commercial system, but it may be worth the effort.
It is certainly true that hunting around bulletin boards for help is going to be a time sink and if you're trying to do things in a timely manner, having a a crack programmer you can call in your moment of need will be key.
Another possibility is acquia (free drupal with paid support), if you need something very powerful. Of course, typo3 would be more difficult than drupal.
I cut my teeth on open source and learned everything I've learned about php and mysql the hard way (trial and error!) and have been frustrated at times by message board support for some of these apps, but every single experience I've ever had with Wordpress has been awesome. I am inclined to use it for a CMS for this large site, but am still freaking out a little that it may not work well.
and like the guy (I forget the username now) whose wife's company is getting screwed by the commercial CMS company, I am completely aggravated by these companies who charge an arm and a leg for the simplest of tasks. I went with a commercial shopping cart called DigiShop once because I was afraid to use Zen Cart. I wanted to be sure that I was getting good support for my client's livelihood. Not only did the company misrepresent the software to me, they want to charge for every damn thing. I'm now trying to make it up to that client by giving her a really cheap Zen Cart setup.
I think I'm babbling at this point, but I'm curious if anyone out there has used Wordpress for a very large, membership/subscriber-based site that requires e-commerce and community capabilities. If so, how is it going? If not, what are you using?
thanks! :)
Tracey
Thus far, it seems like WordPress fits the bill but the hours of work it will take me to transer a huge amount of text and graphics has me vey anxious.
I'm unclear how a "standard" site, with thousands of internal hyperlinks, can work effectively in a Blog setup like WordPress.
Any insights would be greatly appreciated.
Whatever you do don't use Joomla. Im using it with a client and its been a never end stream of problems.
Thanks for the recommendation. I've actually had quite good experiences with Joomla after having to learn about it the hard way. The most difficult thing I find is that the concepts involved in editing content can be difficult to teach clientswho know little about computers. But it's a powerful system if you learn it well.
CMSimple seems to be an alternative, but the problem I've found is that you need to know PHP well to customize it to your needs. I've also been using Plone a lot now for my work, and although it's a beast to set up, run and manage, it's got some of the best workflow options I've come across. Not for the fainthearted though!
This is going off-topic a bit, but I find it easier to explain that Joomla is made up of 'areas' such as menus, modules and pages that you manage independently of each other (depending on how you set up your site).
With the site I just finished, when you change one of these 'areas', you almost certainly need to change the other. For example, adding a new page means you should assign a module(s) to it if there isn't one assigned already. Adding a new page means you'll need to assign it to the menu and so on. I recommend teaching nothing more than what they need to know and making screencasts of you performing those tasks with something like Jing.
The difficulty with any CMS I think is that the more fancy features a client sees online, the more they want it for their own site. Unfortunately, in my experience, this means they need to learn complex systems (and complex add-ons like modules/plugins in Joomla), and many people are reluctant to go back to school.
I'll tell ya what, just give em a copy of FrontPage Express and be done with it. I have free copies for all to take. ;)
Can you handle that type of situation with FP Express?
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned it yet, but MovableType is a great CMS. It's not been plagued by all of the WP vulnerabilities and have been a very stable platform for me. It's also a lot more mature than any of the other options listed here.
And just what are the vulnerabilities?
I'm spending a good chunk of change to move my site into WP from a @#$% CMS. I've never heard of WP vulnerabilities. Please tell me what they are.
Thanks.
My web developer is very good at keeping client sites updated, so I should be covered.
Whatever you do don't use Joomla. Im using it with a client and its been a never end stream of problems.
This can happen with any cms that you are not familiar with. Joomla gets a lot of bashing around for many reasons, but we find it to be an excellent resource and have built all of our recent sites using it.
The Joomla community is very large and eager to help. If you use any 3rd party extensions, just make sure to read reviews of them first, especially feedback regarding the developer's response to problems.
Have to admit, that for me, my initial glance into this CMS didn't do much. The more I looked into it, the better I liked it.
Just throwing in another alternative for you to consider.
The only issue that I have is that updates have to be 'applied' unlike WP where you can just 'svn update' to keep absolutely upto date in case of known vulnerabilities, and stay 'bleeding edge'.
I am looking for simple user interface, plug in and mod availability for ecommerce, etc... and also be search engine friendly with sensible urls.
It seems that the KISS ones are too simple and the complex ones would confuse a lot of my potential clients. What's a guy to do?
