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What is the best CMS? This is a difficult question, and depends on what kind of site you are building. Content Management Systems (or CMS as they’re also known) are an essential tool for any webmaster who’s moved beyond basic blogging platforms such as Blogger. CMS’s offer a number of advantages which allow the user to modify and manage virtually every aspect of a website. They create a platform for dynamic management of web pages and can serve as an interface for both blogs as well as more advanced sites requiring a login system. Here we review some of the top free CMS’s and show which you should use for your site, depending on your needs.

1. WordPress
Primarily known as a blogging platform, WordPress offers enough customisations and plugins to be called a CMS. An excellent choice for a beginner, WP can be up and running in less than five minutes. A basic knowledge of HTML is not required to be able to work with WP as it comes with an in-built WYSIWYG editor allowing you to edit elements as you create your posts. The admin section is clean and self-explanatory, it requires no special knowledge and should be easy to use even for someone new to blogging. Updating WP is also efficient and painless with all back end code updated automatically with subsequent versions, along with the plugins as well. WordPress offers some of the most versatile plugins to address almost every need you may have, from SEO to controlling spam comments. WP comes with a vibrant developer community which offers thousands of free and paid templates suited to whatever kind of site you want.

2. Joomla

In terms of ease of use for a novice, Joomla and Drupal come in below WordPress. However, if you happen to be an advanced user, Joomla offers great functionality. Installation is quick, we offer Joomla installation as a part of our package via Installatron. It also comes with a collection of extensions and plugins rivaled possibly only by WordPress itself and can all be found here. Like WordPress, Joomla has an extensive collection of templates which can be easily modified. Where Joomla differs from WordPress is purpose. Joomla can be used for a site which is more than just a portfolio and requires a more intensive management system. Business websites are often based on Joomla due to the fact the e-commerce is easily integrated into the platform. Anyone looking to start a business website wouldn’t go far wrong choosing Joomla. Head over to demo.joomla.org for a look.

3. Drupal

Drupal is somewhat more technical than Joomla, but this can be great for power users. If you’re the kind of person who likes to dig right into the code and fix it rather than use WYSIWYG editor, this CMS is the right choice. A special feature of Drupal is that every node can be used anywhere on the site by way of a separate set of tags and commands which allow you to manipulate data in unique and creative ways. CCK and Views are some other tools which completely blow away any similar Joomla tool. Though the platform is more flexible than Joomla, Drupal takes a hit because of the lack of good templates. It’s hard to find quality Drupal templates which is a shame considering how versatile the CMS is. Try out Drupal here.

So which one should you use for your site?

If all you need is a simple and easy to use blogging platform with some useful plugins available, WordPress is what you’re looking for. It offers everything the average webmaster may need for maintaining a standard website without much need for flexibility with regard to content management. WordPress takes a hit on flexibility in modifications but makes up with near unlimited plugins and themes.

On the other hand, if you have a more intensive site in mind, Drupal or Joomla would be a better choice. Here again, Joomla scores on usability and looks whereas Drupal is a developers paradise. Joomla is more user friendly whereas Drupal isn’t as straightforward to use. Both will work well for corporate websites which might need integrated marketplaces but then again, Drupal does not offer such a range of attractive templates so you may need to hire a designer to get the site looking how you want it to. Joomla offers beautiful templates out of the box.

Which CMS you go for depends on what you want out of it; light weight or intensive use? The good news is that most web hosts have one-click installers for all three of these CMS, at NetHosted we offer Installatron which has support for over 50 different popular web applications also including Magento, phpBB, Mambo and many more.