A CMS or Content Management System allows site owners or webmasters to easily update content without needing knowledge of web scripting languages such as HTML or CSS. Examples of common CMSs include WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal. For websites managed by CMSs you need only an understanding of the specific CMS admin pages. This is advantageous for companies, bloggers, or people that often push content online or have frequent changes to the content of their own site.

CMS’s come in a variety of types and complexities. There are some simple CMSs that allow you to simply enter content and ecommerce items online quickly and easily, but extending the functionality beyond that is difficult and cumbersome. Then there are other CMSs that are much more robust and with a strong base knowledge of their admin backend you are able to extend their functionality much further with limited to no coding experience. The important thing to note is that there is no best CMS, and hundreds to choose from.

In our next blog we’ll look at some possible good choices for a CMS based on several factors including support community, ease of use, and extensible functionality.