CMS or self build?

Thanks for the replies. Don’t know if my original question has been answered but that’s down to me and the way I put it. Really what I want to know is if I plan on running the site myself is a CMS even needed? I would be the only person updating the site and at present just use a HTML editor for creating and changing content. I find this gives me great control over the layout of the site along with not having to worry about updating CMS software and modules… some of the comments above regarding this aspect terrify me :). Am I missing anything by doing it all myself? Am I wasting countless hours with this approach. Does a CMS offer much more that I just don’t realise now, will the benefits of having endless available modules on hand outweigh the problems? I think myself that any Drupal module is probably available to me anyway as long as I have installed things such as jQuery on my self built site.

It depends on the type of website. If it is a database driven website, then I would say yes you need some sort of CMS. Whether you build your own or use a 3rd party CMS is up to you after you weigh up the pros and cons of each option.

If it is a dynamic website, but not database driven then I would normally not bother with a CMS at all because provided you are skilled in html, css, javascript and any server side scripting language you might need, you then have total flexibility to add/delete/edit/style/layout content as you like quickly and easily.

Using CMS has been in the discussion long time ago, in regards to the security. However, there are many people still using the CMS even some of the web developer because it is faster to develop a website from zero. All CMS developers in fact, keep updating their system in release or version. Whenever there is a new release/version, the users are advised to update. This is a way to prevent being hacked.

Sometimes, the new release/version may not compatible with the old one, so always duplicate a file and perform update to the new file. If there is any incompatibility, at least it does not affect our site.

Using CMS is about fast and convenient. It is your choice whether you want to use CMS or develop one at your own.

The replies from Max Height and pinkypainter are both pretty spot on. If I were to add anything it would be to look at the website or website’s long range prospects… If the site is going to be pretty static for the most part then you don’t necessarily need a CMS. If you’re planning to expand it or do lots of updates, you may as well put it in a CMS framework from day one. For me nothing gets more tedious than updating static pages, making sure you have the latest version and then uploading.

Edit: In the meantime, if you do go the static route make a project of porting the site to a CMS so that when the time comes for you to build a CMS site, you have the know-how to do it :smiley:

Hello Friends,

I am using Drupal for my site, i want to know is it secure or should i have to implement more security manually.

Keep it updated when patches and updates come out. Most security breaches on website’s come through mail servers or the host company’s control panel.

Personally I do not like content management systems that much either. The only one I actually like is ModX Revolution. Wordpress is nice for authors who regularly publish content. It can be worth less than the time it takes to modify them sometimes depending on your intended project. I personally use ModX for the main site and Wordpress for my blog. There are resources out there at your disposal to quicken the development process. So why not use them? An objectionable time would probably be when it is far too much hassle.

I’ve never, personally, created a “simple” static site … that didn’t eventually get incorporated in to a CMS at some point. Seriously, you think you don’t need one. But eventually you’ll want to incorporate something. You might not know what “something” is going to be just yet. But something will come up that you’ll want to add or change, that will take you days and/or weeks to implement … that would have taken you all of 10 minutes to install a free Drupal or Joomla module that would have done it all for you.

In this day and age, there are just certain things that people have grown to “expect” from websites. People are starting to expect some means of interacting with it, or integrating in to their world … essentially this whole other-worldly, social media-ish, Ajax-y, instant message-y, Android-y, Google-earth-y, Iphone-y world that they used to call “Web 2.0,” that we now just call the web (or “internets” or whatever cutesy term you prefer). At several points along this evolution, you’re going to be faced with the prospect of having to interact with this beast.

And a good CMS will almost always give you a very quick and dirty solution of interfacing with the various parts of this environment. Thinking you don’t need a CMS is a lot like thinking you don’t need a mobile phone. One day your friend whips out his slick toy and starts flipping through all of his cool apps. One of his apps does his tax forms from him, while the other app reads his mind to find out what shows he likes, and tells the other app to record itl. You realize that you have needs now that you didn’t have yesterday.

Forget the phrase “There’s an App for that.” With something like Joomla, “There’s a plugin for that.”