Introduction:

CMS stands for Content Management System. A CMS is used to manage content for a website or as a platform on which to build a complete website. It is used to add, edit, delete and view a website’s content. The content can include posts, texts, images or a combination of both text and images. A CMS can allow those without knowledge of web development (HTML, CSS and PHP) to create and manage a fully-functional website. Let’s take a look at the top 10 most popular and widely used CMS platforms and their functionalities.

1- WordPress:

WordPress is the most popular content management system and likely has the largest number of websites deployed through it. The reason why it is so popular is that it is easy to implement, free and offers impressive functionality. There are thousands of ready-to-use free and paid themes and thousands of plugins which add impressive features to your website. Some of the best features offered by WordPress:

• Free/open source
• Ready-to-use free and paid themes and plugins
• Easy to implement and customize website content
• Secure

2-Drupal:

Drupal is another CMS which is widely used. Developers can build anything from personal websites to enterprise level applications with Drupal. Using Drupal does require a little technical knowledge. There are huge numbers of ready-to- use themes, modules and plugins. It is also used to create eCommerce websites and advance database management solutions. Drupal’s features include:

• Open source
• One click installation offered by web hosting service providers
• Free themes and plugins
• Secure

3-Joomla:

Joomla comes in third on the list of top CMS platforms. You can develop a website just as easily as an online application with Joomla. Its implementation does not require a high level of web based technical knowledge and its installation is very easy (most of website hosting services offer one click installation of the Joomla CMS). The strengths of this CMS includes:

• Award-winning
• Easy to install
• Easy to use
• Extensible

4-CushyCMS:

CushyCMS is another open source CMS that is lightweight, simple, fast and reliable. This CMS is designed to help the content manager by simplifying site management while keeping client client access separate. It provides the flexibility to update content in such a way that it will only affect the required pages, reducing work and bandwidth investment. CushyCMS has following features:

• Flexibility to change individual pages
• Separate client access
• Editing content is very easy

5-MODX CMS:

MODX is one of the most advanced CMS’ and has some excellent out-of-the box features. By default it can produce Ajax-enhanced accessible CSS/XHTML sites. It is easy to manage a CSS based website with this CMS and the developer can also build custom applications with it. The bundled API is very efficient and can be understoodeasily by non-technical users too. MODX CMS comes with following features:

• No complex template system
• Simple and flexible
• HTML5 responsive content management

6-Concrete5:

Concrete5 is completely free and open source CMS tool to manage any type of website. The marketplace provides free and paid themes and add-ons to improve your Concrete5-based website. They have a dedicated support team ready to help while their own  core team can assist you in managing a high-end enterprise level project. The strengths of this CMS includes:

• Easy to convert HTML to concrete5
• Enterprise  level service
• Friendly and helpful support

7-SilverStripe CMS:

SilverStripe CMS is used primarily to build intranet sites and web based applications but also for building websites. This CMS system is used by most non-profit organizations, government organizations and  some businesses to manage their websites. The SilverStripe CMS has following features:

• Open source
• PHP5-based website development framework
• Secure
• Public documentation, developer community and free code

8-Radiant:

Radiant is another open source CMS system which is designed for small teams. The system is easy to use, has an elegant user interface, anice collection of ready-to-use extensions, flexible templates and layouts and page part development. It is a general purpose CMS system which is not merely for blogging. The CMS is provided under the MIT license and can be used for non-profit and commercial purposes. The Radiant CMS includes following functionality:

• Small user management and permissions
• Built on RoR (Ruby on Rails)
• Easy to implement and manage content
• Secure

9-dotCMS:

dotCMS is designed to easily create and manage enterprise-level websites. It is easy to implement J2EE based development modules into this CMS. It will also reduce the time for running processes which some CMS’ can take a long time to finish. The dotCMS framework has the following benefits:

• Manage responsive, engaging and multi-channel content
• Reduce website response time
• Lightweight web scripting
• Comprehensive APIs

10-Contao CMS:

Contao CMS is used to develop professional websites coupled with easy management. It is great for creating search engine-friendly and secure websites. You need no technical knowledge of website development to manage websites when run on Contao CMS. This contender has the following valuable features:

• High security standards
• Hundreds of extensions and modules
• Modern CSS framework
• Live update service

Conclusion:

So there you have the top 10 most popular content management systems in wide use across the internet. Right now a large percentage of websites are using one or another flavour of CMS to manage content.. A good CMS can make it very simple to manage web content or even a whole website without having the technical knowledge of web design and development.

References:

1. http://anandkg22.hubpages.com/hub/Top-12-Best-Content-Management-Systems-You-Can-Freely-Use-For-Website-Building
2. http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2011/10/top-10-content-management-systems/
3. http://www.business2community.com/small-business/top-5-cms-website-platforms-for-small-business-0556849#!biCfQg