non-profit seeks CMS recommendation

I know this is a bit off-topic, but I am appealling to all of the CMS experts on this board (especially the freelancers). I assure you this is for a good cause!

So, I am working on a pro-bono web project for a non-profit. I am helping them put together a small web site with a basic CMS. They will have only a handful of users and handful of page templates. Should be mostly static pages, but it will have a press release/press release index section that I'm sure everyone here has built at least 3 times. Budget is tight (hence the free labor), so open source is best and it must be deployable on the LAMP stack. It should be easy to install and require minimal maintenance since they have no in-house IT staff. They aren't looking for anything too sophisticated, but would like room to expand in the future.

Being an Interwoven guy, I don't have any idea which of these little CMS products are any good and I'm hoping some of you pros might have experience slumming with small-scale products.

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reddyl

I did implement a web content managment system using Joomla content managment recently. There are lots of OOBT functionality for news/press relase integrated into the system. You can install the Joomla CMS on windows and Linux. Its a LAMP based CMS implementation. Its very easy to edit content using the built in WYUSWYG editor. The Joomla system does not a any good workflow engine as TeamSite. All the content static or dynamic and is stored in the MySql database, it uses templates to this render the site at run time. You can find more information on the web site Joomla Content Managment System.

ccprofessional

>> Budget is tight

What is the budget? ;-)

WYPIWYG (What you pay is what you get)

boskovuk

I did implement a web content managment system using Joomla content managment recently. There are lots of OOBT functionality for news/press relase integrated into the system. You can install the Joomla CMS on windows and Linux. Its a LAMP based CMS implementation. Its very easy to edit content using the built in WYUSWYG editor. The Joomla system does not a any good workflow engine as TeamSite. All the content static or dynamic and is stored in the MySql database, it uses templates to this render the site at run time. You can find more information on the web site Joomla Content Managment System.

Unfortunately, I can't recommend joomla CMS engine at all.

It is fancy and includes WYSWYG editor. However, I don't think it will be simple for your end users. We did a simple web site based on joomla.org just a few weeks ago and encountered some bugs (content files get locked, 'cancel' option is not well designed, upload/manage images framework is not simple nor intuitive, etc.). Quite often, it is not possible to find what you are looking for.

This is based on a real experience. Others might have opposing positions.

reddyl

Unfortunately, I can't recommend joomla CMS engine at all.

It is fancy and includes WYSWYG editor. However, I don't think it will be simple for your end users. We did a simple web site based on joomla.org just a few weeks ago and encountered some bugs (content files get locked, 'cancel' option is not well designed, upload/manage images framework is not simple nor intuitive, etc.). Quite often, it is not possible to find what you are looking for.

This is based on a real experience. Others might have opposing positions.

I do agree that joomla is not the best CMS system and has bugs in the system. But its a open source system so can be customized and fix bugs. I do agree that the documentation is not good. Joomla is base on LAMP and it open source so any one can mess with the code.

textpagebreak.rptdesign

chuckles

>> Budget is tight

What is the budget? ;-)

WYPIWYG (What you pay is what you get)

The budget is not well-defined. They want to get away with paying the minimum to get enough to suit their needs. I should add that going open-source is not ideal since they would like to have some sort of support contract from the vendor. Like I said, they have no in-house IT so troubleshooting an immature, unsupported product like Joomla might be a deal-breaker. Althought the combo of Joomla/CiviCRM looks intriguing, that is beyond the scope of this project.

I am actually leaning at this point toward just using MovableType. It provides basic user management and templating and the supported version for up to users in only $50/yr for non-profits. It supports PHP templates, but the app itself is written in Perl which I like Smiley Happy

iomike

Why not use something like MovableType? It's a lot easier to sit a customer in front of that instead of something more complicated. I built a huge hospital site with MovableType, when we had no budget. Setup a blog for each section of your site. Plus for non-profits, it use to cost $0.

Migrateduser

What's the support model like, though?

chuckles

http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/kb/your_account/basic_support.html

It says that trouble tickets submitted on-line will be resolved in a max of 48 hours. They offer no telephone support and no professional services or the like aside from an installation service. There is also an on-line community of users and developers who offer advice and give out plugins. Since the app is pure perl, it is essentially open-source.

I am heartened to hear that iomike ran a successful project that is probably bigger than what I am doing, so I think I will recommend it to our client. Thanks all!