Clean or Custom: which CMS is Best?

[chrisranjana]

Notice: This is a discussion thread for comments about the SitePoint article, Clean or Custom: which CMS is Best?.
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Again it depends on the complexity of the website. If it contains many dynamic portions then Drupal would be my choice.

[Tyssen]

I'm a bit surprised that once the Aussies had decided to go with a pre-existing CMS, that they chose one they weren't that familiar with.

[A-OK]

Well if I had 24 hours to do an entire site, I'd get some brand new clients. I usually don't do sites which have a deadline of less than 4 weeks and in most cases it's not a problem with them.

And I do use my own CMS, but I've been developing it for the past two years. Other full feature CMS applications are too complex for the intended user (usually a non-technical person at my client's company).

[dev_cw]

24 hrs to build a site...well this would depend on what kind of site. But my tool of choice would most likely be MODx. My reasons: straight forward PHP with a powerful API, no learning some proprietary coding structure specific to one cms. What this means is that if I can do it myself with PHP then I can do it in MODx no problem, and take advantage of the straight forward content management structure available. I am confident that an experienced MODx user could build a site faster than an experienced Drupal user.

I wonder if anyone in the competition considered MODx?

Its a pretty clear benefits/drawbacks scenario here:

A custom CMS is more effort to build, but will be much leaner and in line with what the site needs, and will be easier to modify.

A pre-built CMS is a lot easier as the groundwork is done for you, but so has the groundwork for a 1000 features you wont use.

[franzdavid]

I would use Drupal whether I had 24 hours or 24 weeks! It is the best CMS available by far and there is no point reinventing the wheel without a bespoke job. It is a lean system by default and you pick and chose the modules you want to enhance the functionally, so this "1000 features you wont use" is not true of Drupal.

[ignacio_giri]

Clean with Code Igniter.

[locka]

As a developer with a PHP leaning I find that every project offers a different set of requirements. I like to dictate the database structure according to the project requirements. This means of the shelf CMS does not fit. I use a product called PHPMaker to generate the whole CMS in minutes.
Once the database structure is right, it takes about 30 minutes (using the above product) to create the site CMS.
I will never use a product like Drupal as you have to conform to its way of doing things.
Interesting article though. Like to read others POV.

[hydrowizard]

What about farcry cms with coldfusion? Seems to do the job for a lot of people. Coldfusion is surely the fastest for development from scratch anyway(I saw a study for the pet market app in coldfusion compared to other technologies-the amount of code lines was substantially less in cf than any other language.)

I think developing web sites from scratch simply doesn’t work. You end up with 20 versions of your “framework” on various servers, leaving the clients with a web site that cannot be easily upgraded or enhanced with the latest module you’ve just built. What we did is we searched for a flexible CMS system (we are working on .NET) and we found a system that met our requirements for most projects (Kentico CMS). You just need to spend some time evaluating different systems and you will most likely find one that fits your needs on your preferred platform.

[Tyssen]

Originally Posted by A-OK

Well if I had 24 hours to do an entire site, I'd get some brand new clients. I usually don't do sites which have a deadline of less than 4 weeks and in most cases it's not a problem with them.

You obviously missed the fact that it was for a competition.

[paulcarey]

different systems are obviously better for different situations I personally like joomla but then haven't used drupal. What the guys say bout though is true about sometimes feeling restricted when using a CMS, but a CMS is built on a framework so this is only natural to have to fit in around this framework. I also develop using codecharge studio which has its own framework its a little tricky at first but once you get to grips its great. My point being is working within frameworks can be a little like learning a whole new language but if its the write framework it pays off in the end. At the end of the day it comes down to what's fit for purpose and what the developer and client is comfortable with.

[mongoose643]

Using the custom framework when you are the lone coder can be very useful and a big time saver. It can also be a big time waster. One thing I see that should have been handled better was the use of integrated debugging. I built my own PHP framework and it has incredible debugging features built into the core. These took many many iterations to perfect and in fact it took about have a dozen rewrites where I started over from scratch over the past 3 years. It really saves a lot of time and allows me to find and fix those "impossible to locate" bugs that seem to have plagued the CodeBlacks.

[asif451]

Well to me, I prefer using a pre-existing CMS is better. Easy to customize according to our needs.