Choosing a CMS is one of the most important decisions that a webmaster can make.  The CMS that is chosen will play a large role in determining how the website is created as well as what tools will be available.  There are a variety of popular options, most notably Drupal and Joomla, however WordPress has done an excellent job of standing out from the crowd.  Here is a quick look at some of the reasons that WordPress has become the best CMS option available.

1. Fast Development

WordPress seems to come out with both minor and major updates much faster than either Drupal or Joomla.  The most recent major update was earlier in June when WordPress 3.0 came out.  It was long anticipated because it integrates WordPress-MU as well as added several options to make creating a website easier.  Additionally, WordPress reacts to discovered security threats extremely quickly when compared to their counterparts.  Additionally, WordPress makes it extremely easy to update both the core and complimentary plugins simple.  With the strong development community surrounding WordPress, it should be no surprise that updates are released on a regular basis.

2. Flexibility

WordPress was designed to be able to utilize plugins to create any type of website that a webmaster might need.  It is no longer a simple blogging platform, but can be turned into full-fledged websites, sales pages, squeeze pages, and even membership sites.  With so many plugins that can be used to mold a website into anything a webmaster can imagine, it is no surprise that WordPress continues to grow in popularity.

3. Designed to Be Search Engine Friendly

WordPress is one of the few content management systems that has been designed specifically to be search engine friendly.  It allows for incredibly fast load times, which is becoming increasingly important, but has a lightweight core that makes adjusting the settings to meet the needs of search engines easy.  Additionally, there are a growing number of plugins that can further enhance search engine optimization.

4. Short Learning Curve

Compared to Joomla and Drupal, WordPress seems to have a much smaller learning curve.  The back-end is designed to be very intuitive and user friendly.  Webmasters can even download and install plugins from inside the dashboard.  You can update the core and plugins with a single click and if any updates are available you are notified on your dashboard.  The back end is designed so that it is easy to understand as well as manipulate to fit your needs.

It seems like WordPress will continue to gain more and more followers, which means a continually stronger and active community.  This will ensure that WordPress is consistently changing to meet the needs of the average webmaster.  This coupled with its fast development, overall flexibility, built in SEO, and small learning curve makes WordPress the best choice for many webmasters.

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Drupal has long been one of the most popular content management systems among webmasters.  However, with the growing popularity of membership websites, many people are wondering whether or not a Drupal membership website is the best choice.  This decision, for many people, will come down to how much work they want to do in order to set up and integrate the additional modules into their website.  While there is no “right” answer, by understanding what will need to be done in order to create a Drupal membership website, making this decision can be much easier.

Drupal historically has been considered to have a steeper learning curve than many other popular CMS options.  This makes integrating additional modules to create a membership website simpler for seasoned users than for newer Drupal webmasters.  In order to create a membership website, there are several common modules that will need to be installed.  These include: the Content Access module, CCK module, and a membership module.

Once you have Drupal installed, the first thing that will need to be done is to create a new “Role” for paying members.  Many people will name this role something like “Premium Member”, “Paid Member”, Bronze/Silver/Gold Member”, etc  Along with creating the name for the role, you must also create a new “Content Type” for the paying members.  This is where the CCK module comes into play.

Once the new Content Type has been created, you can use the Content Access module to rebuild/alter the node access permissions.  Once this has been taken care of, you must make sure that your new Content Type has been configured so that only Paying Members will have access to it.

Once all of this has been set up, it is now time to integrate the membership module of your choice.  In order to create a Drupal membership website for paying customers, there are several functions that a membership module must have.  The first is a way for members to register for your membership site.  During registration, this will include things like setting up a password, selecting a payment option, selecting a tier (if you are creating a tiered membership website), a way to connect to payment processor or payment gateway, as well as a way to set up trail memberships.  It is also important to make sure that you have the ability to utilize recurring billing, automatically renew subscriptions, and much more.  This may be taken care of with a single module or may require several modules, depending on which ones you choose.

As you can see, there are a variety of modules that will be necessary to create a Drupal membership website.  It is important to understand that you will need to know how to properly integrate all of these modules as well as manage them, whenever needed.  For some people, this will be, at most, a very minimal problem.  However, for others, this could be very frustrating, almost to the point of overwhelming.  Depending on how familiar you are with Drupal, it may be a great choice for a membership website.  Deciding whether or not a Drupal membership website is the “best” choice is entirely up to you.

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Drupal is a free software package that allows an individual or a community of users to easily publish, manage and organize a wide variety of content on a website. Tens of thousands of people and organizations are using Drupal to power scores of different web sites, including

• Community web portals
• Discussion sites
• Corporate web sites
• Intranet applications
• Personal web sites or blogs
• Aficionado sites
• E-commerce applications
• Resource directories
• Social Networking sites

The built-in functionality, combined with dozens of freely available add-on modules, will enable features such as:

• Electronic commerce
• Blogs
• Collaborative authoring environments
• Forums
• Peer-to-peer networking
• Newsletters
• Podcasting
• Picture galleries
• File uploads and downloads

and much more.

Drupal is open-source software distributed under the GPL (“GNU General Public License”) and is maintained and developed by a community of thousands of users and developers. If you like what Drupal promises for you, please work with us to expand and refine Drupal to suit your specific needs.

Demo: http://php.opensourcecms.com/scripts/details.php?scriptid=191
Themes: http://drupal.org/project/Themes
Modules: http://drupal.org/project/Modules

Price: Free- Open Source
Installation: You need to install yourself.
Trial Version: free
Support: Forums
Required Software: PHP, mysql
Description:With many modules (extra add on features), such as blogs, voting, and reviews, Drupal is a very good basic CMS system.

Beginners with some PHP knowledge can install, but for customization, I recommend it for intermediate and advanced users.

Drupal Web Site Examples;

Drupal Admin Panel:

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