Take the plunge, don’t be afraid: five CMS for publishing a blog

It’s often been said that the Internet has changed the world completely. And it's true. One of the main reasons is that it has completely transformed the way in which people consume information. The World Wide Web is a hodgepodge where millions of users post generic or specialized content. It is a form of personal expression. You don’t need to have a press card or to be a professional communicator to generate information, share your opinions in articles or make comments on personal sites.

In this ecosystem it is very simple for anyone without fear of technology to have a blog in five minutes. You don’t need to have a lot of technical knowledge, just enthusiasm and desire to publicize what you do or think. Certainly, if you want to improve the design or the functionality of the website, you do need to have some skills, but nothing is impossible. Blogging platforms have been making efforts to create accessible environments to everyone.

Some Content Management Systems (CMS) have tools (plugins) that, thanks to a simple installation, allow us to give a more personal aspect to our blog. If you want to start your blog and don’t know how, maybe this list with some of the best CMS available in the market can be a useful starting point:

1.- WORDPRESS

This is probably the best known CMS in the market. And this is because it makes it really easy for anybody to publish content on the Internet. This publication system is open source, fast, free and it can be installed on a web server, a local server or an intranet. It is an excellent option to start publishing a business website or a blog. It downloads and updates easily, and it has a customizable user administrator: you can give full access to anyone you want, and establish limitations on the creation and modification of the website to any user with access to the CMS.

In terms of design, the possibilities are enormous: there are numerous templates, both free and premium, that can be modified through the editor or directly through the code (PHP and CSS). This is a system that runs on PHP and MySQL. It also has the famous plugins, which allow to increase the functionality of the website: they can be used to make changes in the design and also in the management tools. In this sense, this is a safe bet: the WordPress community is huge, and there are constant updates and new plugins, so the options available are many and varied.

2.- DRUPAL

The first thing to say about Drupal is that it is a content manager for a more experienced user profile. Harnessing all its potential requires a higher level of expertise. This makes it a CMS capable of managing complex webs, which require a much larger structure. If you just want to have a blog, perhaps the best choice is WordPress; but if you are thinking about a larger project, with other services, and you have technical expertise or access to external consultancy, Drupal might be a better option.

Drupal is an open source CMS, it works under PHP and supports databases such as MySQL, PostgreSQL and SQLite. It is, for sure, one of the highest rated managers among developers and among search engine optimization (SEO) professionals. The key feature of Drupal is its ability to handle large volumes of data, as well as its scalability. If your company’s website is a transatlantic, Drupal can be your best friend.

However, the biggest problem may be the design and implementation of functionalities: the templates are not configurable as easily as in WordPress (you need to be a designer or a web developer to have a great website with this tool), and there are not so many plugins (in Drupal they are called modules) as good and free as in WordPress. When you install Drupal the end result doesn’t usually look much like a website; there is virtually no structure or design. In WordPress this doesn’t happen; almost from the beginning the installation encourages you to start writing, as what might be called the “basic package” is practically like a website. Drupal is a CMS for companies and that, in the end, has a higher cost in resources and learning.

3.- JOOMLA

With Joomla we return to a simple platform, particularly easy in its installation and management. It doesn’t require much technical knowledge, as it happens with WordPress. It works under PHP and supports MySQL, PostgreSQL and Microsoft SQL Server databases. It can be a good CMS if the volume of information you are going to manage on your website is not very high. Hence, it is more indicated for blogs than for corporate websites.

In terms of design, Joomla is very similar to WordPress. It has a lot of extensions, very good and free, which can enhance any website’s functionalities: you can install a newsletter service, translate the site into another language, create a forum where users can open discussion threads about the content or whatever they want… Besides, if you want to monetize your website, it includes a banner manager that can be very useful. Simplicity, obviously, also has its disadvantages, and Joomla, just as WordPress, is a platform less flexible (scalable) than Drupal.

4.- Fork CMS

Fork CMS runs under PHP and supports MySQL databases. It is a CMS without the support that other platforms such as WordPress, Drupal or Joomla may have. This is an important detail, because the more people using the CMS and the greater its community, it will have more updates and capacity to resolve potential failures. It's like buying a very good console but without many customers; at the end it’s likely that the videogame makers won’t publish many titles and you won’t be able to play as you want.

Fork CMS can be especially convenient for a user profile without technical knowledge, for two reasons: firstly, because it offers a choice of customizable templates for different types of pages, from the 404 error one to those we use for creating personal profiles; and, secondly, due to its ease to access audience data and manage newsletters. The administration panel of Fork CMS connects to Google Analytics and a module called Mailmotor that manages email marketing campaigns.

5.- TextPattern

This CMS runs under PHP and supports MySQL databases. TextPattern has plugins and a catalog of templates, so you can choose a design to your liking. It also allows to change the CSS code manually through an editor, and select fonts, sizes, colors, etc. in a very simple way.