# Is there any CMS better than WordPress or should I roll my own?

I’m developing a small business website and want to give some control over content to the client but also allow myself control over the outputted code. Indeed allow the user to fill in the content gaps while not creating havoc.

I’m leaning towards WordPress rather than reinventing the wheel in asp.net, which would be my code of choice, or possibly just html. 

Any recommendations either way? An alternative CMS maybe or some robust but productive framework? (interested in mention of python frameworks)

Given that the question is tagged ASP.NET, I’d recommend looking at N2. It’s an open source CMS, and you have complete control over the HTML output. It runs on .NET 3.5, and can be used with MVC too.

Another good CMS is KenticoCMS  
Easy to implement your own controls.

Try a real CMS like Textpattern (simple and fast but powerful) or MODx (a nice “CMS platform” build for extensibility).  
Wordpress is too limiting, writing your own is too much.

For a True CMS I can recommend you Joomla, Drupal and SimpleCMS.  
For Blogging Wordpress is in the best.

I’ve had experience with Wordpress modifying your html and making things like media placement quite snarky. I’ve grown tired of A)Waiting to click through the Wordpress dashboard to get to the function I need; and B)Constantly modifying and reloading the site to make sure my content is displayed the way I coded it. I think Markus is correct that WP is great for blogs, bad for static or partially-static websites. 

I will suggest that if the service you are trying to provide is user content creation, then perhaps you could have a Wordpress component to the site where the user content is shown, but your other work (the static stuff) is built on something else you are comfortable with.

I would advise against wordpress, which is really more of a blogging engine than a CMS. I’ve had good success with Drupal and Joomla which are true CMSs

Hmm. Too bad nobody said symphony yet.

The only reason to use wordpress is the nice looking admin interface, the code is poorly written and only pointed at blogs. It is possible to use WP as a ‘real’ cms, but not without hacking the core, or hacking away in templates.

This post is somewhat old, but I just found it today (12-19-2011).  
The first CMS I found was Joomla, which I felt was great for a very short time. Dupral, evern shorter. Joomla is a click this, click that nightmare, and really doesnt offer much more than wordpress. Dupral is a clone, so I really see no point in using it. 

Ultimately I used Wordpress for numerous sites, ranging from photo galleries to eCommerce sites. And the sites have performed well, for years.  
Most clients are concerned with appearance, and the ones who do make their own changes have no problem using wordpress. 

But now I am seeking something “better”? Something that allows more design flexability. Something I can do more with. Plus I have yet to find a Wordpress utility for making custom themes that actually look custom. Artisteer generates themes, but what can I say, they all look alike.

I recently tried Concrete5, and its ok, but still not a developers dream solution.  
Next I plan to try several of the other CMSs listed on this page, with hopes to find something that will work for both me, and the end user. So if such a beast exists, I will capture it, and never look back. Then again, Id have to say, Wordpress will be around for a long time.

If you want to know more CMS, your can visit this website: CMS Matrix. You’ll found a a lot. 

Wordpress does fit simple CMS requirement, simple usage, friendly user interface, and easy to extends. Be careful when choosing CMS, some of them may have too many feature and too complex for simple use.

I was once setup a typo3, and failed to teach user how to use it. Then I move to wordpress.

As mentioned Umbraco is a really good and capable open source ASP.NET CMS. v4 (which just hit beta 2) has some really nice features including in-page editing and a neat package repository. The API does leave a bit to be desired if you want to do my code interaction but I’m working on resolving this with a 

I haven’t really tried it yet, but since you said your preferred platform was ASP.Net, you could always check out umbraco

If you can code and you’re at all open to learning a new language and framework, you should give Django some serious consideration.

Some of the time, you might find yourself reinventing the wheel, and yes, there is some learning overhead, but it’s a really serious contender for “The next big thing”.

It’s major feature (over similar frameworks) is the automatically-generated admin area, which, if your models are logical enough, can be client-ready without any intervention from you. Of course you’re more than able to customise things to help clients.

Although I’ve not used it, I’ve heard that Microsoft Orchard is pretty good.

I think for pepole with existing html, Toko Cms will be the cheapest option

WordPress fits well for a blogging setting and is relatively easy to adapt. I tried Drupal but I couldn’t get it to play well. I’m still considering what CMS functions best with a workflow of translators in multiple languages. 

The answer depends on the requirements. WordPress can be an excellent choice if your customer’s budget is very low 

If they have some more budget and want something more, the take a look at the CMSes listed above. For ASP.NET I’ve used SiteCore and SiteFinity and have liked both because they allow a lot of flexibility over design and content. Plus, if I need to I can just get into the code and add my own user control to get something hard done.

http://www.diigo.com/annotated/0b287e9ac349c7888628d19e50fc318a

After managing a Drupal site for a while, I settled into Plone 3 and never looked back. 

We still have the Drupal site but it’s rarely used. So much more is achieved, achievable with Plone. Keywords ’rounded’ and ‘cohesive’ come to mind. 

http://www.diigo.com/annotated/0b287e9ac349c7888628d19e50fc318a if you wish to see those keywords in context.

Since you tagged ASP use DotNetNuke. There are CMS’ written in every language you can think of. But let me plug the grand-daddy, Zope (python).

Also Wordpress is not a CMS. it’s a blogging framework that has some CMS features. But if your need isn’t enterprise level, then Wordpress might be fine.

If you don’t want a complicated CMS, but rather a blog (which is a simple CMS in a way) you could try the Byteflow blog engine. It’s written in Django – a Python based web framework.

Umbraco was suggested in one of the answers. We’ve had experience with it and many other CMS systems and I can safley recommend you to go that path, it’s both easy to learn and simple to use while remaining a powerful tool to base your sites on.