Choosing a Content Management System

By now you probably have a short list of CMS to choose from. But are they suitable for real-life commercial environments? The following advice relates mostly to those in software development or system integration who are implementing CMS on behalf of their clients.

Brand

Expertise with a popular and well-known Content Management System will help you sell your services and reinforce your position in your market. Therefore, it is useful to be aware of the general market perception regarding the CMS on your short list. The easiest way to evaluate visibility is by searching Google for the names of the products and comparing the results found.

eZ Publish is one of the most popular Open Source CMS in the world. It has won a number of awards, including Web Idol, European Seal of Excellence, EContent 100, BNP CMS and Portal Benchmark Analysis and ICT Innovation Award.

Price

Most clients have a fixed budget; costs – including consulting, management, production, deployment, training, maintenance, hardware, and other expenses – strongly influence their final decision.

Customers generally do not pay fees for the use of Open Source software. Customization, support and other costs are affected by the quality of the framework, which impacts development efficiency and thus time frame and budget.

Web development companies should research their local CMS market to understand the segment they are targeting, including its opportunities, competition and the average contract prices for a variety of tasks.

eZ Publish is Open Source software. A full version of the software can be downloaded for free. However, the complexity of the problems that can be solved with eZ Publish makes it suitable for upper-tier projects and budgets.

Infrastructure

Make certain that you can offer clients any necessary on-site or outsourced infrastructure regardless of their geographic location. If you cannot provide it yourself, look for datacenter partners that support the selected CMS, including shared hosting plans for smaller projects.

Since some Content Management Systems are resource-intensive, trial installation and performance tests on a high volume of data and traffic are necessary to ensure an acceptable end-user experience.

There are a number of hosting partners in the eZ Ecosystem that can provide suitable packages.