I had done some research on this before, but I really need to nail down my best option for installing a content management system for a web site I design, whether it is already done or I am building ground up.

In the past I have had my friend do a custom php install that worked very well. However I am more of a designer than developer, and hate programming. HTML is the only one I know, and java stuff I copy and paste and tweak. My strength is in layout, Photoshop, etc....

I have looked into and tried Joomla and Drupal, and both are highly unsatisfying to me, as far as flexibility to design and user friendliness.

I have thought about spending some time learning Ruby on Rails because I have heard SO many good things about it.

Or, the easy way out may be hire someone through odesk to do it for me at like $15/hr.

Any thoughts would be appreciated, hopefully by someone who had been in my position before and have now been churning out db managed sites.... THANKS!

Originally Posted by JMasterJ

I have looked into and tried Joomla and Drupal, and both are highly unsatisfying to me, as far as flexibility to design and user friendliness.

Drupal is 100% customizable. If you start with a bare-bones theme (perhaps zen or framework), it's fairly simple to make it all yours.

Re: User friendliness -

Out of the box the backend can be a bit much, but once customized it's as friendly as whoever you're making it for needs it to be.

My recommendation for implementing a CMS is along the same lines. First, manage your content manually for as long as it takes to 'settle', fall into a defined format and process. You may find that you don’t even need content management and that you can maintain it manually just fine.

It all depends on what you need this CMS to do. If it's not too indepth then you can look at very light cms programs like pagelime.com or cushycms.com. If it's more about page creation then you test out cmsmadesimple.com. That is a very easy to use (for a beginner) cms. The flexibility is there as well. Wordpress is pretty flexible if you know a little coding.

Drupal is SUPER flexible but complex. Joomla is not bad either. MODx is a relatively simple to use and configure CMS. It might be worth looking into.

May I suggest WordPress? You'll still need to learn how to work on themes, but it's easier to learn than most of the other CMSs I've worked with.

you can do professional pages using wordpress but to do that you need to good is programming. You can use free template or purchase or you can make your own one. you can also modify free free templates the way you like.

Go for wordpress, ample support and perfect for everyone.
You will get many free themes.

I am partial to Adobe Contribute. It makes it easy for me to create a nice templated site in Dreamweaver and then have the site owner update editable regions using Contribute connected via FTP.