InfoWorld reviews five CMS: Alfresco on top and Drupal at the bottom
Submitted by Bryan on October 9, 2007 - 5:04am
I'm still in need to read this InfoWorld article in its entirety, but thought it was worth mentioning now. InfoWorld's Mike Heck has written an article, Open source CMSes prove well worth the price, which reviews and compares five content management systems. The five CMS under review are Alfresco, DotNetNuke, Drupal, Joomla, and Plone.
The good news is that all five CMS ranked Very Good or higher. However, Alfresco was the only CMS that ranked Excellent with a score of 9.2. Plone 3.0 received the second highest ranking with a score of 8.6. DotNetNuke and Joomla tied for third and fourth place with a score of 8.4 which put Drupal a fraction lower with a score of 8.3. While none of these CMS ranked poorly, I'm sure the open source communities are bound to scrutinize over how the individual criteria were scored and ranked.
InfoWorld really was impressed with the Alfresco CMS and had this to say about it:
Either way, I'm happy to see that all five open source projects have built a CMS that not only the project leaders can be happy about, but also that any five of the CMS can put a smile on their users' faces. While I have never intended to focus on "free" content management systems in my posts, the fact is that there is a lot of good things to say about content management systems that are developed through open source methods. Something most of us have known for quite some time.
The good news is that all five CMS ranked Very Good or higher. However, Alfresco was the only CMS that ranked Excellent with a score of 9.2. Plone 3.0 received the second highest ranking with a score of 8.6. DotNetNuke and Joomla tied for third and fourth place with a score of 8.4 which put Drupal a fraction lower with a score of 8.3. While none of these CMS ranked poorly, I'm sure the open source communities are bound to scrutinize over how the individual criteria were scored and ranked.
InfoWorld really was impressed with the Alfresco CMS and had this to say about it:
With a strong organization behind it and a slew of features, Alfresco's Community Edition stood out in this comparison. That would be true solely considering its content management, but as these applications branch out into document and records management, Alfresco has already staked a claim in the extended ECM space.The reviewer also concludes by saying good things about the remaining CMS. DotNetNuke was a nice surprise for the reviewer, Plone was seen has a very powerful and scalable CMS, and Joomla! was expected to pick-up the pace once Joomla 1.5 is officially released. The reviewer also has something to say about Drupal in his conclusion that I think is especially worth discussing.
The lightweight Drupal has a decent following and special features, such as taxonomies, but comparatively weaker CMS functions (lacking rich-text editing, for example) and a somewhat unfriendly development environment mean Durpal is playing catch-up.I find the author's conclusion about Drupal a little puzzling. While I agree that Drupal lacks some of the features that are now basic in most CMS (rich-text editing is an example that is right on the money), I have to say I'm surprised the reviewer considers Drupal "a somewhat unfriendly development environment". I could find no where in the body of the article how he arrived at this conclusion. Perhaps, something in the article was dropped during the editing but I'm just unclear what the reviewer is trying to say about Drupal's development environment. When I have time, it may be worth an e-mail to the author to ask for clarification.
Either way, I'm happy to see that all five open source projects have built a CMS that not only the project leaders can be happy about, but also that any five of the CMS can put a smile on their users' faces. While I have never intended to focus on "free" content management systems in my posts, the fact is that there is a lot of good things to say about content management systems that are developed through open source methods. Something most of us have known for quite some time.
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Rich text editors have been
Rich text editors have been defered to contributed modules in Drupal.
From http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/10/0... :
Drupal requires some extra time and skills to set up, which mainly involving installing PHP, and a database server [...]
I'm not sure the other content management systems install PHP for you.
indeed
This article seems week at best. Bryan - you'd do us all a favor if you could engage the author(s) in a discussion about what the problems where in their minds.
Invitation
Greg and All,
I'm writing an e-mail to the editing author, Mike Heck, as I speak. I'll invite him to comment further either here, through e-mail, or a site of his own choosing. I think everyone should remember though that Drupal scored only one-tenth of a point less than Joomla and DotNetNuke. In other words, perhaps the writers didn't really see Drupal plagued with problems but that it had some room to improve.
I'd also like to invite non-Drupal users to the discussion as I didn't intend to make this a Drupal vs Alfresco discussion. Likely my fault for how I headlined the post...
Apples and oranges?
What I don't get is how Drupal and Alfresco ended up in the same comparison article. They couldn't be more different.
Drupal is a Web CMS, while Alfresco is a enterprise CMS -- more a document management system than anything else. Alfresco was a WCM module, but it's extremely rough right now and not even near complete.
I can't see how you can compare these two systems on any level, I really don't.
Intended user?
I think what bothers me most isn't the label on what type of management systems should be used, but out of the five CMS on the list (let's not forget Joomla, DotNetNuke, and Plone)...Alfresco is the only one specifically gearing their software toward business and the enterprise. It's sort of like comparing your anti-virus software on your home PC with the security software that you may be using in the office. The security software you're using at work likely has more features than what you're using at home...but you wouldn't want it for you home PC. The same goes with Alfresco, as you already alluded, while Alfresco could be a good ECM do you really want it for primarily a Web content management system?
It certainly helps when
It certainly helps when Alfresco's Vice President of Business Development blogs for InfoWorld ...
It's business now!
Yeah i totally agree, what's with that war between open source project.. aren't we there to all work together and try to improve softwares, together! I sure won't give him credit to try improving things.
Agree with all
Agree with all comments.
Think that article published in the Infoworld.com is valueless.
Don't want to offend someone, but if someone compare Drupal and Alfresco in same category, and writes how
Drupal requires some extra time and skills to set up, which mainly involving installing PHP, and a database server ...
What the author mentioned are requirements. And all CMS has some:
- Joomla: Apache/PHP/MySQL (same as Drupal)
- Alfresco: jboss, tomcat (you can use bundled with tomcat ~55MB tar.gz) + MySQL
- Plone: Python/Zope and usually MySQL (or some SQL)
...
interesting
I did find some of the observations interesting. He seemed to be really bothered by the lack of a built in GUI editor and failed to mention the 4 or 5 available options and said Drupal 'lacks' a rich text editor.
This phrase which mainly involving installing PHP, and a database server and empty database, then manually updating some configuration files. Manually updating what configuration files? In the past there was one, currently I don't update any unless doing an upgrade.
It wasn't a very in depth article but a nice cursory overview.
Not the same thing, surely
I don't know Alfresco, to be honest, but I can say that it doesn't look like that Alfresco is intended to do the things Drupal does.
For instance, they use:
MediaWiki => http://wiki.alfresco.com/
PHPBB => http://forums.alfresco.com/
in their own site...
WYSIWYG editor needed in the Drupal core
As I've used both TinyMCE and FCKeditor in Drupal, I and hopefully most Drupal users certainly realize that there is a rich text editor is available as a contributed module. Although it's unclear whether the writer of the InfoWorld article was aware of GUI editors available as contributed modules in Drupal, I don't think it negates the question as to whether such an editor should be placed in the core.
Let's face it, there are not too many mature CMS (and even blogs) out there that don't include in their core/baseline some type of rich text editor. In my opinion, the lack of a GUI editor is just one more hurdle that the newbie has to jump through to make Drupal "user friendly".
Last year, I was pitching to a regional team to use Drupal 4.7 as the primary application for collaboration and content management. It didn't sit well with the team members that there was no GUI text editor included in the core and the default theme (Blue Marine) also didn't do well to sell Drupal. It wasn't until Drupal 5 and me spending a day configuring Drupal 5 on a development server that the team had a chance to see what Drupal can do. By then though it was too late, the team had already chosen other alternatives.
Drupal 5.0 addressed the need for better eye candy including the introduction of a better theme (Garland) and improved administration pages. These improvements were made not only to meet the needs of current Drupal users but also help bring in would-be Drupal users that tend to judge a CMS by first impressions alone. I argue that if you want to reduce the criticism of Drupal by reviewers (and newbie users) such as the one from InfoWorldl...put a bloody WYSIWYG editor into the core.
Its all about money first
To heck with all those CMSes, long live Drupal
Dries Buytaert should get a medal for his contribution to society giving the world a truly free and open source and powerful CMS
We dont know what CMS really is, but as users and website managers, a FLOSS matters very much
Long Live who?
DO you really think that Dries is doing social service to the world. You better read human psychology first.
No one and I repeat no one does social service. Everyone wants to be the best and all the open source thing is the biggest crap of the decade.
I am in Open Source Java and also in Drupal. All are good till they start feeling the user's heat. You thing Drupal's cool. Its handicapped without its modules.
And Dries has changed so much from Drupal 5 to Drupal 6. Docs are pathetic. I think he only understands. May be he has lots of friends who do the same. I donno what to expect in Drupal 7.
Is it just me, or is anyone
Is it just me, or is anyone else sick of the blasted pitting of open source projects against one another in some kind of comparison war? ARG!
Amy :)
http://OpenSourceCommunity.org
It's just you.
It's just you. :-)
Actually, I like to see comparisons made between various applications. Some of the most popular posts here are those articles that compare one CMS with another CMS...even the ones that I'm only providing a link and excerpt to an article found elsewhere. I think from a user point of view, people want to see more reviews and not less.
I do agree though, I don't like to see a review be used to bash another project. I also think it's advantageous for a project to look at the review and not just correct any errors in a review, but also acknowledge where the reviewer may be right. I personally didn't see this article as "worthless" as some opinions expressed here, but I am concerned that the reviewer appears to come more from a Windows server background than a Linux background. Or course he had more difficulty with PHP just like someone from a Linux server would have difficulty with ASP and Mono. The CMS should have been the focus and not the platform.
By the way...I'm happy to see Plone received as good of a review it has. Plone has a killer installer that should be the envy of most CMS projects.
How come it's *always* "just me?" ;-)
I hear you and agree. I compare features and communication and enthusiasm levels constantly and I think learning from other projects *is* helpful. What I don't like is ranking them. As if one could actually say one is better than the other, anyway. It's fun as long as everyone keeps it in proper perspective.
What I am seeing is stellar applications emerging and a trend towards "birds of a feather" communities beginning. That's a very good sign for open source. The Drupal Higher Ed group is one such example. Currently, they are looking at scheduling software. Rocks! Soon, we'll start really noticing more overlap with Sakai and Moodle because of this community group. Joomla! has a K-12 group getting after it. Both have library efforts underway.
Now - Plone is a sweetheart CMS that I predict is going to start getting some serious attention in 2008. In many ways, they have already strengthened their community and we all know, in the end, THAT is the only "comparison" worth making since contributors is what it's all about. We need to look at how strong projects attract and enthuse contributors. Plone is doing some very cool things with their community and should be very enthused after their annual conference.
When the day comes that all needs have been met and no more websites are required, then, we need to start rank ordering and eliminating some of these choices. Long before that happens, though, I suspect projects will start to merge. If for no other reason than the code will be so modulized and standards will be in place that the GPL will bring it all together. So, everyone - keep working hard.
Amy :)
http://OpenSourceCommunity.org
Only Bryan has it
Only Bryan has it right.
These Drupal cult members are beset by the stupid blinders that afflict all geeks: an inability to see things from the viewpoint of the rest of the 99.99999% of the human race who doesn't know what HTML stands for. These are the people CMSs are meant for, so how in the world can a product be complete without a rich text editor?
Saying an editor is available as a contributed module is as stupid as saying it's okay to sell a car without a steering wheel, because you can always buy one and instal it yourself. Drupal is only user-friendly to geeks. It is impossible to use, update or customise by the average person.
I learned that with Open Source CMSs, you get what you pay for. The hostile defensive responses by Drupal cult members here is exactly the way they behave on their forums- defensive, unwilling to accept criticism, blinded by groupthink into believing Drupal is the best thing since sliced bread.
It isn't. That's why commercial CMSs still rule the market: they're designed for ultimate users, not geek hobbyists who write code not for usability but to impress other geek members of their inbred 'community'.
Drupal, from a nongeek's perspective, simply sucks.
Trying to spark a riot?
While your post has some valid points, it's too bad you felt a need to pepper it with insults. There are too many non-geek sites using Drupal that is difficult to take your statements seriously. On the music scene Drupal is being used (Jennifer Lopez, Britney Spears, Sony BMG Musicbox) and a ton of other sites such as the United Nations and LifetimeTV. Clearly, Drupal isn't too geeky to be used by the non-geeks.
I do think that sometimes Drupal developers defend Drupal's learning curve too much as a "rite of passage" instead of seeing it for what it is, a negative trait. For example, WYSIWYG at one time was considered an "added feature" for most CMS. However today, in my opinion, not having a graphical text editor in the Drupal core seems to be more for nostalgic principles and not in the best interest of the users. So in this sense, I do agree with you that geeks do tend to wear "blinders" where they don't always see what the "average" user really needs.
On the other hand, haven't we all seen too many commercial and open source CMS that present the nice eye-candy to the user but behind it there was no substance? Too often decision makers in organizations are sold on a product not because of the software but because of the slick salesman and don't look beyond first impressions (the eye candy).
I'll never say that a CMS is better because it is open source, but at the same time I'll never agree that a CMS is better because it is a commercial product. I would say that while geeks may have blinders, commercial CMS advocates also have their own blinders. It's too bad when commercial advocates are critical of open source without recognizing their own weaknesses first.
Oh, how I love the anonymous coward!
Wow. These types of comments always make me feel ill. Physically ill.
I am not even certain what your point is - as a result of your comments, what do you think should happen? Let's say for a moment that you are right, and that this software is best suited for "geeks." Do you not understand that progress takes place, one step at a time? Does it not dawn on you that one must learn to crawl, before walking? Do you not see the nobility in what these contributors freely offer the world?
Perhaps, most importantly, do you not realize that it takes each of us to participate, freely offering our own gifts, for this to work? You could allow these convictions to motivate you into contributions of your own. You could do something productive, not destructive as you tear others down. If you really want something to be better, why not help do that? Why are you holding yourself back from positive involvement?
If you are so convicted, then come out from behind the comfort of an anonymous signature and share your name! If you are right, stand tall, be proud! While you are at it, please share information on your accomplishments and who you are freely sharing your work with. Then, your words will *begin* to have some substance.
As it stands, you are nothing more than a jealous troll, an underachiever, someone without any confidence in his or her own ability to impact positive change in this world. You don't have to live that way. You can choose to be positive and involved and hopeful and build your own skills and have fun!
I am frequently shocked by the unkindness and hostility of others. Taking pot shots from the dark at those who freely share their work is pretty uncool. It's so easy to take shots at those who are trying, isn't it? They are visible. Their work is out there where it can be evaluated. I guess that means they willingly open themselves up to this kind of comment.
How many people do you think might never try because they fear this type of attack? I wonder what the world might be like if we supported those trying to make a positive difference; encouraged our pioneers; gave a helping hand to those who fell; celebrated each step forward, regardless of how small that step might be.
It makes you think. What is our impact on others as we walk through this world?
I've often thought it takes a unique and strong personality to overcome this type of trolling and push through the rock, to grow something that is free to become anything we need it to become.
Much respect to our free software developers.
http://OpenSourceCommunity.org
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Amy,
I have come across your blog a couple of times in the past, but I have to say that is the best troll rebuttal I have ever come across!
Much respect to you and the developers you defend in this post (even if they can't write decent documentation or find it difficult to see things from the end-user's persective - isn't that someone else's job anyhow?)
Peaces
x
AmyYour touchy-feely rant
Amy
Your touchy-feely rant just proves my point about open source geeks: nowhere do you say anything about building software that's user-friendly or that solves problems for people. It's all about community and sharing and all that Oprah stuff. Projects like Drupal are where socially-stunted geeks go to get a sense of belonging. Writing useful software- not so much.
The fact is, Drupal sucks. As does all open source software- for the simple reason that it is built by people who are not motivated to satisfy the customer. You'd think free software would have wiped out Microsoft and Adobe by now. So how come they're still raking in the billions? Simple- because the open source community produces difficult, complex, user-unfriendly nonsense that only geeks can use or love.
The large companies using Drupal can afford to hire geeks to do the extensive customisation, instal WYSIWYG editors and all the other painful stuff. For smaller publishers who can't afford a geek-in-residence, and wouldn't know what to do with something like Drupal that has templates no-one understands, no WYSIWYG editor, and a hostile community that does not accept constructive criticism (what the reviewer meant by an 'unfriendly development environment), the only option is commercial.
Subdreamer, Vivvo, Bitrixsoft, Kentico, Interspire, I could go on. People pay for them rather than go through the hell of the monster that is Drupal. I have Drupal in my Fantastico cPanel. I can instal it in 10 seconds. But it caused me such grief, I paid $200 for a commercial CMS that worked out of the box, came with a RTE, and was customisable with zero HTML knowledge. It's called Subdreamer.
I couldn't learn anything on the Drupal forums, because of people like Amy- defensive, hostile, and antagonistic. The culture there is 'if you didn't contribute, you have no right to criticise'. How stupid- can you imagine Microsoft talking that way to its customers?
Groupthink is for sheep, cattle- and geeks. My only regret is that Microsoft doesn't have a CMS product, because I know it would be user-friendly, easy to customise and with a delightful interface. That's how come the 99.999999999% of the human race that are not geeks love Microsoft's software (boo-hoo to the anti-Microsoft geek cultists).
And that's why commercial software will never be threatened by this 'community' of self-important self-deluders. Amy, if you want to learn how to produce software, I suggest tyou learn from Microsoft. Starting with swallowing the bitter truth of my feedback.
Thanks for your comments...
...but, why not share your name?
Microsoft *does* have a CMS if you are interested. It's called SharePoint. But, it's kind of pricey and it's very, very complicated. It is well constructed and tested. If everyone you are trying to reach uses Windows and MS Office, and "per seat" pricing is okay with you, it could be a perfect fit.
Unfortunately, if you don't like something about it, I'm afraid you are stuck. It's proprietary and you will not be provided the source code so that you can learn how the program operates or change it, as needed. Even if you were able to change the source code, I'm afraid you would be prevented from sharing it with anyone else.
You see, I actually know quite a bit about Microsoft. I primarily worked with Microsoft technologies for over 10 years. Ironically, the reason I discovered open source technologies is because Microsoft technologies finally closed so many doors to integration that I was prevented from continuing to offer high end Microsoft technologies to my end user base.
The truth is I resisted looking at alternatives for a few years. Instead, I pleaded with our Microsoft representative to try to get the word into that massive organization that by tightly coupling Microsoft Active Domain Services into their high end SQL Server tools like Analysis Server and Reporting Services, we were no longer able to offer those tools. Many of our end users are not on our domain and we are unable to build trusted domains.
I finally had to come to terms with that fact that we were shut out of Microsoft improvements because we couldn't become "Microsoft enough" to use their tools. You see, with Microsoft, it's all or nothing. Do you see Lotus 123? WordPerfect? Quattro Pro? Natural predictors dead. Choice for end users, gone. Legal action by the United States and Europe has been successfully brought against that company for their unscrupulous business practices that prevent choice.
Now, we use JasperServer and couldn't be happier. Interestingly, the user authentication wasn't what we needed. We needed the end user's SQL Server ID to be the one querying as the reports ran, not an administrative ID generating report queries. But, it wasn't a problem at all. We were able to look at the source code and adapt it to do just what we needed.
If you can't learn in the Drupal forums, it is not because anyone else is restricting your learning. No one can stop your brain from processing information and thinking. No one can stop you from trying and digging deeper and finding another way. That's where learning comes from - one's refusal to not know! If you allow how others respond to your forum posts to stop your success with a software package, then it seems far more likely it is you who must be seeking the "Oprah stuff."
When you move from proprietary software to community approaches, there is a real mindshift that must take place. We aren't customers, anymore. We are not entitled to anything except that which sits on the SVN, available for download. Beyond the code offered, no one owes us anything. People are not there to serve our needs, they are there to serve their needs and if that work helps us, too, so be it! Icing on the cake!
Start with those concepts clearly understood. Then, embrace empowerment. Know that you are invited to participate. Know that you, too, can make a positive difference. Feel the self respect that comes from sharing your contributions with others.
And always, be appreciative to those who do contribute. Without them, without their efforts, without their skills and knowledge, without the thousands of hours they contribute freely to the community, there would be no software for us to freely use and adapt as we need, at all.
With respect... Amy :)
Mr. Anon, You clearly don't
Mr. Anon, You clearly don't have a clue what you are talking about. "99.9999% of the human race love Microsoft"...! Hmmm. ever heard of a company called Apple? "all open source software sucks"... ?? Hmm.. You may have seen that MySQL was sold to Sun recently for something close to 1 billion $. Would you call the founders and employees of MySQL as "self-important self-deluders"... or is it that Sun Microsystems executive team so stupid to invest in something which is not a sound business (real software, real users, real $$$). In the open source world, they are clearly very sharp people who make good businesses and who write excellent code. There is a growing demand for open source in companys big and small and in governments at all levels. "Commercial software will never be threatened by community". Wrong. Commercial software business is already being threatened by open source. Many ECM suppliers are living only on their customer bases and not actually selling new licences. The business model is actually broken. Customers want to pay as they go, and make investments based on real usage of software in an organization – not on thousands of licences of expensive shelfware. Oh and nearly forgot, why do you think Microsoft have a new strategy on embracing Open Source. They have wised up. Open Source is gaining ground fast. Customers are demanding more transparency, better integration with corporate architectures, better support, and more value for money. And on top of that you get all the innovation that opensource and community bring to the table. I suggest that you do some more research.As to why you get seem to get satisfaction by insulting people, i don't get it.
"wouldn't know what to do
"wouldn't know what to do with something like Drupal that has templates no-one understands"
Drupal templates are basically html, css and pre-coded snippets of php. If you cannot comprehend that much maybe you should consider hiring one of those geeks that does. Wordpress uses the same type of templates, as does Joomla.
"I couldn't learn anything on the Drupal forums, because of people like Amy- defensive, hostile, and antagonistic."
Maybe the problem isn't with drupal. IMHO, you use whatever solution suits you. If you want a limited pre-made solution that works out of the box, buy one.
Drupal doesn't include a RTE because not everyone needs one. With drupal you can make: an e-commerce site, a forum, a video-sharing site, a blog, a digg clone, a directory or almost anything else you can imagine. You can extend any of these and mix and match them in one website. No, Drupal isn't your ordinary CMS, but you can always shell out $200 for Subdreamer if it gets too hard.
Friendly
Just want to say that the Drupal community is the friendliest community of nerds I've encountered in my life. In my experience, they're eager and willing to provide hours of unpaid hands-on support in the form of screencasts and live events! If someone was rude on the forums, ignore them. Everyone directly involved with Drupal is nothing but friendly!
Also, remember that TinyMCE, FCK Editor and several other rich-text editors can be added easily within minutes.
I chose to use Drupal because
I chose to use Drupal because it allows you fine granular control over what you want on your website and how you want it displayed.
There is definitely a steeper learning curve with Drupal over the other CMS, but once you get past the initial hurdle you wont be looking back.
There is no such thing as an out of the box CMS. If you want a website to work and look good you must put in the effort. You may be attracted to a CMS because it seems easy to develop in at first, but later down the track you will be left wanting more control, wanting to do more.....
Really it is a horses for courses issue. For example if you just want a blog then I would go for Wordpress, forget Drupal because it would be overkill. However if you want a fairly sophisticated website with say a blog, photo gallery, forum etc then Drupal is a really good choice. But yes I admit you need to put in the initial effort !!