Most Important Features for a CMS [closed]

Answer 1

1) WYSIWYG editor. Being able to edit HTML content as if it were in Microsoft Word. That includs the ability to upload your own images.

2) Creating new pages without query strings ie) not 'pages.aspx?pageid=5' but 'contact.aspx'

3) Additional features such as news, photo gallery, blog, user management, etc...

Personally I really like the CMS starter kit Microsoft has available on codeplex. It is very well done and uses XML file storage so it doesn't need a database!

Answer 2

• security - OWASP Top 10
• user management & user roles
• action and view permissions
• content versioning and audit
• some form of workflow and notifications
• i18n support on literals and object versions
• normalized database schema design
• some form of content import-export
• assets management and thumbnail generation for uploads
• Valid XHTML (compressed with GZIP)
• Rich text editing (e.g FCKeditor) which generates accessible markup
• Valid and minified CSS and javascript (e.g using YUI)
• automatically generated sitemaps.org document
• integration with Google Analytics
• automatic RSS feeds
• open search support
• print css and/or print versions of content
• SEO consideration for duplicate content (e.g use of canonical tag)

Answer 3

The features you need the most will naturally depend on how the CMS is going to be used, and by whom. For some, licensing will be the greatest issue, while for others, some obscure requirement like support for TIFF files could be the thing.

If you want en extensive list of CMS features, take a look at CMS Feature Lists

Answer 4

When working with clients, I often heard a number of requirements that, in my opinion, had little to do with what a modern CMS really needs. Far too often emphasis was on features that should have been in the domain of template designers, such as support for responsive design (whatever that really means), the ability to add brand elements etc.

I compiled a list of the top 5 features a modern CMS needs at http://www.simoahava.com/content-management/modern-cms-top-5-features/

Modular architecture and strong security are the most important features from a technical standpoint. Complete control over content, source code and the software solution itself are all huge perks for any CMS.

Simo Ahava

Answer 5

My number one requirement when choosing a CMS system is the ability to skin it easily and control the markup.

Users can be really fussy about getting the layout EXACTLY as they want.

Answer 6

In addition to the things that others have mentioned:

Caching

If you page comprises lots of "pieces" - e.g. a Banner pane, Left pane, Main pane, Right pane and Footer pane, and perhaps each of those will have multiple "widgets" in them, then the effort of constructing the page becomes significant (both in database calls, and in rendering at the web server). Having some intelligent caching that is able to detect when any of the underlying content blocks has changed will make a big different to performance

CMS Matrix may be a useful comparison resource of existing CMS products