If you are a novice to CMSes and want to proceed, it is worth taking a look at popular CMS (Content management systems) key features. By the way, you don’t have to be a HTML expert for launching a basic website with cookie-cutter CMS solutions.

Three most popular content management systems are WordPress, Joomla and Drupal. Following are the key features of these three CMS in brief:

WordPress:

WordPress is in fact most popular and easy to use blogging CMS. It offers a wide variety of themes both free and paid. Even a novice can handle it and use and customize it effectively for both publishing and updating content online.

First released in May 2003 by Matt Mullenweg, its version 3.0 has been downloaded over 32.5 million times.

WordPress has many interesting features including a plug-in architecture and a template system.

WordPress is being used by over 13% of the 1,000,000 biggest websites. In 2009, WordPress won the best open source CMS award.

Joomla:

Joomla literally meaning “Total” or “altogether” is another open source CMS for publishing content online. It has features like page caching, RSS feeds, news flashes and support for language internationalization.

Joomla is written in PHP and uses object oriented programming (OOP) techniques.

Though its stable release came in March 2011, it has been in the market since 2007. More than 21 million downloads of Joomla reported between March 2007 and Feb 2011. There are over 6000 free and commercial plug-ins available from the Joomla extension directory.

Joomla is ideal for fantastic looking website designs.

Drupal:

Drupal, a CMS released in Jan 2001 offers a sophisticated programming interface for developers; however no skills are required for basic website installation and administration.

Drupal presentation layer allows designers to create highly usable, interactive experiences that engage users and increase traffic. Drupal themes offer a wide variety and support rich customization. Major Drupal sites include whitehouse.gov and data.gov.uk.

Majority of people in blogging world in Pakistan may not know much about the Joomla and Drupal as WordPress is dominant CMS as it offers almost every thing for bloggers and it is as easy to use and customize.

While Joomla is making a name for itself in recent months with its greater advertising campaign but it will certainly take some time before it can replace the WordPress as no.1 CMS.