If you are looking to have a presence on the web, whether for your blog, your personal website or your business’ website, you have probably heard quite a bit about WordPress, the world’s most widely used content management system (CMS). However, you may seek an alternative to WordPress.
These three open source CMS alternatives to WordPress blow boast their own user benefits and, most importantly, provide options.
1. Pligg
Pligg is an open source CMS that is the power behind thousands of website, and it is proving a popular option, given it is free and relatively simple to use. Pligg is particularly strong in the development of social media sites, but big names and small ones alike use this CMS to develop websites.
Pligg is designed to create sites that operate similar to Digg, allowing users to suggest and vote on specific topics and articles. Sites that use Pligg well find a way of customizing the platform to target a niche market and find relative success in that. Those that fail to customize will at best look like every other non-customized Pligg-developed site and at worst, they will seem like nothing more than a cheap Digg knock-off.
2. Habari
For the bloggers out there, Habari can provide a great, secure option to WordPress. This open source CMS caters to bloggers, and each update or development of new aspects to the software is done with writers in mind.
Habari supports a number of plug-ins and themes as well as now-common blog features like tagging and RSS. An added bonus is that it is free to use, and Habari even provides a demo that requires no downloading or hard drive space. The downside is that it requires close management by either you or your tech support, where WordPress makes management much simpler.
3. Cushy CMS
Like its name implies, it was designed to make CMS as simple as possible, and this included straying for the norm set by WordPress. Customizations are easy, and micromanagement is almost unnecessary.
Cushy CMS provides both a free and a paid pro version. While the paid version boasts more features (like the ability to remove all ads or use your own domain name and logo), even the free package offers five sites, unlimited editors and 20 languages. And while pro users may get to contact support directly, free users still get access to help videos, frequently asked questions and the Google user group.
While for many users WordPress is a great platform, it can have its flaws. For some, thinking beyond WordPress can pay dividends. There are many different free platforms you can take advantage of when developing a website.
This article was contributed by John Reynolds on behalf of www.centernetworks.com where you can find website hosting company information and comparisons and read their hostgator centernetworks review.
