What are the best CMS for a University News Publication site?

Options
Considered

User
Recs.

Oct 15, 2019

Last
Updated

Joomla! vs Drupal vs WordPress

vs Django CMS vs Statamic

Specs

License

GPLv2

Default Template Engine

PHP

Language

PHP

Store Support

Yes (plugin)

Extensible

Yes

Plugin & Modules

Yes

Field Builder

Yes

Price

Free

Multi Language Support

Yes

DB Support

MySQL (recommended), SQL Server, PostgreSQL

Web Server Support

Apache, Nginx, Microsoft IIS

Content versioning

Yes

Redis Support

Yes

Page Cache

Yes (File, Redis, Memcache, APC, XCache)

Admin Messaging

Yes

Internal Search Engine

Yes

PHP Support

From PHP 5.3 to PHP 7.3

Sessions Cache

Yes (DB, PHP, Redis, Memcache, APC, XCache)

Access Control List (ACL)

Yes

URL Redirect Manager

Yes

Media Manger

Yes

URL Routing System (SEF)

Yes

System Cache

Yes (File, Redis, Memcache, APC, XCache)

Technology

PHP version

GraphQL

Headless

CMF

Store support

License

GPLv2+

Default Template Engine

twig

Language

Store Support

Extensible

yes

Plugin & Modules

yes

Field Builder

yes

Price

Multi Language Support

DB Support

Web Server Support

Content versioning

Redis Support

Page Cache

Admin Messaging

Internal Search Engine

PHP Support

Sessions Cache

Access Control List (ACL)

URL Redirect Manager

Media Manger

URL Routing System (SEF)

System Cache

Technology

PHP

PHP version

5.3

GraphQL

yes (module)

Headless

yes

CMF

yes

Store support

yes (module)

License

GPLv2

Default Template Engine

PHP

Language

PHP

Store Support

Yes (Plugin)

Extensible

Plugin & Modules

Field Builder

Price

Multi Language Support

DB Support

Web Server Support

Content versioning

Redis Support

Page Cache

Admin Messaging

Internal Search Engine

PHP Support

Sessions Cache

Access Control List (ACL)

URL Redirect Manager

Media Manger

URL Routing System (SEF)

System Cache

Technology

PHP version

GraphQL

Headless

CMF

Store support

License

Default Template Engine

Language

Store Support

Extensible

Plugin & Modules

Field Builder

Price

Multi Language Support

DB Support

Web Server Support

Content versioning

Redis Support

Page Cache

Admin Messaging

Internal Search Engine

PHP Support

Sessions Cache

Access Control List (ACL)

URL Redirect Manager

Media Manger

URL Routing System (SEF)

System Cache

Technology

PHP version

GraphQL

Headless

CMF

Store support

License

Default Template Engine

Language

Store Support

Extensible

Plugin & Modules

Field Builder

Price

Multi Language Support

DB Support

Web Server Support

Content versioning

Redis Support

Page Cache

Admin Messaging

Internal Search Engine

PHP Support

Sessions Cache

Access Control List (ACL)

URL Redirect Manager

Media Manger

URL Routing System (SEF)

System Cache

Technology

PHP version

GraphQL

Headless

CMF

Store support

Pros + Cons

Pro
Highly customizable templates

Joomla allows for heavily customizable templates to be changed from the admin interface without needing to hack.

Comment

Pro
More than 8000 extensions

Huge variety of extensions available, you can see them here.

Comment

Pro
Powerful and user-friendly admin interface

Admin interface is constantly being iterated on to remove unnecessary legacy features and to streamline the interface. Resulting in a very clean and easy to understand interface that also offers a wide range of options.

Comment

Con
Insecure

It's common-place for a Joomla-based website to be defaced, often very quickly. This is most often due to the low quality of extensions.

Comment

Con
Extensions are scarce, badly maintained & rarely good

If it's not part of the default Joomla installation, quality extensions are rare. Joomla has a extensions library, but it is full of abandoned, dated or bloated components, modules and plugins.

Comment

Pro
Great for large sites

Drupal is stable, with powerful version control and access control methods and can handle large amounts of traffic.

Comment

Pro
Active community

Drupal has one of biggest and more active communities across FOSS, maintaining a large and vibrant ecosystem of extensions and installation profiles. The large community makes it easy to get help when needed.

Comment

Pro
Free & open source

Drupal is free to use and open source.

Comment

Pro
Highly customizable

Drupal can be customized to do almost anything. It was built ground up with the intent of using a wide variety of small modules to get the exact result wanted instead of just the most common solutions.

Comment

Con
Requires great technical expertise

Drupal is an advanced CMS that requires developer expertise. If you do not have someone on your team with developer experience, Drupal may not be the CMS for you.

Comment

Con
Steep learning curve

Drupal is not easy to get into and out of the box doesn't offer much. To get Drupal doing what you want it to, modules are required. To get modules, an understanding of how Drupal works is required. And that takes time.

Comment

Pro
REST API

The WordPress REST API provides API endpoints for WordPress data types that allow developers to interact with sites remotely by sending and receiving JSON https://developer.wordpress.org/rest-api/

Comment

Pro
Plenty of learning material available online

There is no shortage of 3rd party learning resources available for free to help people get over the steep learning curve.

Comment

Pro
Post-level privacy controls

Each post can have a different access level.

Comment

Con
Can be complex/difficult to learn

There are many more customization options compared to other solutions, which creates a steep learning curve.

Comment

Pro
Double click to edit

You can double click items to edit them or add pages directly on the website (as long as you're logged in as admin). It simplifies content creation and touch-ups.

Comment

Pro
Internationalization (multi-language) support

Having a website in more than one language can be very challenging and DJango-CMS supports it well. Switching between languages while keeping on the page for example.

Comment