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I'm looking for a free, simple and efficient CMS for building website for a small company.

Prerequisites are:

  • The website is nothing more than a presentation - with informative content and gallery. The website should contain a nice-looking gallery with js/ajax flavour. Nothing more is planned for now, but it would be nice if CMS would feature some more generic modules/extensions in case I would like to use them in future.
  • Design templates should be easy to adopt and change.
  • Coding as little as possible.

I thought about Drupal, but is there any other CMS which would better fit to these requirements?

Please don't list available CMS-es here. Give it a reason!

Dariusz Woźniak
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    Any CMS will have a learning curve to it. Drupal might be a good choice, especially if you will be building more websites in the future. Other than that, pretty much any popular CMS out there will suit your need. – Michael D Aug 13 '10 at 18:45

8 Answers8

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Wordpress is nice too :p It has a big community behind...

3rgo
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I say Drupal.

  • Drupal is really good in content management. You can create different content types, and assign them fields (in Drupal 6, you will need the CCK contrib module). You can create a gallery with Views and it's output plugins. There are dozens of them, using different layout and JavaScript effects (mostly different jQuery plugins, but there are plugins for lightbox and thickbox also).
  • Drupal has a group of themes called "starter themes". These themes are half-ready, and it is very easy to create your own custom themes with them. All you need is to create a subtheme. (Basically making an info file and copy some other files. There are really a lot of howtos out there.) There are also starter themes for 960 (CSS framework), so you can make the site layout really fast. The most famous starter theme is called Zen. You might want to use that.
  • Except for the theme, I don't think that you have to write any code. Writing a theme for Drupal is not hard, since it uses PHP to render the themes.
tamasd
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Still in beta (0.5) phase but looking very promising: Orchard, a new ASP.NET MVC based CMS created by the people from Microsoft.

Orchard will create shared components for building ASP.NET applications and extensions, and specific applications that leverage these components to meet the needs of end-users, scripters, and developers. Additionally, we seek to create partnerships with existing application authors to help them achieve their goals. Orchard is delivered as part of the ASP.NET Open Source Gallery under the CodePlex Foundation. It is licensed under a New BSD license, which is approved by the OSI.

The intended output of the Orchard project is three-fold:

  • Individual .NET-based applications that appeal to end-users , scripters, and developers
  • A set of re-usable components that makes it easy to build such applications
  • A vibrant community to help define these applications and extensions

In the near term, the Orchard project is focused on delivering a .NET-based CMS application that will allow users to rapidly create content-driven Websites, and an extensibility framework that will allow developers and customizers to provide additional functionality through module extensions and themes.

Kris van der Mast
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It depends on what kind of CMS you are after

pity you don't like programming otherwise i would suggest django, an awsome CMS framework

if you are after something simple like a few static pages and a news feed or something like that then wordpress might suit your needs well, except i have found i don't like how it handles gallery's

if you need anything more, like more advanced custom content types for products, i would recommend Joomla or Drupal, and have plug-ins that has good support for photo galleys

Hugoagogo
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Joomla! will probably be a better choice. It is very easy to use and is highly extensible.

Michael D
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Have a look at:

CMS Made Simple

CMS Made Simple provides a fast and easy way to create a professional web site and manage its content, whether it's for a small business or a multinational corporation!

Features

  • General Features

    • SEO Friendly URLs
    • Integrated and online help
    • Modular and extensible
    • Easy user and group management
    • Group-based permission system
    • Full template support, for unlimited looks without changing a line of content
    • Easy wizard based install and upgrade procedures
    • Minimal server requirements
    • Admin panel with multiple language support
    • Content hierarchy with unlimited depth and size
    • Integrated file manager w/ upload capabilities
    • Integrated audit log
    • Friendly support in forums and irc
    • Small footprint

  • Design Features

    • Accessibility WAI, WCGA, Section 508
    • XHTML and CSS compliant
    • Auto-generated menu
    • Every page can have different theme
    • Design protected from content editors
    • Multiple content areas on one page
Community
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Sarfraz
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If you have a little C# experience then you can try Umbraco. It is a very powerfull CMS written in C# for ASP.NET

It is one of the most powerfull both free and commercial CMS out there.
i recommend to check out the Feature Matrix so you can see if it fulfills your needs.

As an example http://asp.net uses Umbraco

Carlos Muñoz
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have you tried DotNetNuke ?

user279521
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    I dont know why someone took a point from you but Ill give it back. You didn't give many details but DotNetNuke has been around for the 7 years I have been doing .NET work. I can only speak for 6 years ago when writing modules was tricky but there were an abundant number that you could buy. Also there was plenty of hosting for it. I don't think it would be a bad option to consider. – David Daniel Aug 13 '10 at 19:18
  • Don't really care much about the points. I love the information exchange on the board. As far as DNN, I have tried some of the free CMS out there, and I just love DNN. Its God sent for my purposes. – user279521 Aug 13 '10 at 19:41