Best PHP CMS for Web Development

A CMS (Content Management System) is an application that allows users organize, manage, edit, publish and create a website easily. This powerful tool can help you to easily setup websites in minutes which are both scalable and customizable.

Content management systems (CMS) are very popular these days and are used to run sites like ecommerce, blogs, online magazines, social networks and enterprise sites all over the world. There are several popular PHP content management systems are available such as Wordpress, Joomla and Drupal etc.

Let's have a look in brief what are these and those features:

Wordpress

Wordpress is the most popular blogging platform and for bloggers, there is no better choice than wordpress. It is best suitable for non-technical users and allows users to easily configure and manage content. Anyone can set up a wordpress blog in minutes and install and change themes without disturbing the content and structure of the site. Plus its wider array of plugins allows users to extend and customize the functionality of wordpress websites without hassle.

Fundamentally a blogging platform, wordpress has been evolved into a complete cms solution in the recent years. Wordpress is rich in plugins and themes and allows users to build any sorts of websites. Even building an REST API backend is possible now with wordpress.
Features:

• Great for blogging platform
• Suitable for non-technical users
• Minimalistic design and simple user interface
• Can be slow for large content portals (requires CDN to increase speed)
• Supported by an active community with thousands of plugins, templates and online tutorials

Drupal

Drupal is another best php cms that powers millions of websites and applications. This is the content management system for developers and comes with steep learning curve. Drupal is powerful and versatile and gives lot more freedom to developers.

With the release of Drupal 8, the CMS now focuses on modern web-development practices and offers Symfony 2 components, Composer packages and Twig template engine. Drupal is highly scalable, modular and developer-friendly and has been the popular choice of developers to build feature rich, data-intensive applications.
Features:

• A content management system for developers
• Have steep learning curve
• Great for all sorts of websites
• Excellent to build websites with complex functionalities
• Drupal community is very active and has thousands of themes, plug-ins and online tutorials to get started with

Joomla

Joomla is an award-winning content management system based on PHP. Like Drupal, it’s very popular among developers and has high learning curve. Its communuty is large and offers thousands of extensions to build robust and powerful online applications. While wordpress plugins are centered towards blogging, Joomla plugins are versatile in nature and provides complex functionalities. It is highly recommended for building online stores and large social networks and other web applications.

Features:

• It's a developer-friendly CMS that offers freedom and creativity
• Recommended for building E-commerce and Social Networking Sites
• Surrounded by a great community and offers thousands of extensions, themes and online tutorials
• Easy to install

MODX

MODX is one of the most creative and flexible content management system for web platform. This open-source cms is based on PHP language and comes under GPL licensing. MODX is very easy to install and use and let you build sites that provide exceptional user experience. MODX gives you complete control over the application and easily scalable to adapt growing requirements.

Concrete5

Concrete5 is another best php cms. Claimed to be the Next generation Content Management System, Concrete5 is extremely powerful and comes with an easy-to-use admin panel. Managing your content is never that easy. It has a great supporting community and lined up with wide array of plug-ins, add-ons and themes. Concrete5 user interface is very easy to use, and let you build and manage any sort of websites right from ecommerce to magazines and enterprise to personal sites.

Some of the Websites you can build with concrete5 are,

Corporate Websites
Online Shops
Personal Websites
Community Portals
Blogs, Magazines and Newsletters etc


Grav

CMS like drupal or wordpress is great but they will be too much if you want to build a small website or a personal blog. The rich functionalities of a traditional cms are not required in this case. What you really need is a lightweight solution. Grav is a popular flat-file cms and can be a best alternative. It is smart, speedy and light-in-weight and stores website data inside files and folders and does not require database.

You don’t even have to install the cms; just upload the files to the web-server and your website is ready. Grav supports markdown editor and all your WebPages are stored as .md files.

Grav cms offers twenty something readymade themes and several plugins to extend the functionalities of the website. It also supports Twig template engine so if you want a custom theme you can easily create one with some knowledge in html and css.


Google Trends for different CMS

My favorite CMS is WordPress. Because it is easy to use and have more flexible. It's also allow you to create fully functional websites. So it is the very important reason why WordPress is so popular, now these days.

There are currently 30,000+ plugins & 2000+ WordPress themes available for free. You can easily download, install and use them on any website.

Here are some of the features that we think that you’ll love.

Simplicity Simplicity makes it possible for you to get online and get publishing, quickly. Nothing should get in the way of you getting your website up and your content out there. WordPress is built to make that happen.

Flexibility With WordPress, you can create any type of website you want: a personal blog or website, a photoblog, a business website, a professional portfolio, a government website, a magazine or news website, an online community, even a network of websites. You can make your website beautiful with themes, and extend it with plugins. You can even build your very own application.

Publish with Ease If you’ve ever created a document, you’re already a whizz at creating content with WordPress. You can create Posts and Pages, format them easily, insert media, and with the click of a button your content is live and on the web.

Publishing Tools WordPress makes it easy for you to manage your content. Create drafts, schedule publication, and look at your post revisions. Make your content public or private, and secure posts and pages with a password.

User Management Not everyone requires the same access to your website. Administrators manage the site, editors work with content, authors and contributors write that content, and subscribers have a profile that they can manage. This lets you have a variety of contributors to your website, and let others simply be part of your community.

Media Management They say a picture says a thousand words, which is why it’s important for you to be able to quickly and easily upload images and media to WordPress. Drag and drop your media into the uploader to add it to your website. Add alt text, captions, and titles, and insert images and galleries into your content. We’ve even added a few image editing tools you can have fun with.

Easy Theme System WordPress comes bundled with two default themes, but if they aren’t for you there’s a theme directory with thousands of themes for you to create a beautiful website. None of those to your taste? Upload your own theme with the click of a button. It only takes a few seconds for you to give your website a complete makeover.

Extend with Plugins WordPress comes packed full of features for every user, for every other feature there’s a plugin directory with thousands of plugins. Add complex galleries, social networking, forums, social media widgets, spam protection, calendars, fine-tune controls for search engine optimization, and forms.

Built-in Comments Your blog is your home, and comments provide a space for your friends and followers to engage with your content. WordPress’s comment tools give you everything you need to be a forum for discussion and to moderate that discussion.

Search Engine Optimized WordPress is optimized for search engines right out of the box. For more fine-grained SEO control, there are plenty of SEO plugins to take care of that for you.

Multilingual WordPress is available in more than 70 languages. If you or the person you’re building the website for would prefer to use WordPress in a language other than English, that’s easy to do.

Easy Installation and Upgrades WordPress has always been easy to install and upgrade. If you’re happy using an FTP program, you can create a database, upload WordPress using FTP, and run the installer. Not familiar with FTP? Plenty of web hosts offer one-click WordPress installers that let you install WordPress with, well, just one click!

Importers Using blog or website software that you aren’t happy with? Running your blog on a hosted service that’s about to shut down? WordPress comes with importers for blogger, LiveJournal, Movable Type, TypePad, Tumblr, and WordPress. If you’re ready to make the move, we’ve made it easy for you.

Community As the most popular open source CMS on the web, WordPress has a vibrant and supportive community. Ask a question on the support forums and get help from a volunteer, attend a WordCamp or Meetup to learn more about WordPress, read blogs posts and tutorials about WordPress. Community is at the heart of WordPress, making it what it is today.

Contribute You can be WordPress too! Help to build WordPress, answer questions on the support forums, write documentation, translate WordPress into your language, speak at a WordCamp, write about WordPress on your blog. Whatever your skill, we’d love to have you!