What you should look for in a content management system

I have come across many discussions on list serves and forums as of late with people questioning what CMS they should go with. Exploring content management systems can be a bare with all the options available. I developed a short list of items I recommend exploring before selecting a CMS from my experience implementing various solutions for clients.<?p>

Things to consider when looking at a CMS are:

1. Community stability - Look at the size and level of support a system's community has. This is an indicator how long the software will be around.
2. Documentation - This is pretty obvious, but it helps to be able to find good guides on how to use the system.
3. Security - Assess how secure the system is. Make sure there are regular security updates for the core system and modules. Fyi, systems that offer automatic updates online are not very secure.
4. File/media support
   - Managing documents and multimedia files is an underrated feature. Make sure you can easily add and manage files for a richer presentation of content.
5. WYSIWYG editor flexibility - Not all organizations want, or need, all the features on an editor. Having the ability to manage what editor features can be used by content contributors is a gift, especially in ensuring good coding practices for SEO.
6. User/Community Management - Websites are becoming more interactive as organizations look to build vibrant communities with their constituents online. Having the ability to manage users, track activity and moderate user generated content is a must these days.
7. Integration - Having multiple systems to manage data can be a burden on any webmaster. Make sure your CMS has provides a means to integrate with your CMS.SEO - This really should be number one. Make sure your CMS supports search engine friendly URL s, control over site meta data, and produces standards compliant themes at a minimum. Ideally, you will also be able to set custom 404 messages and redirects.
8. Flexible presentation of content - I am a stickler for usability and hate having to hack a CMS to get something as simple as a page with press releases. Make sure you will have flexibility in the type of content you create and how it's presented.
9. Modular framework - Never hack the core code base of a CMS. You are setting yourself up for problems with upgrades in the future. Use a system that allows you to install modules, or small applications, that extend the system.

The most important thing to do before selecting a CMS is planning. Make sure to take to look at your strategy, determine what technology you will need to implement it and research how various systems offer that functionality to you.

Note, I am focusing solely on open source content management systems because I generally never recommend someone go with a proprietary vendor for this. Web standards, trends and technologies change rapidly, and I find proprietary vendors generally cannot keep up with the times. The top open source CMS's (Drupal, Plone, Joomla and Wordpress) have surpassed what most proprietary systems will offer you given their large development communities.