Textpattern vs. CMSMadeSimple

katon · 2006-03-29 16:39:12

I have been looking around for the most intuitive content management system for my web sites. After checking a big variety of systems and consulting with different forums and specialists, I shortlisted them to Textpattern and CMSMadeSimple. Can anybody here explain to me the difference between the two systems, and strengths/weaknesses of either of them? Thank you in advance.

hcgtv · 2006-03-29 17:02:43

Hi katon,

These type of questions are very subjective, it’s like asking what wine is best. Following the wine analogy, it depends on the meal doesn’t it?

So in the case of TXP versus CMSMS, it depends on the site you want to make. CMSMS ships with various plugins where TXP is a very lean install and you have to add to it. I prefer TXP after having used many CMS systems in the past, I’d rather start with a clean slate and add to it as I see fit.

Either system is capable of creating a web presence, it’s more of a mindset at play.

katon · 2006-03-29 17:33:22

Thank you hcgtv. The problem is I don’t want to rely on my subjective liking. I am looking for a system to be used by my customers who have limited experience with web applications. Thus my goal is to deliver objectively the most intuitive system. And I also want to hear other opinions that will help me make the decision in favor of one of the two systems.

alice_c · 2006-03-29 18:05:13

Hi katon,

I know both systems. The advantage on CMSMS is the navigation: in textpattern it’s not that easy to get the same, or allow your customer to reorder his pages. Plus in CMSMS you can overwrite the whole template for an article.

I use txp very much, but when I need the features metioned above, I use CMSMS.

hakjoon · 2006-03-29 18:24:34

I think the main difference between the two is the content focus.

TXP creates micro-content. Articles that can live in many pages at teh same time. CMSMS creates pages (except when using the news plugin). So using CMSMS is like creating a site in something like dreamweaver. You figure out where your page will live in the hierarchy and create the page there. That content lives there. TXP let’s you re-shuffle the content a little more.

I think the right choice depends on what kind of site you will be building. CMSMS is also very extensible and it’s a very good choice for a simple page based cms.

katon · 2006-03-30 00:21:08

Thank you Beate and Patrick. Looks like my customers will be more comfortable with CMSMadeSimple. But I’ll probably use Textpattern when I need to reuse text blocks. Thank you again!

davidm · 2006-03-30 21:16:18

katon wrote: Thank you Beate and Patrick. Looks like my customers will be more comfortable with CMSMadeSimple. But I’ll probably use Textpattern when I need to reuse text blocks. Thank you again!

Hmmm, no you don’t have to : blobs are just the same thing as forms, you can benefit from the same ease of content re-use :)

I agree with Hakjoon that CMSMS is more of a Website Management System rather than CMS (but then again, lots of CMS are in fact WMS…). Textpattern itself is not really a full blown CMS either (in the sense that it really allow to manage complex content. We’re far from Drupal taxonomy module for example, and txp misses a real transversal way of linking content, like there is in SPIP with keywords…).

I had published a comparative analysis a little while ago :

CMS Made Simple vs Texpattern

BETTER THAN TXP

illimited hierachical levels (though can be achieved with txp, so I hear, and will be feature of txp 4.1)
permission and user management

AS GOOD AS TXP

blobs akin to forms
templating and tag system akin to textpattern’s, though much less tags available (for now)
user tags are in fact plugins called via tags : e.g can be placed in template and you can pass parameters in a way very similar to txp

NOT AS GOOD AS TXP

missing Textile ;p (as far as I know…) or Markdown
no concept of section : templates are assigned to pages individually, conditionnal testing is more limited
admin is clear but not as elegant as txp, and most certainly dull
less features overall (not necessarily bad, but certainly more limited than txp)
fewer – less stable plugins (but growing fast)
younger than txp (wouldn’t use it in production yet)

Last edited by davidm (2006-03-30 21:21:15)

hakjoon · 2006-03-31 01:16:58

Let me just add a couple of things here.

davidm wrote:
NOT AS GOOD AS TXP

missing Textile ;p (as far as I know…) or Markdown

No textile or markdown. The product is definitely geared towards using a WYSIWYG editor latest one I think has FCKEditor integrated

bq..

no concept of section : templates are assigned to pages individually, conditionnal testing is more limited

not useful for the metaphor that CMSMS employs. In CMSMS you build pages which hold text, that’s it. Your data is not organized in any other way. There are other content types like news and links and creating your own content type is pretty straight forward, but the main focus is a page that holds text and matches a location in the navigation

bq..

less features overall (not necessarily bad, but certainly more limited than txp)

the target is simpler then TXP. It does offer less flexibility, but I think some limitations are by design.

bq..

fewer – less stable plugins (but growing fast)

The plugin architecture is very good. You can pretty much change any core behavior via a plugin. It also supports the concept of modules which is designed to integrate other apps into CMSMS (I think there was gallery 2 module last time I looked at it). Tags are equivalent to plugins in TXP.

It reminded me a lot of TXP when i first examined it with forms/blobs, plugins/tags. They are focused on producing very different types of sites though. CMSMS is very much geared towards static content. TXP can handle static content but that’s not the focus.

Nichod · 2006-04-01 19:43:21

I will say some things look nice. For instance: The page editing

And a shop is planned. Though I’ve seen that enough to know what can happen: http://dev.cmsmadesimple.org/projects/dbcart

Last edited by Nichod (2006-04-01 19:51:46)

davidm · 2006-04-02 18:24:53

@hakjoon: Agreed about CMSMS being more of a Website Management System than a Content Management System…

hakjoon wrote: No textile or markdown. The product is definitely geared towards using a WYSIWYG editor latest one I think has FCKEditor integrated

Correction : Markdown is available.

See http://dev.cmsmadesimple.org/projects/markdown

Last edited by davidm (2006-04-02 18:26:07)

Textpattern CMS

Textpattern CMS support forum

#1 2006-03-29 16:39:12

Textpattern vs. CMSMadeSimple

#2 2006-03-29 17:02:43

Re: Textpattern vs. CMSMadeSimple

#3 2006-03-29 17:33:22

Re: Textpattern vs. CMSMadeSimple

#4 2006-03-29 18:05:13

Re: Textpattern vs. CMSMadeSimple

#5 2006-03-29 18:24:34

Re: Textpattern vs. CMSMadeSimple

#6 2006-03-30 00:21:08

Re: Textpattern vs. CMSMadeSimple

#7 2006-03-30 21:16:18

Re: Textpattern vs. CMSMadeSimple

#8 2006-03-31 01:16:58

Re: Textpattern vs. CMSMadeSimple

#9 2006-04-01 19:43:21

Re: Textpattern vs. CMSMadeSimple

#10 2006-04-02 18:24:53

Re: Textpattern vs. CMSMadeSimple

Board footer