mediasalt

Despite the title and photo, this is not a post about managing your weight in the midst of holiday feasts.

I want to take a minute to address one of the most common questions we receive from ministries looking to start fresh with a new site: “What should I use to manage my content?”

Choosing your Content Management System (aka your backend/CMS) may be the most critical step in building a new site. Your CMS serves as the skeleton holding the body of your site together, and its capabilities will be the deciding factor on how easy it is to do what you want to do with your new online home. Here’s a look into the most popular solutions we’ve seen over the last year or so…

Expression Engine - Learn More Here

Expression Engine is growing in popularity and functionality every day, and is quickly becoming the CMS of choice for many organizations. Even better, it’s only $250 bucks to get a license $99 to get a license for a non-profit! Cleve has been using EE for the Chapel since September and has had nothing but great things to say about it so far. You can read more a good breakdown about EE here.

WordPress - Learn More Here

It seems like WordPress continues to grow as the secret sauce that powers hundreds of thousands of great sites these days. Although it’s designed primarily as blogging software, its flexibility and customization options make for a robust (and free!) CMS if you have the time to learn its quirks.

Be sure to check with your hosting provider before you try to install it from scratch yourself; chances are, you’re provider has an quick, one-click install available for you.

Ekklesia360 - Learn More Here

Looking for a CMS that’s designed purely around the needs of a church? Ekklessia360 may be just what you’re looking for. The folks at Monk Development are churning out some killer software these days, and Ekklessia360 likely includes most of the core functionality that your church is looking for. We’ve heard a lot of good buzz from folks that are using it.

SkyCMS - Learn More Here

I don’t know as much about this one, but found it the other day when I was doing some unrelated research. There seems to be some positive buzz about it, and it looks like they provide some great tools around common church tasks. It would be worth your time to check it out.

Build Your Own!

I realize that this may not be the best route for every ministry, especially if you lack some geeky talent on your staff. Nevertheless, sometimes it can be easier and cheaper to just spend a month or two developing a custom solution that’s perfectly tailored to your needs. It may cost more up front, but you’ll typically make the money back in savings over the years due to a lack of monthly service fees. Don’t be afraid to look into some of the open-source work of others to piece together the perfect solution for your church. It’s what we’ve done at Long Hollow, and it has worked well for us so far (though sometimes it would be nice to get the periodic upgrades that comes with the actively developed solutions above!).

Have I missed a killer CMS in my brief rundown above? Let us know in the comments below.