If you have to choose between TYPO3 CMS and TYPO3 Neos, which criteria are relevant to decide?
What are the main differences between those two variants (features, editing, performance, hosting, etc.)?
How different is the developing in terms of learning curve, complexity, programming speed?
(disclaimer): I am part of the Neos team - so I cannot compare the differences clearly as I have not been working productively with TYPO3 CMS.
Still, I'd like to give some general remarks as well on the above points:
Learning Curve: I think Neos more consistent concept-wise than TYPO3 CMS -- because we were able to learn from the pros and cons of TYPO3 (as quite some of us have been TYPO3 CMS core devs in the past). On the other hand, while we try to have as much documentation as possible, we know that documentation is still a weak point of Neos. There definitely exists a lot more documentation for TYPO3 than for Neos, and the community is bigger.
Complexity: Hard to compare. I think both systems are complex in certain areas, easier in others.
Speed: If you download Neos, it is by default running in Development Context, which makes it slower, but nicer to work with during development. Many caches are automatically cleared then. However, make sure to enable the Production context when working with Flow/Neos applications. You can do that by adding an environment variable FLOW_CONTEXT=Production to your apache/php/nginx configuration. I've seen quite some productive instances running (slowly) in development context.
Features: I think that one is honestly hard to compare. As an example, TYPO3 CMS has a big "News" extension (actually, several of them); which might get you started easily on the one side, but on the other side adjusting it to very specific output can be more complex. In Neos, it is very easy to create your own node types and build them in a way that they do exactly what you want them to do. So for now, you will create a "News" node type which works the way you like. I think in the longer run, more best practices will emerge, leading to "de-facto" standard packages for solving e.g. News. As an example, there is the https://github.com/Flow-Community/Community.News package maintained by Neos community members.
Important: Neos 2.0 is currently in beta phase, containing e.g. more advanced access controls along with lots of other smaller and bigger features, as well as lots of bugfixes. If you can, I'd suggest you use this one.
Verdict: I know many of the TYPO3 CMS devs and they are also doing truly great things :-) So I won't give a recommendation for the one or the other.
Greets,
Sebastian
I wonder that the criteria of future development is not mentioned here. For me it's one of the most important, especially after splitting Neos and TYPO3 CMS just some month ago. TYPO3 CMS is well established over years. Neos is much younger, which brings perhaps advantages in some technical parts. Some people fear the separation and hope that Neos can build a community and not ends as a death-system.
If you want to discover how it feels like for editors in backends the demo sites of Neos and TYPO3 CMS can give you an idea.
TYPO3 CMS is more advanced and enterprise-ready.
This includes extensibility, existing features/extensions and community.
TYPO3 NEOS on the other hand has a very nice interface for administrating content - you can edit the content directly on the website and you have no separate backend.
Regarding you points:
learning curve: quite the same. TYPO3 CMS has the bigger community so you may find more articles, snipptes...
complexity: see above
speed: at the moment TYPO3 CMS (version 7.1) has the way better performance. but they are improving neos pretty fast. at the moment I would recommend using Varnish if you decide for neos.. ;)
main differences
features: CMS a lot more
editing: NEOS way nicer
performance: see above (speed)
hosting: you need PHP 5.5/MySQL for both.. Varnish for neos recommended
conclusion
if you have a website with simple content only and not a complex rights management for administrating user, TYPO3 NEOS can be quite nice. Even they got a cool Framework underneath (TYPO3 FLOW).
Otherwise - go for CMS (TYPO3 CMS 7.1)
Related
I've been on this issue for probably a good two months now and really haven't found a stable solution so I thought I'd just try to ask. I have an existing site already at http://keyjaycompound.com that runs off a CMS that I designed. While it was good at the time, I've now outgrown it and looking at it now, looks sloppy XD.
So at first I started redoing the CMS when I thought and read that there are so many CMS solutions available, why spin my wheels? It seemed more logical to get a third party solution that does the mondain tasks like article CRUD and user management where I'd primarily worry about the addons.
So I searched and tried many solutions that I thought would suite my PHP development needs. As my testing base, I needed to see how well my current site would transfer over and how much hassle would ensue. While CMS's like Drupal, E107, and others were great....on paper, neither seem to suite my need. They were either too bloated, lacking in documentation or community support, seemly comprised of large hassle for simple tasks, or just downright confusing >_<.
So now the road has put me at Frameworks now in which I'm currently trying to learn Code Igniter. Now my issue becomes security! One of the advantages of CMS systems like Drupal or Joomla is that they have (and constantly are) field tested for security holes. Something a lone modest experienced developer like myself would probably never find. However what some have told me is that the fact that the CMS would be designed by me does create somewhat of a layer of security considering it's not common to the public as much as Drupal or Wordpress.
So with that here are my questions. In consideration of time and practicality:
how do pro's actually do something like this; select a content management system for their project?
Do they start with frameworks and build out, adjusting to security problems along the way?
Do they use a particular CMS solution so they dont worry as much about common security holes?
Maybe I should start with a framework like Codeigniter and growing with it as my security and user management needs change?
Thanks guys. I'd really like to finally stick with a solution to learn so I can finally get back to developing.
This might be too old to answer, but I'm shocked nobody has bothered to answer the question! I'm in the same situation and saw this.
I started out with a CMS, but after a security attack that wiped a project site clean (and the CMS forum was completely clueless) I picked up Codeigniter. Some projects later and recreating my own CMS (twice), I settled with wordpress for small-medium projects (from personal websites to online news/magazine types). As you put it, I've outgrown my own CMS for these type of projects.
Answers (in the order you asked them):
1) It depends mostly on what it is you are doing. If its something that can be deployed with open software (with a little patience learning), you could be better off with that while making sure they're updated all the time. But if you're doing something way different from all these I'm afraid you're pretty much stuck with a custom solution, which you could accelerate with frameworks.
2,3,4) With frameworks (for starters) sticking to the security guidelines of the framework in question helps a lot, while proofing the usual suspects (form validation, session hijacking, injection, etc) . I ran my first CMS through a certified hacker and he said it was rock solid (despite how paranoid I was about security while developing). Stick to the blog of the framework for security updates (they do happen)
For CI though, a major item you have to consider thoroughly would be the user management. CI AFAIK didn't come with one at the time and picking one with security in mind made me realize how important it was.
What seems to be looking like a good idea is finding a CMS working within Codeigniter that I can extend with ease. I don't know yet if this is the same as a standalone CMS that was built on codeigniter, but tackling security problems for me would amount to running tests while being as alert as I am as I go
Sorry for the long talk. Hope this helps
I'm researching MODX as a CMS and found this interview with the creator of FoxyCart.
He really gives MODX a lot of positive comments and when asked about improving MODX he pointed out the following:
User management can be awkward, and
some things related to webusers have
never really been brought current.
(Newspublisher can’t handle TVs;
Weblogin is temperamental and not easy
to customize; Webusers need “TVs” for
additional fields.)
Can others on this site shed some light on this? What other kind of user management issues are there?
What are some areas of MODX that people think should be improved?
I'm trying to figure out whether to go with MODX or not. I've been reading a lot of positive things about it and want to make sure that I get the whole picture.
Brett (Foxycart) is talking about MODX Evolution, the older codebase, and makes reference to add-ons, which are (for the most part) independently authored - so definitely improvable. MODX Revolution is the newer version, currently at 2.1 RC3. I've worked with everything from Enterprise CRMs (Tridion, Rhythmyx, Mediasurface as was) to other FOSS systems Silverstripe, Wordpress etc, and it is by far the most intelligently put together and executed of the lot.
It has some niggles - the permissions system is overly abstract and complex, it lacks some plug-and-play features, fine-tuning performance is a bit of a black art, and it doesn't have the ecosystem support of bigger players like Drupal or Joomla (or even WP). But the peer support is fantastic, the core team are committed and talented, and with a modicum of php and willingness to RTFM you can make it do almost anything with MODX.
Strongly recommended.
Everything can be improved, Wordpress or Drupal included, thats generalizing the topic. MODx is awesome piece of 0's and 1's which will cut your development time so much that your head will spin. Its easy to use and develop with and its fast. As far as im concerned, its web designers dream to work with. I sat give it a local spin and try playing for a day and decide afterwards.
Here are some of tuts i compiled in URL list for easy learning:
http://urli.st/3Tg
Also, Twitter #modx is also great resource to be in sync with the matter.
Hope you'll find it good!
good luck!
I've used several Content Management Platforms, and ultimately the experience has always been similar. While I can put up a site lickety-split, I have often wanted to override functionality or its output and couldn't do so without wading through large amounts of PHP files. This has always resulted in a large unsatisfactory result, because I am not lazy, unless I have to wade through others code.
When I started ModX, one week ago, the learning curve hit me like a brick. Mostly this was because it was so simple and I had been trained to deal with CMSes in complex manners. It is much more like a true Object Oriented platform (to me), and as I am an OO programmer, this fit the bill once I realized it was not as complex as I was making it out to be.
Now, in less than a week I have two nearly complete websites (a corporate software development with a shopping cart and a development blog) in less than 1/4 of the time it took me to make my original Corporate website. I'm at the tweaking style and adding content more quickly and easily than I have ever done with a CMS. I did all of the work as well. Injecting my own PHP, HTML, and CSS was amazingly easy, and I did not have to search and rely on hacky plugins to get the job done.
That being said, there are a number of ways in which ModX could be improved. The Manager uses Ajax, but most of the time it is used way too often on a full page refresh anyway. This does slow things down. The User Management is awkward, at first, and honestly should be revisited as time and community allows. The tutorials are improving, but are weak without the videos to accompany them (in my opinion). And there is a lack of variety of useful plugins, but the plugins they have are extremely useful and can be tailored for nearly any solution.
As a final note: the most useful feature is the abstraction of the properties and property sets. This allows you to override your overall site settings, for things as simple as a template or page.
FuzzicalLogic
Putting up a simple photo gallery can be a nightmare.
There is a plug in component that is very obtuse and cumbersome to implement. This is a glaring weakness when you are comparing to, say, WordPress, who are very much MODx's competition for the hearts and minds of developers.
My 5 minutes experience with Modx (2.1.3-pl)
installed the latest (stable) version then try to run the site.
1) Error 503, site unavailable.
okay, it should show a link to the setup page but a quick search in internet showed how to open the setup manually.
2) PDO is required... well, it is starting to stink. PDO is slow
them i activated PDO in my PHP, restart apache and entered the "Connection Information" form and clicked in "Test database server connection and view collations." and
3) "Test database server connection and view collations." javascript error.. i tried with other browser and it is the same.
nuff said.
I’m looking at using Expression Engine for a new site I’m developing does anyone have any experience of using EE, good or bad?
I’ve looked at some other CMS but found they are quite big and although you get everything, I like EE as it looks like you can streamline it to exactly what you want your users to use?
The main feature I need is to not be taken away from the HTML and CSS and not feel restricted on what I design or relying on plugins to achieve certain aspects of the site.
The ability to create snippets of code and include them into a main template or page is really appealing. I looked at other CMS but they seem to focus more on creating pages where I would like to make up a page from varouis custom created snippets?
I come from a asp and MS SQL background rather than a php and my SQL do you think that would cause me any problems?
I've used ExpressionEngine before and found it to be extremely easy to get your head around compared to other CMS products such as Drupal. Plus, you have a lot more freedom with your designs.
One of the best resources I found on the web, is a site called train-ee.com by Mike Boyink. This is the first tutorial I did on ExpressionEngine (when I was first learning) and he goes into great detail while keeping it extremely simple:
http://www.train-ee.com/courseware/free-tutorials/category/building-a-small-business-site/
Hope this helps.
Dan
Jemes,
I have been building websites on EE for a few years now and it is hands-down the most flexible and powerful system to work with. You simply can build sites faster and customize it to fit clients needs better. As a company we were so happy with it that we build our own add-on for e-commerce (BrilliantRetail).
The community (#eecms on twitter) is fantastic and there are meetups, EECI conferences (Oct 2011), Devotee EE addons and a responsive parent company (#ellislab)constantly improving the platform.
Tony
If you have a few bucks to spend (48$), and if you are more of a visual learner, you might want to have a look at Ryan Ierlan's screencasts on Mijingo:
http://mijingo.com/products/screencasts/learning-expressionengine-2-complete-series/
I come from a asp and MS SQL background rather than a php and my SQL do you think that would >cause me any problems?
I have neither background and it didn´t caused my any problems. If you don´t want to build your own plugins you won´t need to know PHP. I can´t program PHP, but never felt the necessity to learn it.
I started with EE 0.95 backthan and never looked for any other CMS, because I could build all my sites with EE. I like the concept of haveing a comercial product that is build upon an open source foundation (code igniter) coupled with a very active and friendly community.
I am working on a project which requires facilities like aricles, forums, ratings, polls,communities etc..
how to i proceed to make it?
what are its essential parts?
suggestions for the database design.
thankyou.
I know this isn't your question, but don't reinvent the wheel.
You will fall foul of a lot of problems.
Use something like Drupal instead.
Just take a look at some source code from existing CMSs such as Wordpress or SMF and you'll get a good idea.
Yeah-- roll with wordpress or drupal if php, dotnetnuke or orchard for .net. Bare minimum, you could use their code as a template to make yours.
CMSs are complex systems--don't waste your time
There are so many existing and good and open source (if you need the source) CMS systems already. Why reinvent the wheel?
I would recommend going with one that exists but if you must you could even download an open source CMS to help give you an idea of what you need.
I would suggest that you adopt a php framework, like Symfony, kohana/CodeIgniter CakePHP etc. Building a custom cms for yourself or a client is not a bad idea. Hacking the 'usual suspects' that do 80% of what you need and leave a cluttered backend interface might work for some clients, but if you can offer a truly custom experience, your clients would prefer that, given that security is not an issue and you have well functioning CMS.
When it comes to the rudimentary tasks involved in database management/scaffolding, user permissions, forms handling, etc. do try out one of the frameworks, they get you coding the important stuff sooner. Play around with any one of these (I find Symfony is pretty powerful, and Kohana/CI are easy to set up, haven't used cakePhp) and once you get comfortable with one of these, have a look at some of the CMSes that were done using these frameworks
I've built a couple of lightweight CMS's from scratch several years ago in PHP, when the Nukes were the main ones about, and Mambo was becoming popular, however nowadays there are many great choices to choose from.
If your needs are very simple and you really want to build it yourself, than I would recommend building one with a framework such as Kohana which has much of the core plumbing in place, database access, security, permissions etc.
You will need a WYSIWYG such as TinyMCE, (f)CkEditor, or Telerik RadEditor.
Database structure could be centered around document type structure, take a look at the db structure for ModX which is an excellent CMS to buid customized sites off, however even looking at how they structure content is useful.
Design a backend U.I for the admin area of your site, keep it simple, and separate the cms admin area from the frontend code.
Determine the scalability issues of your cms, catering to hundreds(of thousands??!?) of users, what type of roles will be required, permissions for editing content etc.
How would the CMS be extended, with plugins, modules
Determine the templating system, whether to roll your own or use an existing one such as smarty.
These are just some of the initial decisions to make, it's actually quite easy to build a simple CMS though as others have suggested its generally much better to use an existing open source one, ModX, Drupal, etc..
I am looking to develop a multi-user web application that supports the following key features:
fill out forms with demographic data on individuals
define and administer surveys & polls
generate nice reports with graphs)
user rights administration and generic login stuff
My dilemma is whether to use a CMS (Drupal?) or develop from scratch.
Putting the time and cost issues aside for a minute, which are an obvious CMS strength, what are the weaknesses and potential risks using a CMS? my gut tells me that a CMS will be very easy and quick to start with, but when the features list begins to grow - I will pay the bill with having to delve into unfamiliar DB structure and code, try to tweak existing modules or write my own from scratch.
Is it really better, over the long run, to use a CMS?
There are two basic types of CMSes:
focused on features
focused on flexibility
The first type - focused on features - usually offer lot of modules or extensions to expand the basic functionality. You can build your web site very quickly using ready-to-use third party modules. There's a disadvantage of this way - it isn't so easy to bend or customize these modules. Usually you need to rewrite them.
Drupal. WordPress and Joomla are good examples of the first type of CMSes.
The second type - focused on flexibility - somewhere called Content Management Frameworks - don't offer so much prefabricated modules, but offer much more tools and ways to make your structure and relationships between elements fit your needs. It takes more time to learn this kind of CMS or to build your fist web site, but you can easily customize anything you need.
Some examples of the second type CMSes: SilverStripe, Symphony CMS, appRain, MODx, ezPublish.
appRain is one of the best customizable option where you will get both option of CMS and also complex coding by it's framework.
Development process is also easy. New version 4.0.4 is on they way to be released.