What is a Content Management System?

Content Management Systems (CMS) don't depend on "web pages", complete with their HTML markup code. Instead the content (i.e. text) is stored in a database on the web server. When the user requests a "page" the CMS wraps the content from the database in a standardised "template" that applies the look and feel you want to headings, lists, plain text etc. Compared to the old way of creating web sites, CMS-based sites are:

• Easier and quicker to set up;
• Easier and quicker to add new or change the content;
• Easier and quicker to add extra functions later, and;
• Easier and quicker to freshen with a new "look and feel" every so often.

Joomla!^™

We recommend the Joomla! CMS (it's what we use ourselves - you're looking at it!). The name Joomla is a phonetic spelling for the Swahili word "Jumla", which means "all together" or "as a whole".

Joomla! is not complicated, like some CMS. It's easy to administer and reliable, and licensed under the "Open Source" GNU/GPL licence, which means it's free for all use. It's created by experts in their field who volunteer their own time and professional expertise to build the system because they believe in it, not because someone else pays them to do it. It has great support from developers (some estimates say 30,000 of them!) all over the world, and can be extended to provide just about any functionality you can think of, quickly and for little or no cost.

But just because it's free doesn't mean it's inferior. It's already in use at well over 5,000,000 websites around the world and still growing.

Joomla! is an ideal and very cost-efficient solution for small to medium businesses, schools, clubs, associations and personal websites.