What is the best way to choose right open source script (CMS)? The answer depends on what type of website or business you are running, there are thousands of open source script available on the net, does that mean you should try all of those? Seems impossible. So, what is the best way !!! here I have listed top 30 best open source scripts which might be help to you to shortlist your choice, the list below is based on popularity and uses.
The best way to decide which open source script is right for you, is to look at its popularity (ease of use and modification), number of people using it, so that you could find more resources and help documentation and topics on many forums and blogs, as well as the features that supports different modules, apps and themes. And most essentially is to choose based on your business or website type. For example: if you want to build a blog you don’t need Drupal or Joomla, Wordpress might be the best option for you, as Wordpress is the most popular open source script for blogs and supports many apps and themes.
Top 30 best free open source CMS:
1. Drupal 6.16
category: CMS / Portals
Drupal is software that allows an individual or a community of users to easily publish, manage and organize a great variety of content on a website.
Rating: 4.0/5 (12997 votes cast)
2. Joomla 1.5.15
category: CMS / Portals
Joomla! is one of the most powerful Open Source Content Management Systems on the planet. It is used all over the world for everything from simple websites to complex corporate applications. Joomla! is easy to install, simple to manage, and reliable.
Rating: 4.8/5 (8074 votes cast)
3. PHP-Fusion 7.00.07
category: CMS / Portals
PHP-Fusion is a light-weight open-source content management system (CMS) written in PHP4. It uses a mySQL database to store your site content and includes a simple yet comprehensive adminstration system.
Rating: 4.1/5 (7231 votes cast)
4. CMS Made Simple 1.7
category: CMS / Portals
CMS Made Simple is an open source (GPL) package, built using PHP that provides website developers with a simple, easy to use utility to allow building small-ish (dozens to hundreds of pages), semi-static websites.
Rating: 4.1/5 (4865 votes cast)
5. Mambo 4.6.5
category: CMS / Portals
Mambo is a full-featured content management system that can be used for everything from simple websites to complex corporate applications. Continue reading for a detailed feature list.
Rating: 3.8/5 (3633 votes cast)
6. MODx 1.0.2
category: CMS / Portals
MODx is an open source CMS that helps you take control of your website. It makes updates easy, empowering end-users with as much control as you desire over website content and update frequency.
Rating: 4.1/5 (3596 votes cast)
7. MAXdev 1.083
category: CMS / Portals
MAXdev Development Team create highly functional and powerful content management system application that will fit for various web site development requirements and purposes such as Private, Business, Education, E-Commerce or other Organization websites.
Rating: 3.6/5 (3078 votes cast)
8. XOOPS 2.4.4
category: CMS / Portals
XOOPS is a program that allows administrators to easily create dynamic websites with great content and many outstanding features. It is an ideal tool for developing small to large dynamic community websites, intra company portals, corporate …
Rating: 3.9/5 (2350 votes cast)
9. PHP-Nuke 8.0
category: CMS / Portals
PHP-Nuke is a news automated system specially designed to be used in Intranets and Internet. The Administrator has total control of his web site, registered users, and he will have in the hand a powerful assembly of tools to maintain an active and…
Rating: 3.7/5 (2145 votes cast)
10. Website Baker 2.8.1
category: CMS / Portals
Website Baker 2 features include a template-based front-end, multi-level modulated page support, multi-user administration, and much much more!
Rating: 4.1/5 (1899 votes cast)
11. MyBB 1.4.11
category: Forums
MyBB is a powerful, efficient and free forum package developed in PHP and MySQL. MyBB has been designed with the end users in mind, you and your subscribers. Full control over your discussion system is presented right at the tip of your fingers.
Rating: 4.0/5 (1832 votes cast)
12. Xaraya 1.2.0
category: CMS / Portals
Xaraya is extensible, open source software written in PHP and licensed under the GNU General Public License. Xaraya utilizes robust permissions, data management and multilingual systems to dynamically integrate and manage content.
Rating: 3.8/5 (1724 votes cast)
13. Nucleus CMS 3.51
category: Blogs
With Nucleus, you can set up one or more weblogs. If you want to, you can even show the contents of multiple weblogs on the same page. Each blog has its own team of authors.
Rating: 4.4/5 (1533 votes cast)
14. WordPress 2.9.2
category: Blogs
WordPress is a state-of-the-art semantic personal publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. More simply, WordPress is what you use when you want to work with your blogging software, not fight it.
Rating: 4.3/5 (1498 votes cast)
15. Textpattern 4.2.0
category: Blogs
A free, flexible, elegant, easy-to-use content management system for all kinds of websites, even weblogs. Built into Textpattern is Textile, a simple syntax for nudging plain text into structurally sound and stylistically rich web content.
Rating: 4.4/5 (1497 votes cast)
16. Jaws 0.8.12
category: CMS / Portals
Jaws is a Framework and Content Management System for building dynamic web sites. It aims to be User Friendly giving ease of use and lots of ways to customize web sites, but at the same time is Developer Friendly.
Rating: 4.0/5 (1437 votes cast)
17. phpBB 3.0.7-PL1
category: Forums
phpBB is a high powered, fully scalable, and highly customizable Open Source bulletin board package. phpBB has a user-friendly interface, simple and straightforward administration panel, and helpful FAQ.
Rating: 4.2/5 (1142 votes cast)
18. TYPOlight 2.8.2
category: CMS / Portals
TYPOlight is a powerful web content management system that specializes in accessibility (back end and front end) and uses XHTML and CSS to generate W3C/WAI compliant pages. It was developed by Leo Feyer in 2006 and has been released under GNU/LGPL.
Rating: 4.0/5 (978 votes cast)
19. Exponent 0.97
category: CMS / Portals
Exponent is a web application that allows site owners to easily create and manage dynamic websites. Unlike other site management tools, Exponent is completely self-contained.
Rating: 3.8/5 (943 votes cast)
20. Zen Cart 1.3.8
category: eCommerce
Zen Cart truly is the art of e-commerce; a free, user-friendly, open source shopping cart system. The software is being developed by group of like-minded shop owners, programmers, designers, and consultants that think e-commerce could be and…
Rating: 4.2/5 (883 votes cast)
21. Etomite 1.1
category: CMS / Portals
The Etomite Content Management software is released under the GNU license scheme. This means that you don’t pay a penny to download, install or use it. There are no hidden-catches, no banners, and no spyware included.
Rating: 3.9/5 (827 votes cast)
22. Moodle 1.9.7
category: Learning Management
Moodle is a course management system (CMS) – a free, Open Source software package designed using sound pedagogical principles, to help educators create effective online learning communities. You can download and use it on any computer you have handy…
Rating: 4.3/5 (805 votes cast)
23. eZ Publish 4.2
category: CMS / Portals
eZ Publish is an Open Source Content Management System chosen by thousands of enterprises and organizations world wide. It helps you build corporate websites, intranets, webshops and media portals.
Rating: 3.7/5 (787 votes cast)
24. osCommerce 2.2 RC 2a
category: eCommerce
osCommerce is the leading Open Source online shop e-commerce solution that is available for free under the GNU General Public License. It features a rich set of out-of-the-box online shopping cart functionality that allows store owners to setup, run…
Rating: 4.1/5 (762 votes cast)
25. bitweaver 2.7
category: CMS / Portals
bitweaver is an application framework for content management. It is a fully functional web application and CMS, and is used to power every page on this site.
Rating: 3.5/5 (722 votes cast)
26. 4images 1.7.7
category: Image Galleries
4images is a powerful web-based image gallery management system. Features include comment system, user registration and mangagement, password protected administration area with browser-based upload and HTML templates for page layout and design.
Rating: 3.8/5 (678 votes cast)
27. sNews 1.7
category: CMS / Portals
sNews is a completely free PHP and MySQL driven tool for publishing and maintaining news articles on a website. Integrating sNews into your existing design is simple, but you could also use sNews on it’s own, as a simple Content Management System.
Rating: 4.0/5 (665 votes cast)
28. Coppermine 1.4.26
category: Image Galleries
Coppermine Photo Gallery is a picture gallery script. Users can upload pictures with a web browser or Windows XP Web Publishing Wizard (thumbnails are created on the fly), add comments, send e-cards, rate pictures and have their own gallery.
Rating: 4.2/5 (618 votes cast)
29. Typo3 4.3.2
category: CMS / Portals
TYPO3 is a free Open Source content management system for enterprise purposes on the web and in intranets. It offers full flexibility and extendability while featuring an accomplished set of ready-made interfaces, functions and modules.
Rating: 3.9/5 (614 votes cast)
30. Bigace 2.7
category: CMS / Portals
BIGACE – Dynamic Web CMS – is a free, professional grade software package that allows you to set up your own Website within minutes. Its powerful backend puts you in full control of the layout, service and content of your Pages.
Rating: 3.7/5 (582 votes cast)
Source: OpensourceCMS (16/04/2010)
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