CMS for microsites?

[Murali Vivekanandan]

A requirement we have in one our apps is the ability to create micro sites for vendors. There will be one standard webpage for each vendor. Might extend to multiple pages(small set) but each vendor will have the exact same layout.

I am debating between rolling my own vs using a CMS. What would you suggest? If CMS is the way to go, any suggestions on which Rails CMS to use. 

Radaint seems to be the most used, but there is a huge list to choose from http://rubyredbricks.com/2009/2/24/ruby-on-rails-based-cms.

Any suggestions from personal experience would be appreciated.

--
Murali Vivekanandan
408 625 7580

[Vagmi Mudumbai]

Hi,

Before you decide on the CMS system, I suggest that you consider the following.

1) Is the site static. (Does it include posting forms, validation and
stuff that cannot be handled by a third party service?)
2) Are you going to build an app around the CMS or is just purely for
displaying the content?
3) Would you users (complete non techies) update the content?

If your answer is no to the above, I would strongly suggest static
website generators like webgen or jekyll. They give you the best parts
of the CMS in terms of layouts and markup and helpers and such and
they generate static html files. When served of a static file server
like nginx, they are just bloody crazy fast. And the best part is that
you have the full programmability of Ruby. If you are bothered about
those pesky .htmls in the end, you can make them go away with the
magic of mod_rewrite. And with the power of javascript, you can mashup
stuff like comments by embedding an iframe in the page. This is the
way sites like disqus do it.

Regards,
Vagmi

http://blog.vagmim.com
“There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to
make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the
other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious
deficiencies." C.A.R. Hoare.

[Saurabh Bhatia]

A few things which i think are not updated and i dont agree with the gentleman writing the blog are:

1/ Adva CMS and Radiant CMS cannot be missed if you are talking about Rails based CMS. They are the best and Most active RoR based CMS communities.Both of them Support Multisite Facility. Adva CMS List has a huge archive of lot of people configuring Multisites with it, so you should easily get a clue on it. Radiant has extensions to support multisite.

I was recently doing an exercise of choosing a cms and ended up working with Adva CMS. I am quite happy with the result. The only thing that does not work out of the box in it is theming, but with moderate rails knowledge, it can be easity worked around.Type CMS in Github and you will get a list of 100+ cms on Ruby, Rails

2/ Drupal and Joomla are php not RoR. Joomla is not at all a Dead Project ! It is still one of the most active open source communities in the world.

Regards

Saurabh

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Best Regards

Saurabh Bhatia

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[Murali Vivekanandan]

Thanks for the feedback guys. Looking into static site generators and Adva CMS right now...

[James Healy]

Vagmi Mudumbai wrote:
> If your answer is no to the above, I would strongly suggest static
> website generators like webgen or jekyll. They give you the best parts
> of the CMS in terms of layouts and markup and helpers and such and
> they generate static html files. When served of a static file server
> like nginx, they are just bloody crazy fast. And the best part is that
> you have the full programmability of Ruby. If you are bothered about
> those pesky .htmls in the end, you can make them go away with the
> magic of mod_rewrite. And with the power of javascript, you can mashup
> stuff like comments by embedding an iframe in the page. This is the
> way sites like disqus do it.

I'll add my voice to the static site generator recommendation. For
'brochure' type sites they can be an invaluable way to manage the
content. I personally have used nanoc and jekyll and like them both
(although they have different strengths).

That said, if the content needs to be user editable they may not be a
great fit.

-- James Healy <ji...@deefa.com> Thu, 17 Dec 2009 21:12:57 +1100