Your own website is the dream of many modern users. Someone wants to use it to make money on advertising, but others simply want to create their own page where they can communicate with their like-minded people. Once upon a time, only people who were well versed in programming could create their own resource, but today it is much easier to do this.
The engine for websites will help you simplify the task. Many of them are not only completely free, but also allow you to create quite complex sites, even with complete ignorance of the basics of their functioning. This is a very attractive prospect, since it will take a very long time to be able to master the same HTML.
General provisions
In what follows, we will also use the term CMS. It stands for "Site Management System". This is the same engine for sites, so these concepts are completely equivalent. Below we consider the most prominent representatives of this type of programs, andwe will also try to decide which CMS you can choose for your site.
What is this?
By the way, what is a website engine? This is the name of a special database. It can be represented as a table, the cells of which store data about the content of the site, the style and theme of its design. As soon as a web page starts to be drawn in the browser, the program simply takes all the necessary data from the table, and then “pulls” them onto the template. Thanks to this, the loading speed of the site increases, and the management of its content is greatly simplified.
So you don't need to know even the most basic HTML to format an article for posting: everything you need will be done automatically. This opens up the widest possibilities for creativity.
What are CMS?
They are divided into paid and free options. Moreover, free programs are often not inferior in their functionality to their commercial counterparts, they have thousands of design templates, and are extremely easy to learn even for inexperienced users. The choice of a particular engine is a purely individual task, since in this case one should take into account only one's own preferences and needs. Today we will look at the most common CMS systems, highlighting the advantages and disadvantages of each.
Wordpress
This system has been well-known in recent years even among those people who have nothing to do with website development at all. What is the reason for such incredible popularity?Wordpress was initially positioned only as a platform for a blog, but at present, sites of any subject and orientation are being built on it. This is facilitated by the undeniable advantages that this engine has for sites:
- Initial installation is amazingly simple.
- There are thousands of free templates to design the sites you create.
- As for support, there are hundreds of thousands of thematic forums and blogs at your disposal.
- The created site is very convenient and easy to manage.
- If you have a little understanding of HTML, then you can easily "finish" the engine to use it on any site.
- You can publish entries using special scripts for this, the vast majority of which are also completely free.
If we talk about getting a profit from the site (advertising), then Wordpress is most often the best choice. The fact is that such sites lend themselves perfectly to search engine optimization, for which the engine is dearly loved by SEO specialists.
Disadvantages of Wordpress
Alas, even this wonderful platform has certain drawbacks. Firstly, even with low site traffic, it creates a pretty decent load on the server. However, the latter circumstance can hardly be considered a serious flaw. Modern servers simply will not notice such a “load”, but the loading speed of a Wordpress site is amazing: even with a bunch of plugins, it loads in a maximum of a couple of seconds, which cannot be said about its nextcompetitors!
Unfortunately, plug-ins often conflict with each other, which leads to incorrect site operation and a sharp decrease in its traffic. In addition, the pure "Press" in its functionality is not very good, and therefore you will have to mess around with a bunch of necessary add-ons anyway. This prospect does not inspire everyone.
In 2009, at the "Open Source CMS Award", this engine for sites was recognized as the best. But in modern conditions, it can be recommended mainly only to beginners who want to create their own blog. Fortunately, almost any user can understand its work.
As for the security of the engine, the issue here is rather complicated. On the one hand, developers regularly release patches and add-ons that quickly close all discovered vulnerabilities. But they are not provided for automatic installation, so many sites in Runet have long been exploited not only by their owners, but also by attackers. Relentless statistics show that most of the resource grabs fall on the segment of users who use Wordpress.
DLE (Data Life Engine)
Have you ever wondered what CMS your favorite movie site is built on? Most likely, the DLE engine was used to create it. Once it was positioned solely as a tool for creating news resources and feeds, but now it is much more often used by pirates, as its capabilities are ideal for creatingmovie and music sites.
Alas, but with all the advantages of this platform, it has a significant drawback for beginners. She is paid. Of course, you can use the pirated version, but if you plan to create a more or less serious resource, we strongly do not recommend doing this. By the way, many plugins and modules of this engine are also paid, and therefore we would not recommend it for beginners who just want to create their own page, without assuming at least some return from it.
Positives
If you configure this site engine correctly, then even a large and "heavy" site will feel great on a weak server. However, installing and configuring the CMS on this template is not a particularly simple operation. But it's worth it, because even on a modest "hardware" it will be possible to build an excellent resource from which you will receive an excellent monetary return.
Be sure to remember that you need to install regularly released patches and patches on time. If this is not done, then any more or less successful and visited site will quickly turn into a doorway that distributes links to malicious resources.
Joomla
Joomla. Also a very well-known CMS. It is somewhat "heavyweight", but at the same time it has a lot of opportunities for the development of the site. In addition, the control panel is not only completely illogical, but also inconvenient. Moreover, this inconvenience manifests itself in everything: from writing and posting articles to updating the site platform … However, we are just finding fault. In the endafter all, it's just a matter of your own habit.
Dignity
But for Joomla, you can easily find thousands of templates, themes for website design and plugins. We will immediately warn you that for the normal functioning of your resource, add-ons are simply vital!
By the way, on what engine is the site of almost every second enthusiast of computer games made? Yes, the platform for this kind of resources is almost always Joomla. The reason for this phenomenon is the amazing ability of the engine to tune. You can do almost everything on it, which cannot but attract experienced website builders.
Flaws
Alas, but the latter circumstance is often also a rather serious drawback. The fact is that Joomla contains a huge amount of code. Because of this, the engine is easy to file on its own, but for the same reason it is not too lightweight. So, even on excellent server hardware, and even if users have an excellent Internet channel, the site can load in a few seconds!
The platform is regularly updated, new versions promptly eliminate found errors and vulnerabilities. Unfortunately, this does not mean at all that there are no new shortcomings in the latest releases. You will have to tinker a lot to correct this state of affairs. However, creating a website engine is a complicated process, so in any case, it’s not worth picking on the developers of a free product…
Drupal
This CMS is in ourthe country is not so widely known, but gradually the situation begins to improve. This is the best engine for the site according to users in 2010. However, even today the presence of such a high-profile title has every reason to exist. There are a large number of devoted fans who maintain thematic blogs and communities, so support questions will not be a problem. This is a free website engine, which is important for users in our country.
Drupal is great because it can be used to build any type of website, from image catalogs to social networks. On the official site you will find many modules with which the functionality of the system can be seriously expanded. Even in the bare template there is a form for organizing voting, there are options for creating a forum and an RSS news aggregator, a file uploader and other great features.
This CMS can work even on very ancient hardware with 128 MB of RAM. Among the shortcomings, one can single out the fact that most of the support sites are in English, which can somewhat complicate the search for the information you need.
Find out what engine the site is running on?
Do you know what engine the news site you visit every day is based on? Do you want to know? Nothing could be easier!
Let's note right away that the method described by us works in almost all popular browsers today. Open the page of the site you would like to explore, and then click on the free spaceright mouse button. In the context menu that appears after that, select the "View page source code" item.
After that, a separate browser window will open, in which you need to search for a string like this: "". As you can see, WordPress is used in this particular case.
Summarize
So how to choose a website engine? If you carefully read the article, then you probably already managed to draw one simple conclusion: all the CMS systems we have described are more or less suitable for creating resources of any orientation. However, we would not advise you to grab any program without hesitation.
WordPress is the best option for beginners. It is very easy and quick to set up. If you already have some experience in building websites, you can try using Drupal. It is much simpler than Joomla in terms of settings, while surpassing WordPress in security.
If your goal is to create a powerful resource with high traffic, then you are unlikely to find something better than DLE. It is paid, but you will give your money for full-fledged technical support and assistance in case of any problems. Supports this PHP site engine, so if necessary, you can easily “finish” it for specific needs.
