Own site is the dream of many modern users. Someone wants to use it to earn money on advertising, but others simply want to create their own page where they could communicate with 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.
The website engine will help you simplify the task. Many of them are not only completely free, but also allow you to create fairly complex sites even if you are completely ignorant of the basics of their functioning. This is a very attractive prospect, since it will take a lot of time to master this HTML well.
General Provisions
In the future, 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 will consider the most prominent representatives of this type of program, and also try to decide which CMS you can choose for your site.
What it is?
By the way, what is a site engine? This is the name of the special database. It can be represented in the form of a table, in the cells of which data on the site content, style and theme of its design are stored. As soon as the web page begins to be drawn in the browser, the program simply takes all the necessary data from the table, after which it "pulls" it onto the template. Thanks to this, the site’s loading speed increases, and its content management is greatly simplified.
So, to format an article for its placement, you do not need to know even the most general information about HTML: everything you need will be done automatically. This opens up tremendous opportunities for creativity.
What are CMS?
They are divided into paid and free options. Moreover, free programs are often completely inferior in their functionality to their commercial counterparts, have thousands of design templates, and are extremely simple to learn even by inexperienced users. The choice of a specific engine is a purely individual task, since it is necessary to take into account only your own preferences and needs. Today we look at the most common CMS systems, emphasizing the advantages and disadvantages of each of them.
Wordpress
In recent years, this system has been heard even by those people who have nothing to do with website development. What is the reason for such incredible popularity? Wordpress was initially positioned only as a platform for a blog, but currently it builds sites of any subject and orientation. This is facilitated by the undeniable advantages that this engine for sites has:
- The initial installation is striking in its simplicity.
- There are thousands of free templates for the design of the sites you create.
- As for support, you have hundreds of thousands of thematic forums and blogs at your disposal.
- The created site is very convenient and easy to manage.
- If you think a little about HTML, then easily “finish” the engine to use it on any site.
- You can publish entries using special scripts, the vast majority of which are also completely free.
If we talk about getting profit from the site (advertising), then it is Wordpress that 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 disadvantages. Firstly, even with a low traffic to the site, it creates a pretty decent load on the server. However, the latter circumstance can hardly be considered a serious flaw. Modern servers will simply not notice such a “load”, but the site’s loading speed on Wordpress is amazing: even with a bunch of plug-ins it loads for a maximum of a couple of seconds, which cannot be said about its closest competitors!
Unfortunately, plugins often conflict with each other, which leads to incorrect operation of the site and a sharp decrease in its traffic. In addition, a clean "Press" in its functionality is not too good, and therefore you have to mess with a bunch of necessary additions in any case. 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 will be able to understand his work.
As for the safety of the engine, the issue here is quite complicated. On the one hand, developers regularly release patches and add-ons that quickly close all discovered vulnerabilities. That's just their automatic installation is not provided, 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 hijackings fall on that particular 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 means to create news resources and feeds, but now it is much more commonly used by pirates, since its capabilities are ideal for creating sites with movies and music.
Alas, with all the advantages of this platform, it has a significant drawback for beginners. She's 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 the presence of at least some kind of feedback from it.
Positive sides
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 CMS on this template is not a particularly simple operation. But it’s worth it, because even with a modest hardware you can build an excellent resource from which you will receive excellent monetary return.
Be sure to remember that you need to put regularly outgoing 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 famous CMS. It is somewhat "heavyweight", but 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 is manifested in everything: from writing and posting articles to updating the site platform ... However, we are simply finding fault. In the end, it's just a matter of your own habit.
Advantages
But for "Jumla" you can easily find thousands of templates, themes for the design of the site and plugins. We’ll immediately warn you that for the normal functioning of your resource, add-ons are vital!
By the way, on what engine is the site of almost every second computer game enthusiast 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 customize. On it, you can do almost anything that cannot fail to attract experienced website creators.
disadvantages
Alas, the last circumstance is often a rather serious drawback. The fact is that Jumla contains a huge amount of code. Because of this, the engine easily lends itself to “file processing”, 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 for several seconds!
The platform is regularly updated, in new versions they quickly fix found bugs and vulnerabilities. Unfortunately, this does not mean at all that there are no new flaws in the latest releases. You will have to tinker a lot to fix this state of things. However, the creation of a site engine is a complicated process, so in any case, you should not find fault with the developers of a free product ...
Drupal
This CMS in our 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, to date, the presence of such a high-profile title has every reason to exist. There are a large number of dedicated fans who run thematic blogs and communities, so support issues will not be a problem. This is a free site engine, which is important for users in our country.
Drupal is good because it can be used to build sites of any type: from image catalogs to social networks. On the official website 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 opportunities for creating a forum and RSS news aggregator, a file downloader and other great features.
This CMS can work even on a 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 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 is made on, which you visit every day? Do you want to know? Nothing is easier!
Immediately, we note that the method described by us works in almost all popular browsers today. Open the page of the site that you would like to study, and then click on the free space with the right mouse button. In the context menu that pops up after this, select the option “View page source code”.
After that, a separate browser window will open in which you need to look for a line like this: “<meta name =” generator ”content =“ WordPress ”/>”. As you can see, in this particular case, WordPress is used.
To summarize
So how to choose a site engine? If you carefully read the article, you probably already managed to make one simple conclusion: all the CMS systems described by us are more or less suitable for creating resources of any orientation. However, we would not recommend grabbing any program without hesitation.
The best option for beginners is WordPress. It is very simple and quick to set up. If you already have some experience in building sites, you can try using Drupal. It is much simpler than Jumla in terms of settings, while surpassing WordPress in terms of security.
If the goal is to create a powerful resource with a lot of traffic, then you are unlikely to find anything better than DLE. It is paid, but you will give your money for full technical support and assistance in case of any malfunctions. This site engine is supported by PHP, so if necessary, you can easily "finish" it for specific needs.