University of Hawai‘i at Manoa Library Intranet Content Management System Requirements and Evaluation Draft Submitted by Sunyeen Pai Thanks to: Desktop Network Services Staff December 16, 2005 DRAFT CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (CMS) EVALUATION In 2004 the web redesign committee investigated free open source content management systems for the redesigned library website. Budgetary constraints dictated the need for a free system, and quality software alternatives could be found in the open source community. Members of the committee worked at collecting information on reputable open source content management systems. A survey of information sources resulted in several options, WebGUI and Plone being the two major candidates. The committee learned of a local implementation of Plone at the State of Hawaii, and after a site visit the decision was made to install and test Plone. A major factor in this decision was the availability of very strong technical expertise “down the road”. One of their team members, Todd H. Ogasawara, Hawaii State eGovernment Team Leader, is a nationally recognized software expert (http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/1231) interested in open source solutions in government. In the summer/fall 2005, a second scan of software options in the open source environment was made (Appendix 1). Concurrently, while working with the results of the library’s intranet user study, a content management system evaluation tool (Appendix 2) was developed to systematically consider the functional and technical criteria for choosing a system. Based on the second scan, the results of the content management tool analysis, and the time spent testing Plone, Plone again came out as a very strong contender. Recently we have learned about more adopters in Hawaii. Hawaii State offices that are changing over include DHHL, DBEDT, ATG, Ethics, and DHS. State offices that converted recently are DHRD, DLNR (Intranet), Elections, DAGS, SPO, GOV, Lieutenant GOV, and ATG (Intranet). DOH is using Zope, upon which Plone is built. It is clear that no one CMS can provide all the services we would like to have. Like anything else, different CMSs have different strengths and weaknesses. For example, a CMS that is very easy to manage may not allow you to set permissions on an individual document. Plone “out-of-the-box”, or its default installation, is extremely rich in features (http://www.openadvantage.org/articles/oadocument.2005-04-25.0390317971, http://plone.org/, http://www.sweeting.net/weblog/archive/2003/03/plone-benefits/). Plone’s strengths are scalability, dynamic page generation, web standards compliance (WAI, CSS, XHTML), an outstanding indexing and search capability, a relatively easy-to-use content editing interface, news and events features, and highly configurable workflow and security capabilities. These features are configurable through a graphical user interface system. More detailed configuration will require a knowledge of object-oriented systems and Plone’s programming tools. At this writing, automated in- migration and out-migration of content is not a default feature; we would have to investigate third party tools or write a program to handle these requirements. APPENDIX 1: CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (CMS) COMPARISON CHART There are hundreds of content management systems to choose from. If you take away the commercial packages, it seems there are still hundreds left. The ones selected for comparison are free and were recommended by experts, listservs, and discussion groups. Joomla!, currently the free version of Mambo, is a popular CMS. Plone is being successfully used by many organizations, including the State of Hawaii (http://www.hawaii.gov/gov/), State University of New York’s Health Sciences Library (http://plone.hsclib.sunysb.edu/), and Pennsylvania State University. TYPO3 is being used by a commercial developer contracted by the UH School of Law. WebGUI is a recommendation out of library listservs. This comparison chart was generated from the CMSMatrix site, http://www.cmsmatrix.org/. Because of the immense amount of information involved in evaluating packages, this chart should be viewed as a quick comparison. * Critical criteria CMS-Matrix Joomla! Plone TYPO3 Drupal WebGUI Comparison (formerly Mambo open source) System last updated 20-Oct-05 11-May-05 6-Jul-05 10-Sep-05 26-Aug-05 System Requirements Application Server Apache Zope PHP 4.1.2+ PHP 4.3.3+ mod_perl or recommended, FastCGI any server that supports PHP and MySQL Approximate Cost Free Free Free Free Free Database MySQL Zope. Plone MySQL MySQL, MySQL also Postgres interfaces with MySQL and other relational dbs License GNU GPL GNU GPL GNU GPL GNU GPL GNU GPL Operating System Any Any Any Any Any Programming PHP Python PHP PHP Perl 5.6+ Language Root Access No No No No Yes Shell Access No No No No Yes Web Server* Apache Apache, IIS, Apache, IIS Apache, IIS Apache Zope Security Joomla! Plone TYPO3 Drupal WebGUI Audit Trail No Yes Yes Yes Yes Captcha Yes No Free Add On Free Add On Yes Content Approval* Yes Yes Yes Yes Limited Email Verification Yes Limited Yes Yes Yes Granular Privileges* No Yes Yes Yes Yes Kerberos No Free Add On No No Free Add On Authentication LDAP Authentication* Free Add On Free Add On Free Add On Free Add On Yes Login History Yes Free Add On Yes Yes Yes NIS Authentication No Free Add On No No Free Add On NTLM Authentication No Yes No No Free Add On Pluggable No Yes Free Add On Yes Yes Authentication Problem Notification No No No No Yes Sandbox No Yes Yes No Yes Session Management Yes Free Add On Yes Yes Yes SMB Authentication No Free Add On Free Add On No Free Add On SSL Compatible* No Yes Yes Yes Yes SSL Logins* No No: Note: Yes No Yes implemented by DNS SSL Pages No No Free Add On No Yes Versioning* No Yes Yes Limited Yes Support Joomla! Plone TYPO3 Drupal WebGUI Certification Program No No No No No Commercial Manuals* No Yes Yes No Yes Commercial Support* Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Commercial Training* No Yes Yes Yes Yes Developer Community Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Online Help Yes No Yes Yes Yes Pluggable API Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Professional Hosting Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Professional Services Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Public Forum Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Public Mailing List No Yes Yes Yes Yes Third-Party Developers Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Users Conference No Yes Yes Yes Yes Ease of Use Joomla! Plone TYPO3 Drupal WebGUI Drag-N- Drop Content No Free Add On Free Add On No Yes Email To Discussion No Free Add On Free Add On Free Add On No Friendly URLs Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Image Resizing Yes Free Add On Yes Free Add On Yes Macro Language Yes Yes Yes Free Add On Yes Mass Upload* No Yes No Free Add On Yes Prototyping Yes No No No Yes Server Page Language Yes Yes Yes Yes Free Add On Spell Checker No Free Add On Free Add On Free Add On Limited Subscriptions No No Free Add On Free Add On Yes Template Language Yes Yes Yes Limited Yes UI Levels No Yes Yes No Yes Undo* No Yes Yes Limited Yes WYSIWYG Editor* Yes Yes Yes Free Add On Yes Performance Joomla! Plone TYPO3 Drupal WebGUI Advanced Caching* Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Database Replication No Costs Extra No No Yes Load Balancing* No Yes No No Yes Page Caching Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Static Content Export* No Free Add On Limited No Yes Management Joomla! Plone TYPO3 Drupal WebGUI Advertising Yes Free Add On Free Add On Free Add On No Management Asset Management Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Clipboard No Yes Yes No Yes Content Scheduling* Yes Yes Yes Free Add On Yes Content Staging No Free Add On No No No Inline Administration Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Online Administration Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Package Deployment No Yes Yes No Yes Sub-sites / Roots Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Themes / Skins Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Trash Yes Free Add On Limited No Yes Web Statistics Yes Free Add On Free Add On Yes Yes Web-based Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Style/Template Management* Web-based Translation Free Add On Free Add On Yes Yes Free Add On Management Workflow Engine* No Yes Limited Limited No Interoperability Joomla! Plone TYPO3 Drupal WebGUI Content Syndication Yes Yes Yes Yes Limited (RSS) FTP Support* No Yes Yes Limited No UTF-8 Support No Yes Yes Yes Yes WAI Compliant* No Yes Free Add On Limited Yes WebDAV Support* No Yes No No No XHTML Compliant* No Yes Yes Yes Yes Flexibility Joomla! Plone TYPO3 Drupal WebGUI CGI- mode Support No Free Add On Yes Yes Yes Content Reuse Yes Yes Yes Limited Yes Extensible User Yes Yes Free Add On Yes Yes Profiles Interface Localization Yes Yes Yes Yes Free Add On Metadata* Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Multi-lingual Content* Free Add On Free Add On Yes Yes Yes Multi-lingual Content Free Add On Free Add On Yes Free Add On No Integration Multi-Site Deployment No Yes Yes Yes Yes URL Rewriting Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Wiki Aware No Free Add On Free Add On Free Add On Limited Built-in Applications Joomla! Plone TYPO3 Drupal WebGUI Blog Yes Yes Free Add On Yes Yes Chat Free Add On Free Add On Free Add On Free Add On Free Add On Classifieds Free Add On No Free Add On No Yes Contact Management Yes Free Add On Free Add On Free Add On Free Add On Data Entry Free Add On Free Add On Limited Free Add On Yes Database Reports Free Add On Limited Free Add On No Yes Discussion / Forum No Yes Free Add On Yes Yes Document Free Add On Yes No Limited No Management Events Calendar* Free Add On Yes Free Add On Free Add On Yes Expense Reports No No No No No FAQ Management Yes Free Add On Free Add On Yes Yes File Distribution Free Add On Yes Free Add On Free Add On Yes Graphs and Charts Free Add On No Free Add On No Free Add On Groupware No Free Add On No Free Add On No Guest Book Free Add