looking for a content management system

morgon has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Dear Monks

Can someone recommend a Perl-based content-management system to set up a non-commercial web-site?

What I need is user and roles management and a way to implement a moderated discussion forum.

It should not have too many dependencies on non-core modules because I need to be able to host it cheaply.

Ideally non-technical users with some experience in Typo3 should not face a steep learning curve.

Is there anything out there or should I just use one of the standard php-solution?

Many thanks!

PS: In case you recommend something could you please provide a link to a site using that particular CMS?

Comment on looking for a content management system

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Re: looking for a content management system by systems (Pilgrim) on Apr 06, 2009 at 08:39 UTC
Okay, I will give you what I think is the bottom line. No there is not a good CMS written in Perl. The only two worthy to look at Perl based CMSs are Cyclone3 and Bricolage Cyclone3 is a bit weird, I am used to CMS that act like portals, Cyclone doesn't do this, plus of course you have to use Firefox to access your content, which may be against your company's corporate IT policy Bricolage is saner, but still would not compete with heavy weights in the CMS world, like Liferay or Joomla! And both Cyclone or Bricolage require Linux on the backend, which may be a constraint you can't overcome (at my work, we only run windows servers) You are probably thinking, that since Perl is your favorite language or the one you are learning right now, that you are better with a Perl based CMS, this you might think open the possibility of future customization Unfortunately, this easy fun to use extensible Perl Based CMS does not exist, use Liferay or joomla! or Create one in Perl (Catalyst-Moose-DBIx-TT)	[reply]
Re: looking for a content management system by moritz (Cardinal) on Apr 05, 2009 at 20:34 UTC
I can't recommend anything in particular, but you could try to enter your requirements in this cms search and see if it turns up any results.	[reply]
Re^2: looking for a content management system by TGI (Parson) on Apr 06, 2009 at 20:42 UTC
That page does not allow me to search with the latest firefox or IE 7. IE 7 actually locks up for several minutes while screwing around with AJAXy hoo-ha wiz-bangery. Still, searching does not work. It's a shame. I have used the CMS matrix and other compare-stuff sites quite happily in the past. They once provided a very nice resource. Too bad they broke it. TGI says moo	[reply]
Re^2: looking for a content management system by wazoox (Prior) on Apr 07, 2009 at 19:24 UTC
There isn't a "Perl" option for "Programming Language"! That and the frozen browser well deserves a "site that sucks" award... Don't use their CMS :)	[reply]
Re^3: looking for a content management system by moritz (Cardinal) on Apr 07, 2009 at 19:36 UTC
There isn't a "Perl" option for "Programming Language"! Oh, there is. You just don't see it... open the drop down box, and hit the 'p' key on your keyboard. There you go. That and the frozen browser well deserves a "site that sucks" award... Don't use their CMS :) I fully agree. Last time I looked (about two or three years ago) it was much better and much less bloated. Sorry for sending you there :/ Still I know no other site with a comparable data pool.	[reply]
Re^4: looking for a content management system by TGI (Parson) on Apr 07, 2009 at 22:28 UTC
Re: looking for a content management system by gnosti (Chaplain) on Apr 05, 2009 at 21:13 UTC
As far as forum software, I've found the text-file based YaBB2 to be simple to set up and featureful.	[reply]
Re: looking for a content management system by ptoulis (Scribe) on Apr 06, 2009 at 10:38 UTC
Perlmonks had a quick discussion on that issue. Perl does not have massive CMS solutions to offer. The link in the previous node has many good examples though. Check out http://www.la-grange.net/cms#perl I checked the WebGUI thing and was pretty good and I think it is suited for your job. You can create a small discussion board very easily through the admin interface. If you need power over your site I would recommend Mason And also, for every decent CMS you check out there should be a page with sites that are using it. WebGUI has a good list too.	[reply]
Why perl based? by tsk1979 (Scribe) on Apr 06, 2009 at 05:28 UTC
You want a full featured discussion forum which can be moderated. To have something good easy and with support you need something which is used widely, so I suggest you go with one of the open source php based systems like simplemachine or phpBB. This will mean lesser support and upgrade hassles, and easier setup and an easy learning curve since there are tonnes of sites all around which use such systems.	[reply]
Re: looking for a content management system by Burak (Chaplain) on Apr 07, 2009 at 14:42 UTC
There are only two reliable options (for me) AFAICT: WebGUI MovableType (yes this is a CMS) WebGUI is limited to Apache unfortunately and I had to eliminate it since the site I'm planning to convert is on IIS/Windows Server 2008 (no, I will not change the host or install Apache on that). It's a pity, while the only needed thing is a litle abstraction layer. For MT, there are two options: MTOS & MTPro. MTPro has the community features which MTOS lack but MTPro is free for power blogger type which fits for most I guess and it has a forum feature (which is the good ole blog under the hood) MTOS: http://www.movabletype.org/ MTPro: http://www.movabletype.com/ However, if the only thing you need is a forum software just stick with SMF or phpbb.	[reply]
Re: looking for a content management system by DStaal (Chaplain) on Apr 06, 2009 at 14:57 UTC
If you are mostly looking for a discussion forum, you might want to take a look at Slashcode. It's used in one fairly well-known site...	[reply]
Re: looking for a content management system by peterdragon (Beadle) on Apr 07, 2009 at 15:17 UTC
The above comments are spot on. I actually use a PHP CMS for my customers (CMS Made Simple) as the Perl ones don't really cut it. That one is simple and good and does the job. If you want more power, consider Joomla. The code in phpbb2 was so insane the last time I looked that I wouldn't recommend using it if you want to customise the code. You can find a useful summary of CMSes and their features at Wikipedia List_of_content_management_systems Cheers, Peter -- peterdragon ~ http://perl.dragonstaff.co.uk	[reply]

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