10 Simple and Light Weight CMS Solutions
Choosing the right content management system can be an overwhelming task for a web designer or developer. There are so many available, all with different features, it can be difficult to decide which is the best solution for a particular web project. For complex websites, a fully featured CMS is probably the best way to go. However, for simple sites, lots of bells and whistles can be overkill and actually be a bit confusing for the person maintaining the website.
In this article, I’ve rounded up 10 simple and light weight cms solutions. All of these systems were built with simplicity and ease-of-use in mind.
Wolf CMS
Wolf CMS simplifies content management by offering an elegant user interface, flexible templating per page, simple user management and permissions, as well as the tools necessary for file management. Wolf CMS is a fork of Frog CMS. Although the two applications still share a family resemblance, Wolf has left Frog’s development path.
Get Simple
GetSimple is an XML based lite Content Management System. To go along with it’s intuitive user interface, it’s loaded with features that every website needs, but with nothing it doesn’t.
Perch
Perch is a really little content management system for when you (or your clients) need to edit content without the hassle of setting up a big CMS.
sNews
sNews is a completely free, standards compliant, PHP and MySQL driven Content Management System. It is extremely lightweight, simple and customizable. This cms consists of only one core engine file, one independent template file and its accompanying CSS stylesheet file, plus an .htaccess file that makes all URLs search engine friendly.
Zimplet CMS
Zimplit is extremely lightweight, simple and customizable. It’s easy to install, and easy to use via a simple web interface. Zimplit consists of only one core engine file.
PageLime
PageLime is a simple CMS for web designers. It acts as a remote Content Management System that allows you to update the content, images, and documents on your web site without any setup. All you have to do is add the ‘cms-editable’ CSS class to any element on your site, and we host the application that edits your site.
Surreal CMS
With Surreal CMS, there’s absolutely nothing to install. Just enter your website’s FTP info and you’re connected! Within minutes, you can enable webpages, add content regions, assign editors, and begin updating your website — and you don’t even need an FTP client to get started.
CMS Made Simple
CMS Made Simple provides a fast and easy way to create a web site and manage its contents. Use it to make a home page for your family — or your multinational corporation!
Simple CMS
A fully branded, easy to use content management system for your clients. All you do is add a little piece of code to your existing site.
CushyCMS
CushyCMS is a Content Management Systems (CMS) that is truly simple. It’s free for unlimited users, unlimited changes, unlimited pages and unlimited sites.
It’s built from the ground up with ease of use in mind – for both content editors and designers. It’s such a simple CMS that it takes less than 3 minutes for a web designer to implement. No PHP or ASP required for this CMS. If you can add CSS classes to HTML tags then you can implement CushyCMS. It’s also a hosted CMS, so no installation or maintenance is needed either.
Related Posts
Here's some other articles that you will definitely find useful.
WordPress 3.0: Changing The Way We Manage Content
13 Useful Code Snippets for WordPress Development
Top 5 Content Management Systems for eCommerce
10 Best Content Management Systems for Designers
87 comments
CMS Developer
March 30, 2010Here is another easy and simple solution, an asp.net / C# code source for developers:
http://www.gosimplecms.com
Regards!
Stefek
April 5, 2010Hello Henry,
did you ever take a look at WebsiteBaker CMS?
If not, it was a good addition to this article.
Just see for yourself:
http://www.websitebaker2.org
All best,
Stefek
Jennifer
April 23, 2010These are great examples and I’ll definitely check them out. Never tried a lite CMS before and they look interesting, thanks!
hifni
April 29, 2010its Look so interesting. i’ll try all of them
nice post!
fishingsnow
May 10, 2010Im my opinon, my faverate one is wolfcms , I like its simple style and flexible settings!
Web
May 11, 2010But besides the advantages of convenience, free use, do not forget about security.
Adrian Borkala
July 29, 2010GingerPenguin is fairly new to the CMS world so worth giving us a try. Currently has a similar approach to content management as CushyCMS however we are planning some awesome features in terms of content management and analytics working together.
Karina Leñero
September 28, 2010you misspelled “zimplit”
craig
November 11, 2010you forgot concrete5, it truly is an awesome system. Any one can use it. click, edit and save. thats it! So easy for developers, it’s still in it’s infancy but I’m really very impressed.
Yorick
September 11, 2011Nice selection !
What about a No code, No techno language, No Installation, … the CMS for dummies, the “think about the nature and the organization of content” way to build a website ? Simplicity would be even more respected , and most users along ?
Or do we need a bit of coding thrill ?
A ridiculously easy CMS – for dummies – straight to the content one
is for example http://www.simple-different.com
even easier than Webs, Weebly and Wix …
As a web designer, or website facilitator, finally when it is about resulting with one’s content nicely, clearly organized for a client and more especially for his reader. A reader who does not care about what is behind the page… most of the time… we don’t even need to use our techno wizardry.
Simplicity is a vast interesting subject isn’t it ?
Yorick
September 16, 2011Simplicity is not f###ing easy
try http://www.simple-different.com
I believe everybody there is working his ass off to make it happen simple.
…
Nurul Imam
September 29, 2011I like Perch CMS
simple but powerfull
mody
November 22, 2011Hi there,
Please add http://amarokcms.org/ to your list
its very simple CMS
Julian
December 2, 2011Thanks for the list.
Jason
December 2, 2011You forgot the best one for developers in any language. This one seriously rocks and scales as big as you like. http://www.kitgui.com
Kevin
December 17, 2011Another good minimalist CMS is http://BonoboCMS.com. It works more like an online notepad with formatting than anything else.
Razibul Hassan
December 27, 2011Thanks for the Brilliant post. I’d been looking for some pretty simple CMSs and your list has make the perfect listing of some easy yet rich UI CMSs.
Patrice
December 30, 2011Which of them has cache features?
Nowadays, it is very important to provide fast websites (cms) to the users.
Thx!
Adrian Borkala
January 7, 2012A really simple CMS to use is our very own GingerPenguin. No coding required at all in order to start editing pages as the CMS integrates with pretty much most sites, and allows you to click on your content to mark a section as editable.
Designers can also customise a home page which is basically an iframe on the welcome page where you can display a webpage with whatever content you like eg: News to your clients, or a support form, or whatever you like really.
GingerPenguin is a SaaS product so if your looking for self hosted, someone recently introduced us to PulseCMS which also looks pretty smart and simple to use.
David Williams
February 3, 2012One I have come across and looks promising is Jonnash CMS at http://www.jonnash-cms.co.uk. It allows the website owner to create unlimited categories/web pages for his web site. Still in its infancy, but like the idea of no limits of pages I can have. Testing it now on on my home server.
Ann McSorley
February 6, 2012Great list, I would also like to add http://www.veolay.com to this list.
We have veolay installed to more that 20 websites and all our clients are really happy how easy it works for them and it takes us only a couple of minutes to convert our html website into an online manageable website where our client can login and make their content changes within a couple of clicks on the webpage itself.
David B
February 15, 2012There is something newer-iMagic CMS http://imagiccms.com/ to me I was possible to try have found the CMS precisely. Very easy CMS, it is possible to make to itself a site for an evening. Developers tell that them CMS 100 % SEO
Sumardika
February 24, 2012Thank you for the list. I am looking for simple CMS to substitute my wordpress hosted site.
Chris Cagle
February 28, 2012FYI: We are running a $1,800 giveaway for theme and plugin developers to help GetSimple CMS fill out our Extend repository. Check it out here: http://get-simple.info/create-a-thon/
jack
May 1, 2012Try http://www.InsiteCreation.com, they have some awesome features such as online designer. You can change your website look online
Kevin
June 1, 2012Try http://mut8.me
It’s free with a PRO option to brand as your own. All online, plug in as many sites as you like.
dan
June 11, 2012We’re also developing a free cms – take a look and happy to receive comments back
mattburnsey
July 23, 2012Cushy CMS is not free for unlimited users.
Dan
February 20, 2013Try out http://mixudo.com – this comes with full templates, pages, and is fully customisable!
Dominik
April 25, 2013I recommend new CMS system for those people who know only html and css. Read more at http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/394056
1 Trackback
[...] tweetmeme_service = 'bit.ly'; Share WordPress has become one of the top choices for content management systems among website owners. This has happened for several reasons, but one is the readily available [...]