The Community BBoard & CMS Debate

[tremor77]

Simply put, what is the best available CMS with Forum... or Forum / Portal combination - freely available, open source?

Some of the front runners: Joomla, Drupal, Wordpress are the common big names... but how are their forums?

Other options:

+ phpBB (used right here on HTS) - alone its just a forum.. but can be couple with a portal, which I might ask, what is HTS using as the front end, something available or self coded?

+ phpNuke / NukeVariants - widely popular in the gaming community, actively updated in some areas, but perhaps outdated.

+ Mambo, Xoops, SimpleCMS and the list goes on... literally thousands to choose from.

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Considerations in your evaluation:

1. Installation / Ease of use - both for the host and programmer and for the nit-wit you are building it for.
2. Security / Vulnerability - being open source, these all have been, and will continue to be, exploitable... which is the most on top of their patches and makes them easy to update.
3. Front End / Back End - User registration, user levels, boards, shoutboxes, etc... how well does it all flow?
4. Design - Are there nice templates or do you have to have a doctorate in CSS cryptology to decipher the themes and stylesheets?
5. Flexibility - Can this thing be overhauled, updated and rehashed in the event the site changes direction?

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Let me know what you think!

[thedotmaster]

First, can I just say, I'd trust an open-source CMS for security far more than a closed-source CMS.
I don't know much about the differing CMSs, however the main site for HTS is custom coded.

[thetan]

the main site for HTS is custom coded.

And horribly so.

From a software design stand point it reflects a Big Ball of mud and can best be summed up as Spaghetti With Meatballs Code.

This is the real reason why a recode is required.