CMS Matrix -- Built-in Applications and Commerce

If you've weathered this week's blog posts this far, you've seen my charts of the feature counts in CMS Matrix for ten CMSs.  Those ten are the ones that are at the top of the list if you click on the "Sort by compares" tab.  Besides total number of features (there are 133 of them in the matrix), I've also broken them down by the nine categories that are used to organize this large list of features.  There's a graph for security, support, ease of use, performance, management, interoperability, and, with the three last shown below, flexibility (9 features), built-in applications (39 features) and commerce (9 features). 

Flexibility has to do with an eclectic assortment of things:  URL rewriting, user profiles, localization, and such.  With Plone's strong history of multi-lingual support, it's no surprise to see it at the top.  Also pegging the flexibility meter are Joomla, TYPO3, and eZ Publish.  Drupal only misses one feature in this set; the others in the mid-range below 80%.  Once again PHP Nuke is at the bottom. 

Built-in applications consists of a dizzying list of features that cover the entire gamut of things-to-do with the Web.  They range from blogging capability through mail forms to wikis.  It's difficult to imagine anyone needing even a fraction of these features, but I suppose it gives you some idea of the breadth of coverage a particular CMS has in the total online space.

Once again TYPO3 and Plone lead the pack with most close behind.  WordPress and eZ Publish lag a little further down and, guess who, PHP Nuke, brings up the rear. 

The commerce feature set is a handful of items that are useful in an e-commerce environment:  shopping cart, shipping, online payments, inventory management, etc.  This is Plone's weakest area and TYPO3 (plus WebGUI) is right there at the same level.  Four other CMSs are higher in this category and three are lower with two of them at zero.

Mercifully, that ends the categories from CMS Matrix.  Coming up next, another look at the overall scores and some reflections on what it means.

CMS Matrix -- Management and Interoperabilities

Yet another look at the CMS Matrix numbers.  Yeah, I know, they're user-contributed and probably biased.  Heck, I'd urge Plonistas to at least head over and add to the ratings to boost Plone scores.  It only takes a few inputs to bump some of the numbers up significantly.

But even with those caveats, I think it's worthwhile to go over the numbers once in awhile to see what is shaking out in a general sense.  So here we're looking at the ten most-compared CMSs and counting features--not quality, but quantity. 

Here's the graph on interoperability features.  Remember, we're just counting features that are a clear 'Yes' or an 'Available with Free Add-on.'

Once again TYPO3 and Plone lead the pack, this time by a large margin.  Most CMSs languish in the 50-70% range except for eZ Publish, which manages to crawl into the 80% bracket.  PHP Nuke drags in with a flat 0%.

Here's the graph of feature counts as percentage of total possible (only six features).  Plone take the lead with TYPO3, WebGUI, and eZ Publish close behind.  PHP Nuke once again is at the bottom of the heap and everyone else is in the 70-80% range. 

If you missed the earlier posts, head back to the first (overall), second (security and support), and third (ease of use and performance) installments of the series and see where the earlier feature-count percentages place the top ten CMSs.  Next up, built in apps (whatever that means) and commerce features.  Stay tuna'd.

CMS Matrix -- Ease of Use and Performance

Part III of my review of CMS Matrix stats continues with a look at their categories of "Ease of Use" and "Performance."  As before, I'm looking at the top ten "most compared" CMSs on CMS Matrix.  Then I'm looking at the feature counts.  "No," "Limited," and "Available at extra cost" are considered negatives.  "Yes" and "Free add-on" are considered postives.

Ease of use easily is grouped into three categories:  those with 100% of all ease of use features (TYPO3, WebGUI, and Plone), those 50-75% in the mid-range (Joomla, Drupal, Mambo, Xoops, WordPress, and eZ Publish), and PHP Nuke lagging far below.

Clearly, there are four tiers of performance in this group of CMSs:  those with 100% of all performance features (TYPO3, WebGUI, Plone, and eZ Publish), those at 60% (Joomla, Drupal), those less than 40% (Mambo, Xoops, and WordPress), and PHP Nuke, once again at the bottom of the heap.

Once again, caveat emptor, these are voluntarily supplied rating presumably from members of each CMS's community.  Be sure to validate your requirements against the features of CMS Matrix and be certain you're not disregarding a candidate CMS because it is missing a feature that you don't even need. 

Next, we'll look at the management and interoperability categories.

CMS Matrix -- Security and Support

Here's Part II of my series on stats from CMS Matrix.  Earlier I looked at the total number of features for the top ten most-compared CMSs.  Today I'll share the numbers on the first two categories broken out by CMS Matrix:  security and support. 

From the security numbers it's easily seen that Plone and TYPO3 top the list at 100% with eZ Publish in third some distance behind.  WebGUI hangs on in 4th and everyone else lags significantly.  In at least one way this doesn't mirror the numbers from the National Vulnerability Database:  TYPO3 shows 273 vulnerabilities in the past 3 years compared to Plone with only 7.  Having a lot of security-related features doesn't mean you have air-tight security for the system itself. 

The support statistics show a cluster of six CMSs at the top.  The top three (Drupal, TYPO3, eZ Publish) are separated from the second three (Joomla, WebGUI, Plone) by their certification programs.  The remaining four CMSs are below 80% in number of support features. 

Next up, ease of use and performance.  Stay tuned.

CMS Matrix Revisited

Every now and then I wander over to CMSmatrix.org and check things out.  Systems come, systems go, and for a handful, there's a steady maturation and growth.  Tonight I took the top ten CMSs as rated by "Comparisions."  Must mean something if people are usually looking at the same set of systems.

I then counted the CMS Matrix features that they lacked, as defined by a feature having a "No" or "Limited" or "Costs Extra" in a particular cell.  One minus that value divided by the total number of features is given in the Pct Features column below.  The "System Requirements" section was not tallied due to it's largely text content.

CMS	Pct Features
TYPO3 4.5.2	97%
Plone 4.0	96%
WebGUI 7.9	89%
eZ Publish 4.2	83%
Joomla 1.6.0	82%
Drupal 6.10	77%
Xoops 2.0.18	71%
Mambo 4.6.1	71%
WordPress 3.0.4	63%
PHP Nuke 6	15%

If you prefer the graphic, here's the same data set.

It's interesting to see that among top-compared CMSs in CMS Matrix, there's a surprising amount of variability.  TYPO3 and Plone top the chart above 90% and the rest trail away down to 63%.  Then PHP Nuke languishes at the bottom.

Perhaps tomorrow I'll dig out my copy of 'R' and see if these cluster in any meaningful way.  I have the information summarized by each CMS Matrix category (Security, Support, Ease of Use, Performance, Management, Interoperability, Flexibility, Built-in Applications, and Commerce), so I'll be able to look at each section by itself in the days ahead.  But one word of warning before you base a decision on these data, check the specific features you require against any candidate system.  No need to throw out a possibility, if the reason is the lack of a feature you'll never use.