What is OpenCms?

The name says it all: OpenCms is an open-source software. Based in Cologne, Germany, Alkacon Software is re­spon­si­ble for de­vel­op­ing and main­tain­ing the content man­age­ment system. An active community also does its part to support and optimize the system. This col­lab­o­ra­tion between company and community has paid off, as there are many OpenCms templates and addons available to users free of charge. Users will also ap­pre­ci­ate how easy it is to both create and manage content with the system.

Like many other content man­age­ment systems, OpenCms is free of charge and can be down­loaded from the official website. The CMS is divided into online and offline content. Offline content becomes available for online website visitors only after it’s published. And with the help of its preview function, users are able to test out their content before going live. Editors don’t need any prior pro­gram­ming knowledge in order to set up or manage content. This is because the program doesn’t require its backend, i.e. ‘workplace’, to be used during these steps. With OpenCms, a site’s editorial aspects are clearly separated from its technical ones. All of your web project’s content can be easily edited within the webpage itself. Another perk the system boasts is its dialog box, which enables editors to com­mu­ni­cate with one another. Innate to its design, OpenCms’ SEO features (e.g. gen­er­at­ing XML sitemaps, keywords, and de­scrip­tions, etc.) are a further advantage of the system. Ad­di­tion­al functions of the CMS are:

• Creating and main­tain­ing content via WYSIYG editor

• A drag-and-drop feature that allows users to add and arrange content and templates on in­di­vid­ual pages

• Adding media content, such as images or videos, via a gallery function

• Struc­tur­ing all pages via a sitemap editor

• Nuanced user roles and rights concept

• Expansion and main­te­nance of various websites

• Option for creating mul­ti­lin­gual websites

Thanks to the open source approach, tech­ni­cal­ly inclined users are able to tailor the CMS to their in­di­vid­ual needs: OpenCms templates can be adjusted as desired so as to better fit your pref­er­ences; in­di­vid­ual web ap­pli­ca­tions can also be developed with this program. Easily im­portable ex­ten­sions allow even less ex­pe­ri­enced users to quickly expand basic OpenCms features. Most OpenCms ex­ten­sions are free and can be obtained as modules, which are available for download on the official website’s download page. Here you can find templates and/or ad­di­tion­al program functions. As well as admin and content ex­ten­sions, modules for expanding online stores or online surveys are also available. The broad selection of features makes it possible to pro­fes­sion­al­ly develop virtually any sort of website.

OpenCms is es­pe­cial­ly suitable for creating pro­fes­sion­al websites with a midsized-to-large array of functions. It could be worth­while looking into other al­ter­na­tives for creating small blogs, online stores, or community platforms.

However, despite this short­com­ing, OpenCms has its strengths in other areas. If it’s your aim to manage content without any specific pro­gram­ming knowledge, then this CMS proves an excellent choice–es­pe­cial­ly when editing content with multiple editors. This is where the thor­ough­ly con­cep­tu­al­ized role and right systems come in par­tic­u­lar­ly handy. This pragmatic operation of this program, which enables even beginners to publish and edit content, has made it a popular choice for both intra and extranet solutions.

And even if the community behind OpenCms isn’t as large as those of the market leaders, like WordPress or Joomla, it will nonethe­less be able to provide you with the necessary as­sis­tance for answering questions or tackling difficult problems. For all other queries that can’t be answered by the community, a fee-based customer service program is provided by OpenCms’ official co­or­di­na­tor, Alkacon Software.

While OpenCms isn’t among the market leaders for content man­age­ment systems, working with this program will prove that it’s more than capable of holding its own against the big dogs. In the end, however, in­di­vid­ual tastes, re­quire­ments, and your own skill level are what determine which CMS is the right choice for you.