Checklist for CMS

Darrel Austin is a blogger and web developer who is on one of the mailing lists I subscribe to.

This morning came this bit about CMS products like Marqui

Darrell graciously gave me permission to post it here.

When we spent a year researching CMS products for our organization, most of the information I truly wanted was nowhere to be found on most sites:

- is it a hosted solution? shrink wrapped? Both?
- what is the true cost? (NOT the 'call for quotes' crap)
- what is the admin interface?
- where is the free download to try it on our own servers?
- what is the technology platform it is built upon?
- is there a documented API?
- is there documentation?
- where is the user-to-user support forum (if there even is one)?
- how do does it work (step-by-step overview from making templates to
setting up user roles...)

I hope to answer these questions.

Comments

[CMS specialist]

What about:
- does the CMS offer a WYSIWYG editor
- what modules reside in the CMS
- is it customizable/expandable
- does it support multilingual sites
- has it a steep learning curve (for the end user)
- what security features are there (i.e. can it also hold a protected subsite)
- does it offer workflow support

These criteria can be just as important as the above mentioned ones.