Topic: What I need? Framework or CMS?

[leon_nerd]

Hi Guys,

I am not quite sure what is the best for me which is why I am trying to find out (1) What do I need: Framework or CMS? (2) Which one?

Now, I am a PHP developer and recently got engaged in a major project. The development part is yet to start, and in the meanwhile I am trying to get some answers on how to setup the dev environment. Now, while I understand that a Framework is basically used to setup the architecture of the application while the CMS is used to control the content, I have not practically worked on them. So, I need your thoughts.

1.) I need to be able to able to develop and deploy the modules quickly.
2.) I will be developing the modules myself, of course. While, the CMS will give me lots of modules but do I really need them? I mean wouldn't they be an overhead for me to manage those non-required modules? I will have to disable them etc etc?

I hope I make some sense here. I am not sure what else should I be telling here. So, shoot your questions if you need to know more. I will be looking forward to hear your thoughts and helping me in deciding what I need and which one I need.

Thanks.

[ignace]

What CMS will you be using?

[leon_nerd]

If I have to use a CMS then I would probably go with Joomla, since it is the one I have worked a little bit with.

[bouba]

If your project requires the user to have an admin back-end to edit content you are better off using a CMS. Otherwise you will have to write your own content administration system with whatever framework you use. A good lightweight framework is ExpressionEngine but it's not free; a not so lightweight one would be Joomla. Framework wise I think Yii and CodeIgniter are the best both in terms of weight and performance (which are somewhat related).

[lostnucleus]

it depends wat ur customer wants , joomla is an heavyweight cms , which cd be an overkill 4 common cms needs  , there are lighter cms but u will need to understand them first b4 starting to create there modules, I wd suggest u to stick with one framework , and one cms (hopefully built on the same framework u learned).

[sunwukung]

The choice will come down to the project requirements. Get a list of all the functionality, check if the CMS supports (or has plugins that support) all the requirements. If you get 80-90% yes, use an off the shelf CMS. If not, build bespoke (for considerable increase in cost).