A software suite that is used to create and manage documents and websites. The term is generally associated with Web content, but systems are developed to maintain all kinds of information (see
document management system).
One of the features of a comprehensive content management system (CMS) versus a basic Web authoring program is its ability to update the entire site when global changes are made, eliminating the tedium of updating each page one at a time. The CMS may allow the Web designer to manage the site from a single console, and it may also provide versioning, which keeps track of all the changes made to each Web page so they can be rolled back if necessary.
The CMS accepts third-party plug-ins that provide functions such as banner advertising, shopping carts, blogs, wikis, newsletters, opinion polls, chat rooms and forums. Over the years, a few Web publishers have custom-coded their own content management systems, but there have been myriad CMS packages available on the market offering quite a variety of different features and approaches. However, the most popular open source CMS platform is WordPress. Joomla! and Drupal come in a distant second and third. See
WordPress,
Drupal,
Joomla! and
OSCOM.