Ask Idealware: Considering Proprietary vs Open Source CMSs

Benita asks: We are in the process of redesigning our website (which is housed in a homegrown CMS) and plan to include a new CMS in the process. Our new IT staff members are concerned that the web staff is not investigating other commercial CMS systems that may be viable options. Seems most of the nonprofits are using open source or completely customized systems and our IT folks are wondering why we're not looking at products used in the business world. It seems like an overwhelming task to review everything and I'm not intent on reinventing the wheel. I'm sure other organizations have had to deal with this - do you have any knowledge you could share? Are we limiting solutions based upon the nonprofit community experience?

Jeff Herron of Beaconfire Consulting, says:
Good question! This is something that a number of organizations struggle with.

First off, you mention that it seems like most nonprofits are using open source or completely customized systems. I'm not certain that anyone knows how many nonprofits are using which type of CMS. Regardless, if in fact many are using open source, that doesn't mean that open source is necessarily the direction to go for you. The choice of what solution is right for your organization has to do with many factors, but likely not very much to do with the fact that you are a nonprofit in and of itself.

But it sounds like the crux of your question is whether you should look at commercial solutions as well as open source ones. My advice is that you should look at all types of solutions that seem to meet your requirements, including commercial solutions, nonprofit specific ASP tools and open source. I'm not sure why you would eliminate a category of tools from the get go unless you've got some preferences or other criteria that dictates this. It doesn't sound like that is the case for your organization if this question is being asked.

Step 1 in any process of selecting software is to document your needs. Beyond requirements, there are other factors that have a big impact on the decision. These include things like:

• The availability and capability of technical skills at your organization.
• The existing technologies or languages your team is familiar with.
• What systems that your CMS will integrate with – do you have an eCRM package or ecommerce tool?
• What sort of budget do you have? Think beyond the upfront license costs that come with commercial software, but also to the implementation, enhancement and support costs.
• Ease of use – if you are asking non-technical content authors to enter/update content if it is too difficult, they won't regularly use it, defeating part of the point of a CMS.

It is very possible that based on these criteria, you can eliminate many tools including whole categories of them. Without specific criteria for your organization, however, it is hard to say you should not consider commercial tools outright. From your question, it seems open source tools are preferred by the Web team and commercial solutions by IT. I'm sure each perspective is based on at least one of the criteria identified above. On the surface, both perspectives have merit but the decision should be based on all the top criteria not a single one.

Given that budget is often initially one of the driving factors towards open source since there is often no licensing fee, let me suggest that there are an increasing number of low cost commercial solutions out there too. Ektron (~$11k) and Hot Banana (less than $20k) are two that offer a boat load of features for not a lot of money.

The reality is that it is not possible to review all systems, nor is that even necessary. Step 2 in the evaluation process includes doing some preliminary research with colleagues, other organizations, and experts like Idealware to help you get an idea the most prevalent tools. You can get pretty far by comparing these against your requirements to narrow your list. Focus on 4-6 solutions that generally meet your requirements, it shouldn't require too much time/effort to investigate them further as Step 3.

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