Product Spotlight: Xoops content management system

If you are looking for some serious power and flexibility for your company’s content management system (CMS) then Xoops should be one of the first tools you look at. With an outstanding foundation written in PHP, Xoops brings to the table a huge development community focused on creating as many modules as possible. This translates to increased functionality for your business.

Requirements

• Web server: Apache, IIS, etc
• PHP: 4.1 or greater for Xoops 2.0.x and 4.2 or greater for Xoops 2.2.x
• MySQL database: 3.23.xx or 4.x.xx
• Operating systems: Windows 98 or better (excluding Vista) Linux, and OS X
• Additional information

Who’s it for?

The Xoops content management system is for any business needing a solid, reliable, scalable content management system for either internal or external needs. With the vast amount of modules it offers, Xoops can serve nearly any purpose from basic content management to market-specific Web sites. Xoops is one of the more flexible CMS tools available.

What problem does it solve?

Xoops enables any business to have a professional, user-friendly, content-driven Web site that offers a large array of functions. Xoops is also an open source tool so there is no software cost associated with deploying Xoops.

Standout features

• Easy installation
• Large repository of installable modules <http://www.xoops.org/modules/repository/>
• Database-driven for scalability
• World-wide support
• Multiple language support
• Theme capable

What’s wrong?

The biggest problem with Xoops is the administrative learning curve. Yes installation is simple, but to really take advantage of its power you will need to install a number of modules. Unfortunately some of the documentation for these modules is seriously lacking. Because of this, administrators will wind up spending a good amount of time just tweaking these modules to get them to work. That is not necessarily true of all modules, but in many cases you will find yourself spending more time than you care to just getting modules to fit your needs.

Another issue is that the basic installation installs very few modules, so the administrator will have to search the Xoops site to find enough modules to really make the Xoops install useable.

Competitive products

• Drupal
• Joomla!
• phpWebSite

Bottom line for business

Content Management Systems can really make or break your businesses flow of work and information. Having a highly flexible, user-friendly site is tantamount to customer and employee satisfaction. With Xoops you can create an outstanding CMS with a host of features and scale it to meet your needs. And best of all, you do this with zero initial software costs.

User rating

Have you encountered the Xoops content management system? If so, what do you think? Rate the unit and compare the results to what other TechRepublic members think. Give your own personal review of Xoops in the TechRepublic Community Forums or let us know if you think we left anything out in our review above.

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