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I am looking for the most Client Friendly CMS out there. What exactly do I mean by this? Well I want something that is intuitive to use, maybe uses some drag and drop stuff, and click/edit stuff as well. I have developed a number of wordpress and Joomla sites. And while both products are great, I continually get clients that come to me and just say, "I hate Wordpress, I don't want a Wordpress Site".

I have done some quick research (mostly through this site) and I have found basically two options that people have talked about. SilverStripe, and ModX. Both look like viable alternatives to the Wordpress/Joomla CMS's, but I was curious if anyone has any other options? And if not, and you recommend one of the two I mentioned, can you tell me the advantages over one another, and which one "YOU" think is the most client friendly. Obviously I could dive into both and explore the framework, but if others have experience in them, maybe you could just save me some time and point me towards the right one...

It would also be nice if it was developer friendly as well :) but the most important thing is making it easy for the client to add/edit content without really knowing much about HTML/CSS.

i3i2uno
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I discovered Processwire a while ago and really recommend it. I think it's intuitive for both developers and clients. It won a Best Free CMS award from cmscritic.com last year, and the community is very friendly and helpful.

Before i mostly had worked with Drupal, but it always felt like a behemoth. Processwire on the other hand feels very light, fast and easy in comparison. The API is a joy to program with and the administration backend is minimalistic and straight-forward.

Here is a link to video tutorials and introduction: http://processwire.com/videos/

Here is a forum discussion on PW vs. WordPress et al: http://processwire.com/talk/topic/4143-wordpress-dominates-19-of-the-web/?hl=comparison#entry40592

A quote (from the above link):

I have yet to discover one client who didn't prefer ProcessWire over WordPress after a 5 minute demo. Another quick fix would be to let a prospect talk to one of your previous clients. Let them tell the prospect how they work and how little time they have to spend to actually edit their website instead of wandering around a (looking beautiful, but UX wise dramatic) backend. ProcessWire is point and click and it does what a client expects.

And here is the cmscritic review: http://www.cmscritic.com/processwire-review/

Whistletoe
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  • Thank you for your recommendation. I will have to take a look. Do you have any experience with either SilverStripe or ModX? Can you make any comparison to Processwire?? – i3i2uno Aug 07 '13 at 02:54
  • No, sorry. In the forum discussion i linked, i think there were some users coming from ModX, though. – Whistletoe Aug 07 '13 at 02:56
  • I switched from MODX to doing most projects with Processwire a while ago and I can definitely recommend it. Almost everything is done easier, much more pragmatic and more flexible. When I need even more flexibility, I'd go with a custom built Symfony app, so MODX - while being a great CMS - lost it's place in my workflow. – bfncs Mar 11 '14 at 19:49
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I have never heard of ModX, but can say for certain that SilverStripe is the most user friendly CMS I have seen so far. and above that, it is extremely developer friendly as well.

if you ask me, SilverStripe is perfect for developers. for web designers I am not so sure, the thing is, there are not so much SilverStripe modules. but thats not a problem for a developer because in SilverStripe creating new modules is so easy, that you are often faster coding a module on your own than searching and installing one.

of course SilverStripe is not perfect, there are some rough edges here and there, but overall, I am extremely happy with it. I am using SilverStripe since years now and have only received positive feedback from my clients about the CMS.

if you are interrested in SilverStripe, checkout the demo at http://demo.silverstripe.org or jump right into the basic tutorial: http://doc.silverstripe.org/framework/en/

Zauberfisch
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I do in fact build all of my client sites with WordPress. The administration is very smooth and impresses them upon first login. Its easy to design for and the community maintains some awesome plugins I use on every project.

People often express dislike for Wordpress but I have never heard a valid issue when it comes to WordPress being 19+% of the internet and one of the best client solutions out there.

halfer
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Ben Racicot
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  • Look I am not hating on wordpress, or Joomla! They are great CMS's and they can accomplish basically anything. It's just I don't want to spend time trying to explain to a client (who knows nothing about the internet or HTML for that matter) that this is how websites work. Especially when they have basically already made up their mind that they hate Wordpress. I am looking for an alternative, that might offer a more simple backend, for a person who just simply wants to just add/edit content. Because in all honesty, Wordpress and Joomla, while great, are not very intuitive... – i3i2uno Aug 07 '13 at 02:53
  • Whatever you do, there will always be a learning curve for your clients. – RRikesh Aug 07 '13 at 05:07
  • If a client can't understand logging in and clicking the "post" button to create a post on a very "simplified Word document looking" interface he/she/you are in trouble in the first place :) – Ben Racicot Aug 07 '13 at 13:35