Content Management

Content management is the process of creating, managing, and modifying digital content. This can include text, images, videos, and other multimedia elements. Content management systems (CMS) are software applications that facilitate this process, allowing users to create and manage content without the need for extensive technical knowledge.

History of CMS

The history of CMS dates back to the first website, created by Tim Berners-Lee in 1990. The evolution of CMS has been driven by the way information is consumed on the internet, with open source software playing a key role in this evolution. Today, CMS are used to manage a significant portion of websites, with new technologies emerging to meet the ever-growing demands of content management.

Options for Content Management

There are several options for content management, including traditional monolithic systems and more modern approaches such as JAMstack.

Traditional Monolithic Systems

Traditional monolithic systems include the back-end user interface, plugins, front-end templates, CSS, a web server, and a database all in one package. With every user request for a website page, a server first queries a database, then combines the result with data from the page’s markup and plugins to generate an HTML document in the browser.

Examples of traditional monolithic systems include WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla.

WordPress

WordPress is a popular open source CMS, powering over 54% of CMS-based websites (as of this writing). It is known for its ease of use and extensive plugin library, making it a popular choice for bloggers and small businesses.