I'll be a contrarian here. We are developers and depending on what requirements you have, $15K is not at all expensive. A person may be able to set up a site in a day or two, but that is on the base code and server config. Are you also requiring custom design? That adds a few grand easily. And then customizing the design to the CMS? Another day or two is reasonable as these CMS you mentioned are not that easy to personalize outside of the built-in functions. Are you going to need training and support? Then add more time to develop a user manual. Most clients we work with would not be able to go to a message board for a CMS and get their questions answered.
Hoe many user groups aka permission groups will be required? Each person can only belong to one group and it takes some serious planning sometimes to map that How much consultation will be required to develop your specifications? There are literally hundreds of options and questions that arise in development where the client gets to choose between A and B. Or wants C, when it doesn't exist until the developer writes some new code. This could easily be several days of time, involving a project manager and a programmer plus the people on the client side - who will require time to make their decisions, once armed with information. How much security do you need? Joomla in particular is known as being very hackable and if your users/content are important, then this is a CMS that will need expert installation and monitoring. If it is your own site, and you are the only ones who will be in there for the most part, then the requirements are simpler. But when developing a commercial site for multiple users, you have many more considerations and you want a professional on your side IMO. If you have the luxury of time, you could try to do a test install and see what limitations you run into it. But you run the risk of having to throw all that work away if you quickly run into limitations. Better we think to find a developer who can tell you what the best CMS will be after spending some consult time with you to determine your "must have" and "want to have" requirements. I hope you find this helpful, and congrats to you for doing your research. That makes you several steps ahead of the typical client! Aloha, Rox On 5/21/07, Stan Hirson, Sarah Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > > > --- In [email protected], "Steve Watkins" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > > > > It can get quite confusing. Not exactly comparing like for like, > > although the end results may be the same. > > > > I think Steve has given an excellent response to the question. > > I am not a programmer or developer and came at this as a documentary > film maker who needed something a bit more flexible than blogging > software. I chose Joomla. If you want to see how I integrated the > text and video, you can visit http://hestakaup.com. You can do a lot > in Joomla without writing code and it is very easy to maintain. I run > it on Dreamhost. > > Best, > > Stan Hirson > http://hestakaup.com > > -- Roxanne Darling "o ke kai" means "of the sea" in hawaiian 808-384-5554 http://www.twitter.com/roxannedarling http://www.beachwalks.tv http://www.barefeetshop.com http://www.barefeetstudios.com
