Cushy – Radiant – Contao CMS

CushyCMS is a powerful, simple and free content management system that help web designers by simplifying content management. It is FTP-based, meaning it works directly on your file structure. When you view your website after logging into Cushy’s website it is this website interface that pulls in the page you are editing on and inspects the places where the class file exists and makes this an editable item. No programming required and no server requirements. It uses the FTP credentials you have entered to make the call via FTP protocol to pull in your website pages. It also parses the dom and checks for the class name “cms-editable” and makes this content editable through an HTML editor after some configuration steps after installation. When you make changes and save them, it directly modifies the content area that you defined as editable via FTP again. There are many tools in any server-side language to accomplish this for FTP protocol and DOM parsing.

The Good thing about Cushy CMS:
It works for static websites so easily, a designer could set it up.

The Bad thing about Cushy CMS:
Its terrible for dynamic websites as your clients are directly editing on your pages and will easily break the website with accidental syntax errors. It does not fit for MVC-style and web programming in general.
It requires too much administration after setup as you have to first set an item to be editable on your file directly, then you must give permission through its interface. Imagine doing this for a templated pages being reused. Basically you can’t.
It cannot handle the same file being edited in different parts at the same time by different users because its actually just a source file being edited upon. Here is where overwrites become an issue when someone saves something thinking they are only saving the part they edited, not realizing they just saved the entire document.

Radiant
Radiant is an open source content management system, written in Ruby created and designed by John W. Long as a Ruby on Rails web application. Radiant has flexible templating with layouts, snippets, page parts, a custom tagging language and simple user management and permissions. With over 200 extensions in the extension registry[1] it can be adapted for various uses. All the content is stored inside a database. It is possible to use MySQL, PostgreSQL or SQLite. Radiant depends, like every Ruby on Rails application, on the installed adapters for the database. It is distributed via a separate download or installable with RubyGems. Two PHP ports of Radiant CMS are available as Frog CMS and Wolf CMS.

Contao
Contao is a free CMS platform Formerly named TYPOlight, they changed the name to avoid confusion with TYPO3. Contao is an open source content management system (CMS) for people who want a professional internet presence that is easy to maintain. The state-of-the-art structure of the system offers a high security standard and allows you to develop search engine friendly websites that are also accessible for people with disabilities. Furthermore, the system can be expanded flexibly and inexpensively. Easy management of user rights, the Live Update Service, the modern CSS framework and many already integrated modules (news, calendar, forms, etc.) have quickly made Contao one of the most popular open source content management systems on the market. Contao isn’t light either, its a fully featured CMS that many enjoy using.