Wordpress: Blog vs CMS

What is Wordpress?

Wordpress is an open source blogging tool and publishing platform written in PHP and powered by MySQL. It is not not specifically designed to be a Content Management System however, it is often customized to behave like one. If you are looking for the best of both worlds, we recommend using a true Content Management System such as Drupal or Dotnetnuke in conjunction with a blogging platform like Wordpress.

Drupal and Dotnetnuke have blogging modules but, at best they are for simple blogs and do not compare to a dedicated blogging system like Wordpress with a large user base, and huge community of PHP developers.

Wordpress Core

Wordpress at it's core is a blogging software out of the box. It can be customized to behave just like a Content Management System or otherwise known as a CMS. So, first and foremost Wordpress allows a user to create blog posts. These blog posts can contain user uploaded media such as flash files, movies, mp3's, embedded html to pull in outside content like Youtube or Vimeo, along with a whole slew of other rich media. Wordpress can automatically propagate your posts to other news syndication outlets. Wordpress provides built in user authentication, in which an admin can use Roles as a way to control what users can and cannot do. Administrators can control access to system function such as writing and editing posts, creating Pages, defining links, creating categories, moderating comments, managing plugins, managing themes, and managing other users.