What is a content management system (CMS)?

A content management system (CMS) is used for creating, organizing, and publishing Web-based documents and other content. It allows non-technical users to create and maintain a Web site. A CMS often is a collaborative system, where several people create and maintain content on the same site.

A document in a CMS can be a Web page, an article, a PDF file, a manual, or almost any other content. You’re looking at an example of a CMS right now. (This FAQ entry is a document on our Plone CMS-based Web site.)

The Plone CMS (which Abiliba uses and supports) can be extended through the installation of applications. Plone can be used for a variety of purposes: general-purpose Web sites, on-line stores, blogs, forums, shared content on intranets, news sites, etc.

A CMS actually does a lot more “behind the scenes.” It can automatically create navigation menus, index content to make it searchable, keep track of users, limit access to content, and much more.