Top 15 Free PHP Content Management Systems (CMS) Scripts

Drupal

Drupal is an open source content management system (CMS) or platform that uses PHP and MySQL. It allows an individual user or even a community of users to publish, manage and maintain your website. You can use it to create blogs, forums, picture galleries, file upload and download sites, forums, collaborative authoring environments, podcasting, peer-to-peer networking sites, etc. The system is modular and highly customizable. It is licensed under the GNU General Public License.

ComicCMS

ComicCMS is an open source CMS that has the specialised ("specialized" in US English) purpose of letting you display your web comics on the Internet. To speed up its operation, it has built-in caching for the pages it generates and uses AJAX to request only the portions of each page that it needs (rather than loading entire pages at a time). Features include the ability to tag your comics, add news, create comic and news RSS feeds, add a calendar (via a plugin), and plugin support. 

TextPattern Content Management System

TextPattern is an open source CMS that attempts to make it easier for the average user to modify its templates. Its templates use a simple syntax known as Textile that allow you to use a few simple markers to indicate things like images, hyperlinks, etc. The software allows multiple contributors, supports plugins, etc. TextPattern uses PHP and MySQL. 

SilverStripe.org

This open source web content management system has a template language that lets you integrate your content into the CSS/HTML that you design. Alternatively, you can use one of the themes donated by others for this CMS software. It has support for extensions like the Blog module, which lets you add a blog to your site; a Diary module, which supports an online diary, calendar and year planner; an E-commerce module; an Event Calendar module; a discussion Forum module; and so on. The program is licensed under the revised BSD licence. 

Wolf CMS

Wolf CMS provides you the ability to customise ("customize" in US English) your web page on a per-page basis (eg, you can make it have its own layout, inherit the layout of the parent, or use yet another page's layout), set password-protected pages, use search-engine friendly URLs, etc. This CMS can use either MySQL or SQLite for its database. 

Drake CMS

Drake CMS is a PHP-based open source content management system that does not need any database system to be installed, although it supports a number of them (including MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, Sybase, Frontbase, MaxDB, MS SQL, etc) if you have them. You can use it to create community-based portals, magazines and newspapers, simple personal or family websites, company or organisation websites, etc. It has a hierarchy of users, starting with the Admistrator down to the simple website visitor, with the facility to control the access rights of each of these user levels. You can create subsites with this CMS without replicating the CMS files. 

Joomla! Content Management

Joomla! is an open source content management system (CMS) that can be used to power your website and allow you to easily manage it from an online interface. It includes an integrated WYSIWYG editor, support for multiple users/editors, a simple poll engine, several templates, etc. You can augment the features provided by the basic CMS installation by adding their extensions. Extensions available include blogging software, calendars, directory services, email newsletters, e-commerce and shopping cart engines, image and multimedia galleries, forums and chat software, banner advertising systems, business and organizational directories, dynamic form builders, etc. Joomla! requires that your web server be running Apache and has PHP and MySQL installed. 

ocPortal Content Management

This CMS is a web content management system that features galleries, news, file downloads, community forums and chats, wiki, content commenting and rating, a built-in search engine (site search), newsletters and mass mailing facilities, support ticket system, featured content (eg, image of the day, random quotes), paid membership sections with support for payment gateways like PayPal, banner support, etc. 

OpenCMS

OpenCMS is an open source website content management system (CMS) that uses Java, JSP, XML, MySQL on Tomcat (a Java Servlet container and web server). It comes with an integrated WYSIWYG editor and a simple text editor for Internet Explorer and Mozilla-based browsers like Firefox. The CMS software allows you to view your workspace in an Explorer-like window, edit files by changing specific elements within the page or directly editing them using the built-in WYSIWYG editor, etc. This program is licensed under the GNU General Public License. 

PHP-Fusion

PHP-Fusion is a content management system (CMS) that uses a MySQL database to store the contents of your website. It requires PHP 4 running on an Apache server. The program is released under the GNU General Public License. 

CMSimple Content Management

CMSimple Content Management is designed for webmasters with relatively small sites (less than 2 Mb in text content). It does not need your site to have a database - the content of your site is stored in a single HTML file. It has an online JavaScript-based WYSIWYG editor that works in Mozilla and IE 5.5 and above (doesn't work in other browsers). The program is free, but requires you to preserve the link to their site. 

phpwcms - Web Content Management System

phpwcms is a content management system that uses PHP and MySQL. It includes multiple WYSIWYG editors, a frontend CSS editor, image resizing capabilities, file manager, support for meta tags, template editor, W3C conforming frontend rendering, etc. It can be installed on Windows 2000/XP, Mac OSX and Linux. The package is released under the GNU General Public License. 

TYPO3 Open Source Content Management System

TYPO3 is an open source content management system that is multilingual; allows WYSIWYG editing using a rich text editor (this feature is only for IE Windows users); has wizards for making tables, bullet lists, mail forms, etc; allows multiple page editing; allows offline editing, preview of content online, scheduled publishing; has an indexed search engine, a direct mail or newsletter system, etc. Administrators have access control (the ability to control access to various parts of the system), statistics, logging, version control with unlimited undos, raw database access, etc. You can use HTML templates, PHP scripts, create protected areas, and so on. The entire system is released under the GNU General Public License. 

ezContents Content Management System

ezContents is an open source website countent management system that uses PHP and MySQL. You can add authors that write content, manage permissions, workflow, create a layout, etc. It supports both sites with frames and those without. 

phpCMS - PHP Content Management System

This PHP content management script includes a file manager, full text search engine, online editor, statistics, dynamic menus, etc. Unlike many of the other content management systems (CMS), this one works with flat files.