The Lights Beyond LAMP

The 2009 Open Source CMS Market Share Report showed clearly the ongoing dominance of PHP-based content management systems. While the LAMP stack may be the leader in the arena of web content management, it is certainly not the only game in town. For the 2009 Open Source CMS Market Share Report we looked at not only the PHP-based systems, but also the Java and .NET-based systems.

Looking Beyond LAMP
The LAMP stack is populist in nature. Not only does the stack carry the cost advantages of open source, but there also exists a wide assortment of low-cost hosting and a ready (and growing) supply of developers. These characteristics create low barriers for entry and an attractive choice for individuals, hobbyists and small to medium sized enterprises.
While few would dispute that there are numerically more deployments of the common LAMP stack systems, it would be a mistake to assume that this is the only platform that matters. The web content management space is not homogenous. A hobbyist building a personal site, a small company building an online marketing presence, and a medium sized enterprise building a portal for customer relationship management are just three examples of widely disparate, yet common, uses. And while it is possible that all three of those groups might be looking at the same systems, it is more likely that those who require higher level functionality will look beyond the most common PHP-based systems. The argument becomes even more persuasive when you look at enterprise level clients.

For users who demand more functionality, higher security and more robust platforms, Java-based and .NET-based content management systems hold a strong attraction. Indeed, in the enterprise space, those platforms are more likely to be the first choice. Though it is certain that The Big Three — Joomla!, WordPress and Drupal — continue to improve their offerings and are more capable of supporting robust websites, I think it is fair to state that at this point in time few enterprise clients put them on their shortlist.

The Java CMS Race
We included 4 Java-based systems in the survey: Alfresco, Jahia, Liferay and OpenCMS. Of the four, Alfresco topped the set in virtually all the metrics, in many cases ranking behind only The Big Three PHP systems. It was a very strong showing for a system that is not normally thought of in the context of web content management.

Alfresco had a strong lead in brand recognition and brand familiarity ratings. While Alfresco lead Liferay in many metrics, it did not do so across the board; Liferay also performed very well. Liferay showed significantly greater strength in third party support, website popularity metrics and social media prominence. Both Alfresco and Liferay ranked highly in the brand sentiment metrics, with Alfresco coming in third overall in the survey — one of the clear leaders in this key metric. Liferay was not far behind, coming in sixth overall.

Alfresco and Liferay lead OpenCms by a large margin in almost all categories and Jahia not only lagged relative to the other Java based systems, but was one of the weakest performers of the entire survey group. Most troubling for Jahia has to be the brand sentiment data which showed Jahia fourth from last in the survey set, with negative sentiment running very close to 50%.

In sum, from my perspective those interested in implementing Java-based open source content management systems for their web sites have a lot to cheer about. There exist several viable choices and at least two strong, growing players. This is a space that is set to grow and remain competitive in both the short to medium term.

The chart below shows the results of our query on brand familiarity to the survey group:

brand familiarity

The .NET CMS Race
.NET is not a platform most people traditionally associate with open source, but over the last couple of years that has begun to change. A large part of that credit has to go to DotNetNuke, who have been waving the open source flag and investing heavily in marketing to get that message out. Perhaps no other system in the survey has shown a more concerted marketing effort than DotNetNuke. That marketing has paid off in brand recognition and has opened the door for .NET as an open source alternative in the minds of many consumers.
This year’s survey found that DotNetNuke leads the .NET open source CMS race over the nearest rival, Umbraco, by a significant margin. However, the good news for DotNetNuke seems to stop right about there.

Our survey found an ongoing deterioration in DotNetNuke market interest; a slide that has continued across the last several years. The system also had one of the worst ratios of trial usage to actual usage, in other words, while they were successful in getting prospects to try the system, they were less successfully in converting them into actual users. Most troubling of all were the numbers relating to brand sentiment. DotNetNuke finished last of the entire survey set in brand sentiment and was one of only two systems to show more negative than positive responses to the question “What is your general feeling about these companies or projects?” Further corroboration of this conclusion can be found at the Windows Web App Gallery which lists user rankings for four .Net-based content management systems. Of the four, DotNetNuke is ranked the lowest, lagging behind Umbraco, mojoPortal and Kentico CMS.

The chart below shows the results of the query to the survey group on brand sentiment: Do you feel positive or negative about the following brands/products?

brand sentiment

Aside from the brand sentiment metric, DotNetNuke lead Umbraco across the board. However, when you look at the trend in interest levels, there is a sharp contrast: Interest in Umbraco is strengthening. The improvement is slow but steady and the gap between the two systems seems to have closed significantly in the last 12 months. One has to wonder what would happen if Umbraco could match the marketing might of DotNetNuke.

In conclusion, the .NET-based open source CMS market is still wide open. DotNetNuke was certainly the early mover but seems struggling now to hold on to that advantage. The arrival of competing systems like Umbraco, and even more recently mojoPortal, shows that there is plenty of room for competition in this space and that things are only going to get more challenging for DotNetNuke.

The data underlying these conclusions can be found in the 2009 Open Source CMS Market Share Report, from water&stone and CMSWire. Download a free copy of the report at: http://www.cmswire.com/downloads/cms-market-share/

Note: This article originally appeared, in slightly different form, on CMSWire.com: http://www.cmswire.com/cms/web-cms/open-source-cms-market-lights-beyond-lamp-005849.php

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