Advantages of OpenCms

OpenCms is a website content management system (CMS) that allows to maintain a public website, an extranet or an intranet with little or no help by an external agency or internet professional. Departments and individual users can thus concentrate on creating the content for the website, and publish it in an easy and intuitive way. The build in 2 phase (4 eye) approval workflow allows optional quality assurance before contents go "live" to the website.

OpenCms provides a professional, cost effective Open Source alternative to high expensive and proprietary "commercial" solutions, ready to be deployed by organizations or enterprises of any size. When compared to other Open Source solutions, OpenCms stands out for it's rich feature set, it's maturity and the high level of adoption worldwide. For OpenCms, support is fully available by the active OpenCms development community and also by a number of companies around the world that offer consulting and project services, support agreements and training.

OpenCms is platform independent

Using OpenCms is fully browser based. The OpenCms software is installed on a web server, content managers access the system from any location with their web browser. Security is ensured by using strong encryption https protocols for the login process if required.

All of the web server's software components are based on standard Java technology. Java is today the enterprise application development environment of choice, and has also attracted a large Open Source community. Using high quality Open Source Java components like OpenCms in the enterprise provides an appealing cost-saving opportunity.

OpenCms helps to reduce IT costs

Using quality Open Source software like OpenCms, enterprises can dramatically reduce licensing costs and total cost of ownership (TCO). With the current shift to Open Source operating systems like LINUX, the move to Open Source applications is the logical next step.

OpenCms helps to reduce IT costs because

  • there are NO LICENSING COSTS for the OpenCms core, no matter on how many servers you install the software.
  • you have FULL ACCESS TO THE CORE SOURCE CODE which can be extended and remodeled in any way, without restrictions.
  • optional SUPPORT IS AVAILABLE from a number of companies, reducing dependency on the deploying software consultancy.
  • it is based on STANDARD JAVA TECHNOLOGY, supports a wide number of commercial and Open Source databases and operating systems, and thus can easily fit in almost all existing IT environments.

An enterprise class website content management system like OpenCms is never a product used "out of the box", no matter what all the well trained sales people try to tell you. This is true for all commercial or Open Source products, as well as for OpenCms. The bottom line is, all CMS systems must be configured and setup by a professional consultancy, or by people trained in the product. Since OpenCms is available as Open Source and based on 100% Java, getting to know the system or finding a partner for OpenCms is easy, because Java knowledge is readily available. Using well known standard Java and XML, as well as related standards like e.g. Servlets, JSP, JDBC, also enables you to leverage existing know-how that might already be available in your enterprise or organization.

Latest News

  • OpenCms 17 available

    Apr 9, 2024 - OpenCms 17 gives content managers the new app "Date search" to find content that has been changed in a certain time range. The "Websites" app allows to easily export the content of a complete site for archiving. An option has been added to hide "sensitive" content in the Offline project. The default Mercury template has been further improved, e.g. with SEO optimized job postings, a "spacer" function and marker clusters for maps. OpenCms 17 has also been tested and certified using Java 17 LTS and 21 LTS.

  • OpenCms 17 Release Notes

    Apr 9, 2024 - The OpenCms 17 release notes contain detailed information about the new features and fixes in this version.

  • Alkacon OCEE 17

    Apr 9, 2024 - Alkacon OCEE 17 is the latest OCEE release for OpenCms 17. This version improves the cluster shutdown behaviour when using the CmsShell.

  • OpenCms Docker image

    Apr 9, 2024 - Test OpenCms using the official image from the Docker hub registry - the fastest way to evaluate and test OpenCms. The image is well suited for evaluation and test purposes of the latest OpenCms release. We provide a docker-compose file to get OpenCms and the database running with just one command.

OpenCms Days 2016

  • OpenCms Days 2016 Conference and Expo

    OpenCms Days 2016 will take place September 26 to 27 in Cologne, Germany.

    Highlight of the international user conference and expo will be the introduction of OpenCms 10.5. OpenCms Days will be the perfect opportunity to exchange experiences around OpenCms with high profile participants and speakers from all over the world.

    Visit this 2 day conference and expo to meet and mingle with leading OpenCms experts and other OpenCms users.

    OpenCms Days 2016 is targeted towards an international audience. The language spoken at the event and used for all presentations is English.

    More information...

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