This solution is very usable, but like most complex enterprise products it requires a little bit of training, and can’t be picked up in five minutes.

However, we have implemented this CMS for all kinds of business customers and have never failed to be able to fulfill even the most complex requirements. If you’re looking for a meaty CMS that can handle advanced requirements, with a commercial company to back it up (it’s dual licensed), eZ Publish is seriously worth considering.

This system lets you easily publish content such as files, photos and articles using the Website Toolbar – directly from your web browser. When you log in you will see the toolbar which will give you the option to publish, move, replace or even translate your content.

There is no HTML coding required when adding content – the rich text editor is WYSIWYG and offers the formatting functions you would see in a word processing app. You can also publish your content right from your word processing program using OpenOffice. This makes it possible for you to create content independent of internet access then upload the document using a client or the front-end of your site.

We can see why this style of interface might seem foreign to users of Drupal, Joomla! or the like – it looks different and doesn’t behave like a typical “dashboard”. But if what you want in a CMS is flexibility and expandability, eZ Publish really does offer it all as far as the many elements we’ve reviewed here.

From a framework point of view I downloaded the code about 6 months ago and spent a few hours browsing through it, though must admit I never installed and tested the project. From the start I noticed their class library has around 500 classes and this is not a framework niche I’m interested in