I was looking for a Content Management System to power my old ASP.NET web site. I didn't expect it to be that hard to find something reasonably good, but it was hard. So I decided to research the problem and share my experience here.

The fact is that for some reason almost all CMS vendors assume that I am eager to rebuild my web site from scratch. The advertisement focuses on how easy it is to install CMS and how many features there are. It is getting vague when describing how I am supposed to move my existing content to the new system, and it mostly ignores all business functions of my site and all proprietary code I currently have.

Such approach does not look adequate in the second decade of the 21st century. A company web site these days is more than text and pictures - it does business. It has been rebuilt many times already, saturated with unique code and business functionality. Saying that one can easily move a business web site into some prepackaged CMS would not be an accurate assessment.

Content management is just one of many functions of a modern web site. It's not reasonable to throw away all other vital functions just to get this one. Why can't we simply add content management features to an existing web site without sacrificing site's business purpose?

The whole idea of a CMS being the foundation of a web site is outdated. Technology is way past the state when you had to build everything from scratch again and again. Modern systems can evolve, and so should evolve our web sites.

So, here are the reasons why it's hard to find a CMS to enhance existing web site:

1. It is not practical to throw away a web site that already fulfills its business purpose.
2. Business evolves, it is hard to predict which CMS features it will need tomorrow. CMS vendor lock-in can impose unnecessary features on business and deprive business of features it might need in the future.
3. IT departments are reluctant to install yet another software package in their already overpopulated server room. IT departments want to build IT systems their way, not the way imposed by a CMS vendor.
4. We do want to keep our existing web sites. We want the ability to add content management features when we need them without destroying the whole system.


I guess you came to this post by searching similar kind of issues in any of the search engine and hope that this resolved your problem. If you find this tips useful, just drop a line below and share the link to others and who knows they might find it useful too. 

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