1. MicroWeber

Microweber is one of the newest kids in the block. What makes it unique is its full drag-and-drop design and real-time creating/editing of content. It also comes with a shopping cart built in so you can easily set up your blogshop without any coding.

You can register a Microweber account and start your own blog in a sub-domain of microweber.com (like what WordPress.com does) or download the package and install it on your own server. What I like What I don’t like

2. Concrete5

Concrete5 is surprisingly easy to use. The first time you log in, it will show a popup of the get started guide. You can choose whether you are an editor, app developer, or business user and read the relevant guide.

Like Microweber, Concrete5 also comes with a drag-and-drop feature and real-time writing/editing capability. What makes it better is its organized menu and uncluttered looks. You won’t feel like you have a lot of things to select from each time. It also has a Dashboard that is full of configuration options, well organized in sections.

Concrete5 comes with versioning control so you can easily revert back to the previous design. Additionally, it also comes with a cache system to improve the site performance. What I like What I don’t like

3. SilverStripe

Silverstripe focuses heavily on content management and creation – that is why it has a very simple interface in its backend. It’s so simple that it is not comparable to many of the CMS out there.

While it doesn’t come with real time editing, you can see a live preview of your content while you are creating/editing it.

Unlike most CMS that come with a blog component, the default installation of Silverstripe only allows you to create static pages. You will have to obtain other features through addons. What I like

Easy content management – The interface for content management is simply the best among all the CMS mentioned here.

What I don’t like

Installing themes and addons is difficult – While you may think that installing a new theme or addon is easy, it is not. Most of the time I have to go through loops, editing config files, and reading documentation before I can get the addon to work.

4. Habari

If you are looking for a lighter and faster version of WordPress, Habari is the one for you. Like WordPress, Habari is also a blog-focused CMS, and it comes with support for themes and plugins. One big difference between Habari and WordPress is that Habari is very lightweight and loads blazingly fast.

What I like What I don’t like

The default theme sucks

5. Textpattern

If you love the Textile markup langauge, then you are going to love Textpattern. Unlike most CMS that come with a WYSIWYG text editor, Textpattern uses textile for creating and editing content.

For WordPress, you can only have one blog. For Textpattern, you can create different sections and each section is considered a blog by itself. When you write articles, you simply assign them to different sections. Working with Textpattern requires you to edit a lot of config files and work with XML, HTML tags etc. This may seem complicated at the beginning, but after using it for a while, you will understand why Textpattern is so flexible and extensible. With a simple change of the code you can tweak it to do plenty of stuff, including modifying the theme, change article structure etc. What I like What I don’t like

Steep learning curve at the beginning, especially if you are not familiar with Textile

Conclusion

When it comes to publishing content online, WordPress is not the only CMS around. If you are willing to look around, there are tons of open source CMS that you can use for free. The above list should give you a start if you are looking for an alternative to WordPress. Image credit: The word Content by BigStockPhoto