Top 10 PHP CMS Platforms For Developers in 2021

If you didn’t already know, CMS is short for Content Management System. There are many different types available and they all exist to make creating websites easier for people who didn’t learn to program. Some of these systems are aimed at customers with at least some understanding of code, but the majority are pitched at website owners who just want to get their sites built fast and maintenance to be easy. Since there are so many choices, this article explores a few of the criteria to keeping mind when choosing between the different PHP CMS platforms that are available. 

What’s a CMS?

A CMS is an application design to make website building easy, so you can add different features and manage whatever content you want to populate your site with.

Webpages are usually put together by developers using various languages and technologies like PHP, ASP, HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. A CMS platform does use languages like these, but the website creator doesn’t necessarily need to see them or understand them, because there’s an interface that simplifies all of the stuff that goes on “under the hood”. You can still get your hands dirty with coding if you want to, but if you’re a beginner who just wants to build a blog or a shop for yourself, a CMS will let you do that just by dragging and dropping the various elements into place.

Choosing the Right CMS Platform for Your Website

Before you look for a new car it’s good to make a list of the features that are important to you, and shopping for a CMS is no different. 

User-Friendliness

Your ideal CMS should be intuitive, with an interface that does not require you to have a degree in software engineering before you can pick it up. You should be able to understand it quickly so that in no time you’re able to add images, audio clips, and text (along with other things). The interface should allow you to make changes easily, and the tools should be self-explanatory.

Design Templates

One of the strengths of PHP CMS software is the availability of design templates. Some CMSs can offer whole galleries of pre-existing examples which means that you don’t have to build them yourself. But it does help if you can customize them without too much trouble too (which in this case means “not needing to know any code”).

Data Portability

You might not stay with the same host forever so, your ideal platform should come with tools that let you manage your data and move it wherever you need to put it next with relative ease.

Optional Extras

Websites come in all shapes and sizes to suit all pockets and purposes. That’s why there isn’t a one size fits all CMS platform that will suit every single website.  One way around this is with extensions and add-ons. These are additional apps that can add to the basic set of features that come with the CMS software. If you think of this as a Swiss army knife, then extensions and add-ons are like extra blades that you can add to it to make it do more. 

User Support

While a good CMS platform will be straightforward to use and easy to pick up in the first place, you’re always going to have questions at some point. Some platforms have very large and loyal fan bases, and you might find that you can pick up all the help you need by consulting with existing users on forums. These good people will usually be only too happy to share their knowledge and experience to benefit others in the community. 

Of course, a really good CMS provider will also offer around-the-clock official support too.  

Pricing considerations

Some CMS platforms are totally free, while others charge you by the month. But even with the free ones, you’re probably going to have to part with some cash for the add-ons and templates. If you don’t want to leave your website at the mercy of the provider, then your web hosting services will also cost something too. That shouldn’t worry you though, because thanks to CMS platforms it’s never been cheaper and simpler for non-experts to get their website off the page and onto the web.

So, keep all of these points we’ve mentioned in mind and you should be able to start tracking down the perfect PHP-based content management system for your needs. Please find our TOP 10:

These CMS platforms make traditional development work a lot less of a chore for the developer. Dynamic web sites can swell up to include thousands of pages, and when they do it’s much easier to manage the process with the best PHP CMS platform as it can streamline development work in clever ways.

WordPress

WordPress has risen to become one of the best known and most widely used open-source PHP CMSs. It can accommodate lots of apps and is flexible enough to handle a wide range of different user scenarios. It’s as good at providing the foundation for a basic blog as it is a large e-commerce store, and you only have to look to the 75 million currently active websites that rely on it for confirmation of how universally popular it is.

Since WordPress is an open-source platform, it’s benefited from the ongoing attention of thousands of developers. This is one of the biggest reasons for its rapid evolution and why it’s turned into the preferred choice of many web app developers. It offers the widest selection of additional widgets, themes, and plug-ins, and it can be readily tailored and turned to almost any end.

It also ships with a suite of integrated SEO tools to optimize search engine visibility, and that’s one of the reasons why developers rate it so very highly.

Details

  • WordPress accounts for 76.4% of the CMS market
  • It supports over 68 languages
  • Plug-ins have been downloaded 1.48 billion times
  • WordPress powers many government websites around the world

Pros

Cons

  • Themes and plugins can require annoyingly frequent updates
  • Open source can mean ‘more open to hackers’
  • Customization requires a deep level of understanding

Joomla

Joomla is another one of the best PHP CMS platforms and it’s garnered a reputation for being good for portfolio and blogging websites. It may sit somewhat in the shadow of WordPress, but it still comes with enough high-quality features to create effective blogs and dynamic websites. It meshes well with a few versions of SQL, which means database integration should not be a problem.

This PHP CMS can integrate the site with its hosting provider in just one click and makes the creation of responsive websites a breeze. Its multitude of available designs and extensions make it easy to add extra features to any web apps that you may be designing. As one of the best PHP CMS platforms, Joomla has proved to be popular among big names that include eBay, Barnes & Noble, IKEA, and many others.

Details

  • 6% of all websites rely on Joomla
  • 2 million sites and counting
  • One of the top three CMSs which offer free plug-ins and themes
  • Supports over 64 languages

Pros

Cons

  • Not as SEO enabled as some PHP CMSs
  • Difficult for non-developers to add custom designs
  • Not many modules for sale
  • Some plug-ins not completely compatible without modification

Drupal

Drupal is one of the best PHP CMS platforms on the market. It’s open-source and well-suited to eCommerce stores, beginning its life initially as a message board but then evolving into one of the most popular PHP based content management systems. Drupal makes it easy for developers to build enhanced online stores thanks to its rich feature set. It’s ideal for developing modern apps which is one of the reasons why many developers are drawn to it.

While WordPress functionality can be extended further with plugins, Drupal refers to its add-ons as modules, although it already comes with many features and options. Top companies like NBC, Harvard University, Tesla, Princess Cruises, and MTV UK rely on Drupal for their web operations. It also benefits from active community support.

Details

  • Drupal has around a million users
  • It’s available in over 90 languages
  • Many American government websites are Drupal-powered
  • Acquia spent half a million dollars to accelerate the migration of Drupal 7 modules to Drupal 8
  • Drupal powers around 1 million websites

Pros

  • The platform can be greatly expanded upon
  • Frequent patches and updates enhance platform security
  • Drupal is well-suited to eCommerce
  • Best PHP CMS for websites with lots of traffic

Cons

  • Hard to understand for non-developers
  • Not well suited to blogs or other publications
  • Installing custom modules is not easy

OctoberCMS

OctoberCMS is a free, open-source PHP CMS that a great many company websites have been built on. The CMS is flexible, simple, and ready to deliver retina-ready websites and apps.

OctoberCMS is a self-hosted open-source PHP CMS and you can install it on your hosting service if you want to. It integrates well with third-party apps and features more than 700+ plugins and themes. It has a large and supportive community.

Details

  • Own community
  • Ecosystem of plugins & themes
  • Based on Laravel framework

Pros

  • Open source and free
  • Versatile and extendable
  • Many and varied themes and plugins

Cons

  • Requires developer input to customize
  • Fewer users than WordPress

Opencart

Opencart is another of the PHP based content management systems that are ideally suited to the creation of eCommerce websites. It’s open-source so PHP developers can easily add their own updates, and for users, it’s not hard to get to grips with thanks to its intuitive UI. The platform caters to a great many languages and offers unlimited product categories for the biggest inventories out there. Opencart is a well-featured PHP CMS that gives plenty of scope to developers while keen to create comprehensively featured online stores.

Details

  • Opencart allows more than 20 ways to pay
  • 12k+ extensions on offer
  • Powers 790k+ websites
  • 95k+ forum members

Pros

  • Easy to set up and get started
  • Free themes in abundance
  • Thousands of available modules and extensions
  • Makes it easy to set up sites in different managers

Cons

  • Some technical knowledge needed for customization
  • Not very SEO-friendly
  • Bogs down when web traffic spikes
  • No event system so users can’t set up tasks from within modules

ExpressionEngine

ExpressionEngine is one of the best PHP based content management systems for sites that need to handle large amounts of content. It is an excellent PHP based CMS with an architecture that can be modified with custom scripts to introduce additional functions.

Any newly added content becomes visible to the customer straight away. ExpressionEngine is versatile enough that when it creates pages, it does so by pulling content from the database and then formatting it so that every user gets the best available view for their device. This dynamic approach to content generation makes it very flexible.

Pros

  • Custom edit forms are available. You can navigate and fill them out easily
  • HTML agnostic template system
  • Preview window the cheque work before saving changes
  • Integrated SEO for content
  • Excellent security

Cons

  • Some content boxes in certain templates don’t expand, making navigation and editing difficult
  • Poor developer network support
  • Fewer 3rd party add-ons and plugins

PyroCMS

PyroCMS is one of the best PHP CMSs and it’s powered by the Laravel framework. Popularity has been growing thanks to its intuitive backend design and lightweight modular architecture. Was designed to be simple, flexible, easy to learn, and easy to understand. PyroCMS’s modular design gives developers plenty of scope to bring together the right components to suit any given project.

Pros

  • Versatile PHP CMS can be adapted to any project
  • Readily accommodates third-party APIs and apps
  • Easy to install and learn

Magento

Magento was designed with eCommerce applications in mind, and it’s now the preferred platform for building innovative online stores. Brands such as Ford, Nike, Foxconnect, and many others rely on Magento’s extremely capable eCommerce features to power their sites. The major advantage of using Magento is that it’s tailor-made for designing rich and varied online shopping experiences for customers.

Another part of Magento’s appeal is its great emphasis on security. It uses hashing algorithms for maximum security password management and has additional defenses to defend apps from attackers. Also, Magento benefits from an active developer community which frequently contributes with numerous updates and patches. With Magento 2 the platform has benefited from a variety of enhancements to further strengthen its position as one of the best PHP-based content management systems for online retail.

Pros

  • The platform is feature-rich enough to power modern eCommerce stores
  • Magento is very accessible
  • The community regularly develops plug-ins and extensions
  • The platform is very scalable and can accommodate big apps

Cons

  • The premium and enterprise versions are pricey
  • Slightly slower to load than other platforms
  • Only works with dedicated hosting
  • Product support is quite pricey

Craft CMS

Craft is one of the more recent PHP-based content management systems but its low user account shouldn’t put you off though because it’s tailored towards pleasing developers. If you’re a user that may be a point against it, but from a developer’s point of view it’s easy to work with.

Craft gives users the scope to create their own front ends, or at least it does in principle because doing so requires a knowledge of HTML and CSS. Despite that, it offers a clean backend, so it’s relatively easy for content editors to easily find their desired features and publish content frequently.

Pros

  • Lightweight
  • Commercial features
  • Developer-centric
  • Highly functional
  • Performs well
  • Effective security

Cons

  • Pricey
  • More for advanced users
  • Not so many plugins
  • Not open source

TYPO3

TYPO3 is one of the best PHP CMS platforms available. It works on various operating systems including Windows, Linux, macOS, FreeBSD, and OS/2. It’s best suited to powering the portals and eCommerce platforms of large companies and it’s supported by a sizeable community for ongoing support and discussion.

Content and code are handled separately which makes TYPO3 a very flexible proposition for users. With support for over 50 languages and integrated localization built-in, it will fit in with users no matter where they may be in the world. Installation can be completed in just a few steps.

Pros

  • Sizeable community
  • Flexible with lots of functions
  • Enterprise-level

Cons

  • Hard to configure
  • Entry-level training is hard to find

An Overview of PHP Vulnerabilities – WordPress Perspective

WordPress PHP vulnerabilities Plesk

You probably already know that WordPress websites are vulnerable to brute force attacks, called so because they just try over and over again to guess your username and password combination. But in the never-ending arms race between hackers and site owners there is also the problem of much more sophisticated bots that will try to worm their way into weaknesses in your website’s PHP code, too. Both of these hacks are popular ways of testing your defenses and they both underline the need for constant vigilance on the part of site owners and admins. To that end, you need to consistently upgrade your WordPress so that it’s always one step ahead of potential PHP vulnerabilities and you also need to make sure that you only use the most up-to-date versions of your plugins and themes.

If you didn’t already know, your WordPress website, themes, plug-ins, and apps such as PhpMyAdmin rely on a language called PHP to work properly. Now, the developers who write all of that stuff are not lazy and they aren’t deliberately leaving doors open for hackers to slip in through. The truth is, it’s hard for developers to write code that anticipates every single way that a bad actor might choose to attack. They do their best, release the software, and then it’s often only through everyday use that any holes in the defenses become apparent. Users’ experiences with attacks help to inform the process making everything secure. It’s a case of building it as best you can and testing it ‘in the wild’, responding to each new security alert as fast as possible, and then bracing for the next. It will become clear as you read that the majority of the PHP vulnerabilities shown here come about because of unsafe user input, meaning that someone has fed malevolent code to the web app or moved it to a section of the app in such a way that a vulnerability is created. This highlights why it’s important to pay special attention to all situations where user input can either deliberately or inadvertently introduce dangerous code to the system. These are always the leakiest parts of any WordPress ship.

There are a few different classifications of PHP vulnerabilities. We’ve include a few of the most frequently encountered ones with a basic explanation for each of them, but we haven’t included any PHP code as we’re aiming this to be an overview for people like admins rather than an exhaustive report for developers.

RCE – Remote Code Execution

Remote Code Execution (RCE) is just like it sounds. It happens when someone attacks and manages to upload code to your website and then runs it. A problem with a PHP application might let a user enter code which it then treats as PHP code, which might subsequently make it possible for the hacker to do various things. It could allow them to create a new file containing code that gives them full access to your website, for instance. This opportunity to remotely run malicious code is referred to as an RCE vulnerability. As you can imagine, the ability to do whatever they want with your website makes remote code execution an extremely dangerous kind of attack.

SQL Injection or SQLi

SQL Injection is similar, it’s when the hacker can get your database to run their own instructions. Anytime a PHP developer invites data input from a website visitor they should only pass it to the database after they’ve checked it to make sure that it isn’t trying to sneak in any dangerous code. SQL Injection gives a hacker free rein with the data on your website, which means they could create new data in your database including links to spammy or equally undesirable URLs. Hackers might also want to create their own admin level user account, to give themselves full access to and control of your website. It’s easily done with SQL injection. It’s another very serious security vulnerability because again, it hands the hacker the keys to your site.

Authentication Bypass

Sometimes a PHP developer might believe that they are properly validating that a site visitor has the right access level before performing an action, but they’ll actually be checking the wrong thing.
This problem can insinuate itself into WordPress apps via a mistake that WordPress developers frequently make where they use the ‘is_admin()’ function when trying to confirm that someone is indeed an admin. The problem is that this function only tells you if someone is viewing an admin page, but it doesn’t prove that a site visitor is actually an administrator. If a developer inadvertently uses this function, then they are handing admin level features to users who aren’t really admins.
There are other examples in the same vein, and they occur most often when a developer doesn’t check to make sure that the user is permitted this kind of access before they allow a function to be executed.

PHP Object Injection

A PHP object Injection attack is more sophisticated because a PHP app passes input from the user to a function called ‘unserialize()’. This takes a stored object and puts it in memory. Although this seems complex, the main thing to remember with PHP object Injection is that it happens when a developer doesn’t do the right kind of gatekeeping and allows unsafe input from the user to enter a PHP application.

Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)

This is when a hacker causes a website visitor’s browser to load and run dangerous code, which might then (for example) grab their cookies and hand administrator-level access to the intruder, meaning that Bell once again be able to do whatever they like.
Cross-Site Scripting comes in two flavors – Stored and Reflected. A Stored Cross-Site Scripting vulnerability is one where the hacker tricks the website into allowing in dangerous code which later gets sent to and run in a visitor’s web browser. This kind of thing often happens when a comment is posted on your WordPress website that contains dangerous code. It then steals user cookies and passes them on to the hacker.
Reflected Cross-Site Scripting happens when a hacker puts dangerous code in a link. If it then gets loaded into a browser, the website serves it up along with the content. This code then runs in the visitor’s browser and it can steal cookies or perform other nefarious tasks. One example of a Reflected Cross-Site Scripting attack is a WordPress search results page that includes the search query included in the URL and is not cleaned properly. The page then serves up the search results as well as the initial query, which could be dangerous code that runs within the visitor’s browser. Hackers could use Reflected Cross-Site Scripting to compromise a website by creating a link to a page of search results with dangerous code in it, and they could then send that to the site administrator to steal their cookies.

Cross-Site Request Forgery – CSRF

A Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) refers to when someone creates a link and manages to get a site admin (or in fact anybody with high-level access) to follow it, and this causes the site to perform an action. So, for instance, if somebody built a link that creates a new admin with a known password when a site admin clicks on it, this would be an example of a Cross-Site Request Forgery attack. It’s not all plain sailing though. The difficult part for the hacker is finding a way to convince the site admin to follow the link, and then set up the new admin with one of the currently used passwords which the bad guys hope to steal. WordPress does already have a way of protecting itself from this kind of approach. It uses a security token (just a number) known as a “nonce” which is granted to the admin each time they log in, and this number is included every time the WordPress site admin does something of the sensitive nature. If a hacker takes the approach we’ve described, trying to use a link in a Cross-Site Request Forgery attack, they also need to know the nonce to send with it. Since this number changes every day, successfully executing a Cross-Site Request Forgery attack becomes much more difficult, if not impossible. With that in mind, it should be the case that every developer knows not to build themes and plug-ins that don’t use nonces for request verification, but not everyone is as diligent as they should be. But they can put it right after the fact, and for an easy remedy they just need to use code to access WordPress’s native nonce feature.

Remote File Inclusion (RFI) and Local File Inclusion (LFI)

Remote File Inclusion or RFI happens when a PHP app passes user input to a function that loads a file. If the file turns out to be a URL, the function would then load PHP code from the hacker’s specially built website to attack your website. Including a remote file in a URL is called Remote File Inclusion or RFI. If the file a hacker passes is a local file, the application might send its contents to the screen. This is an approach frequently used by hackers to help them break into a WordPress website’s wp-config.php file. This approach is known as Local File Inclusion or LFI. Functions vulnerable to RFI and LFI in PHP are: include, include_once, fopen, file_get_contents, require and require_once.
All of these functions load PHP code or content from a place that the developer decides on. If they don’t configure the website’s PHP installation in the safest way, a hacker can then load a dangerous file as PHP code or content and use it give them access to your site. The majority of PHP installations keep you safe from RFI attacks which load remote URLs by restricting where files can be included from. But it’s not uncommon for PHP developers to inadvertently produce code that lets a hacker access a local file like wp-config.php. This helps to explain why Remote File Inclusion vulnerabilities happen less often than Local File Inclusion vulnerabilities.

Conclusion

We hope this overview of frequently seen PHP vulnerabilities and their creation has helped you in your role as a WordPress administrator. You might have seen a few of them on your security updates. We hope that the insights that we’ve shared about what they do will help you to stay vigilant and deal with them more effectively. This knowledge should make you better able to ask questions of developers and better able to see how vulnerabilities work before you deal with them.