Section
CMS manuals
Website CMS manuals: practical guides to running a publishing CMS. Practical administration guides for editors and publishers: how a CMS works, how to organise content, and how plugins and themes behave.
Most CMS documentation describes one product. These manuals explain what the products have in common, so that what you learn about one system helps you judge the next.
Each guide is written for people who publish: editors, newsroom owners and the developers behind them. We name products as examples and tie every factual claim to the vendor’s or standards body’s own page, checked on the date shown.
Start here
- What is a CMS? A publisher’s overview covers definitions, the main types of system and what a publisher actually needs from one.
- Installing a self-hosted CMS walks through the practical steps and decisions before you go live.
Running the content
- Organising content explains sections, categories, tags and authors, and how to design the structure of a news site.
- How plugins work describes hooks, APIs and update risk, so you know what you are adding to your site.
- How themes work explains templates, the template hierarchy and why content and presentation are kept apart.
Related guides
The wider guides section covers costs, licensing and trials. If you are still choosing, the CMS directory and comparisons list the options we have profiled.
In this section
4 pages- Guide
What is a CMS (content management system)? A publisher's guide
A plain definition of a content management system, the four main types (traditional, headless, static, SaaS) and what a publisher needs from one.
- Guide
Categories vs tags on a news website: organising content
How to design the content structure of a news site: when to use sections, categories, tags and author records, with examples from WordPress and Google.
- Guide
How CMS plugins, modules and extensions work
The architecture behind CMS plugins: hooks, APIs, permissions and update risk, with WordPress, Drupal and Strapi as documented examples.
- Guide
How CMS templates and themes work
How CMS theming systems turn stored content into pages: template languages, the template hierarchy and why content and presentation are kept separate.
Questions people ask
Who are these manuals written for?
Editors, publishers and the developers who support them. They assume you run, or are choosing, a CMS for a news or article site and want the trade-offs rather than a sales pitch.
Do the manuals cover one specific CMS?
No. They explain ideas that apply across systems and use named products only as examples, each tied to the vendor's own documentation.
Where should I start?
Start with the overview if you are new to the subject, or the installation guide if you already know which system you plan to run.