 |
OpenCMS vs SharePoint
March 20, 2025 | Author: Sandeep Sharma
2★
OpenCms is open source content management system (CMS) based on Java and XML for public internet website, extranet or intranet. OpenCms helps content managers worldwide to create and maintain beautiful websites fast and efficiently. The fully browser based user interface features configurable editors for structured content with well defined fields. A sophisticated template engine enforces a site-wide corporate layout and W3C standard compliance for all content.
58★
SharePoint's multi-purpose platform allows for managing and provisioning of intranet portals, extranets and websites, document management and file management, collaboration spaces, social networking tools, enterprise search, business intelligence tooling, process/information integration, and third-party developed solutions. SharePoint can also be used as a web application development platform.
OpenCMS and SharePoint, despite their differences, have a lot in common. Both are designed to help people manage content, which, as any office worker knows, mostly means figuring out where the heck that one important document went. They both let you control who gets to see what, which is great for security but mostly leads to endless permission errors. They also have version control, which is just a polite way of saying, "Yes, you did delete that crucial file, but we’ve secretly kept a copy because we knew you would." And, of course, they integrate with other things, meaning that you can spend hours making them talk to software you barely understand.
OpenCMS hails from Germany and, like most things German, is well-structured, efficient and runs on Java, which means developers spend a lot of time cursing about memory management. It’s been around since 2000, meaning it’s old enough to know better but still young enough to believe in open-source idealism. It’s fantastic for making beautiful, highly flexible websites, provided you enjoy tinkering with templates and server configurations late into the night. It doesn’t hold your hand, but then again, neither does a German train schedule—both just assume you already know what you're doing.
SharePoint, on the other hand, is Microsoft's idea of how enterprises should manage their documents, which means it’s very powerful, deeply integrated with Office 365 and slightly terrifying. It appeared in 2001 and has been confusing IT departments ever since, mainly because it can do almost everything but rarely does it in the way you expect. Designed for internal collaboration, it excels at making sure people save files in 17 different locations at once. It also has workflow automation, which sounds great until you realize it has now sent 45 emails about an approval request to a guy who left the company last year.
See also: Top 10 Website CMS systems
OpenCMS hails from Germany and, like most things German, is well-structured, efficient and runs on Java, which means developers spend a lot of time cursing about memory management. It’s been around since 2000, meaning it’s old enough to know better but still young enough to believe in open-source idealism. It’s fantastic for making beautiful, highly flexible websites, provided you enjoy tinkering with templates and server configurations late into the night. It doesn’t hold your hand, but then again, neither does a German train schedule—both just assume you already know what you're doing.
SharePoint, on the other hand, is Microsoft's idea of how enterprises should manage their documents, which means it’s very powerful, deeply integrated with Office 365 and slightly terrifying. It appeared in 2001 and has been confusing IT departments ever since, mainly because it can do almost everything but rarely does it in the way you expect. Designed for internal collaboration, it excels at making sure people save files in 17 different locations at once. It also has workflow automation, which sounds great until you realize it has now sent 45 emails about an approval request to a guy who left the company last year.
See also: Top 10 Website CMS systems
