There is considerable confusion on the difference between document management systems (DMS) and content management systems (CMS). This has not been helped by the vendors, who are keen to market their products as widely as possible. These two types of systems are very different, and serve complementary needs. While there is an ongoing move to merge the two together (a positive step), it is important to understand when each system is appropriate.
Document management systems (DMS)
Document management is certainly the older discipline, born out of the need to manage huge numbers of documents in organizations.
Mature and well-tested, document management systems can be characterized as follows:
- focused on managing documents, in the traditional sense (like Word files)
- each unit of information (document) is fairly large, and self-contained
- there are few (if any) links between documents
- provides limited integration with repository (check-in, check-out, etc)
- focused primarily on storage and archiving
- includes powerful workflow
- targeted at storing and presenting documents in their native format
- limited web publishing engine typically produces one page for each document
This is just a generalized description of a DMS, with most systems offering a range of unique features and capabilities. Nonetheless, this does provide a representative outline of common DMS functionality.
Content management systems (CMS)
Content management is more recent, and is primarily designed to meet the growing needs of the website and intranet markets. A content management system can be summarized as follows:
- manages small, interconnected units of information (eg. web pages)
- each unit (page) is defined by its location on the site
- extensive cross-linking between pages
- focused primarily on page creation and editing
- provides tight integration between authoring and the repository (metadata, etc)
- provides a very powerful publishing engine (templates, scripting, etc)
If you are looking for CMS developers or customized CMS Solutions, please contact us. We specialise in CMS systems that are customized according to client requirements, giving them the best CMS solution technology can offer.
Our CMS Solutions include :
- ColdFusion Content Management System, dotNet CMS (With Ajax in CMS), Flash Content Management
- Enterprise level CMS, Small and Medium Business CMS
- CMS for Internet and Intranet Web Site Management
- Search Engine Optimized(SEO) Content Management System (CMS)
