A CMS (Content Management System) is a web-based system designed to host a web-site where the content can vary independently of the site layout. Most CMS’s offer site theming systems where the site layout can be changed easily, and all the content reformats itself to fit.

There are many different approaches to this, Drupal is designed to host many different kinds of content and is a fairly rich implementation. More targeted solutions tend to have different names such as blog for a system predominately orientated around text posts, such as Wordpress, or wiki for systems that encourage high degrees of linking between pages and in-situ editing.

Wiki’s are a form of content management system, where the content can be edited on the web directly. Typically wiki’s are open to anyone to edit, although some (such as this one) can only be edited by authorised users.

A Wiki differs from most others CMS’s by encouraging editing, quickly and in-situ usely with a light-weight markup system for styling the content. This Wiki uses Textile for formatting.

Drupal is a kick-ass CMS, which can be used in too many ways to mention.

I am using it here as a blog and a wiki.

Why is Drupal so good? Because it is clean, and flexible. The code is a dream to read, and once you get inside the head of the developers you can do anything. It is a developers CMS, not a users CMS. So, if you want a site built, give Drupal to a developer, get back your site that does what you want, and then run it yourself.

I also do freelance Drupal development (funny that).