Best Django CMS for Blog App

Hi! As we know we can integrate alot of open source packages with django and get the functionality up and running very easily. Similarly Django community has given 5 best (Content Management Systems) CMS which you can use and get the functionality with minimal effort, or at least you don't have to re invent the wheel and start with using one of them and build from there.

NOTE: The order here is random and not in any preference I like Wagtail the most out of all of these but thats maybe because it fit best my requirements your's might vary so does the solution to use...

Django CMS ¶

This is a very well known and widely used CMS in django. some of its key features are as follows

• its support for creating multilingual sites
• front-end editing, providing rapid access to the content management interface
• support for different editors with advanced text editing features like WYSIWYG etc.
• a flexible plugins system that lets developers put powerful tools at the fingertips of editors, without overwhelming them with a difficult interface
• …and much more

There are other capable Django-based CMS platforms but here’s why you should consider django CMS:

• thorough documentation
• easy and comprehensive integration into existing projects - django CMS isn’t a monolithic application
• a healthy, active and supportive developer community
• a strong culture of good code, including an emphasis on automated testing

Wagtail ¶

Wagtail is also a very good competitor and is right up there in the league with is very modern UI and great user experience it has been my favorite although I might be biased in this becuase most of my interaction has been with using this CMS.

Some of its core features include:

Easy Integration in existing Django Projects

Wagtail can be started as a new project from the start as described in their docs but it is also very easy to integrate in some existing django project. here are easy steps on how to do that.

Streamfield

It provides a very classy implementation of managing content by providing this easy to use UI and very straight forward method of editing the content. Wagtail also comes with the support of WYSIWYG editors and out of the box supports

1. Hallo JS WYSIWYG Editor
2. Draftail Editor

Both of these editors can be customized fully to add/remove functionality.

Elasticsearch

while using the admin side of CMS the functionality of hight end Elastic Search is added by default which plays its part in keeping the user experience top notch even with alot of data.

Image cropping

Out of the box it comes with the thumb-nailing feature where you can use template tags to get an automatically resized image and to top that off this custom cropping has been added where you can specify the area of interest and the cropping engine makes sure that the area of interest is never cropped out of and is always visible.

Preview

Contributors to your site don’t need to publish their content to be able to view what they’ve created. Clicking on preview will generate a representation of the page for them giving the contributor the chance to tweak and change the content before publishing it to the world.

Tables

Tables are difficult to use within normal WYSIWYG rich-text editors. In Wagtail you can use a table block within StreamField to allow your users to neatly enter tabulated information in an intuitive, easy-to-use spreadsheet-style interface.

Revisions

While revisions are never going to win the prize for most interesting feature they’re pretty essential to any content workflow strategy. This allows content producers, editors and managers the peace of mind that their content is version managed and that they can always go back in time to retrieve the version they need.

and much more...

Mezzanine ¶

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Mezzanine is a powerful, consistent, and flexible content management platform. Built using the Django framework, Mezzanine provides a simple yet highly extensible architecture that encourages diving in and hacking on the code. Mezzanine is BSD licensed and supported by a diverse and active community.

In some ways, Mezzanine resembles tools such as Wordpress, providing an intuitive interface for managing pages, blog posts, form data, store products, and other types of content. But Mezzanine is also different. Unlike many other platforms that make extensive use of modules or reusable applications, Mezzanine provides most of its functionality by default. This approach yields a more integrated and efficient platform.

Some of the main Features include:

USERS LOVE

• Hierarchical page navigation
• Save as draft and preview on site
• Scheduled publishing
• Drag-and-drop page ordering
• WYSIWYG editing
• In-line page editing
• Drag-and-drop HTML5 forms builder with CSV export
• SEO friendly URLs and meta data
• Ecommerce / Shopping cart module (Cartridge)
• Configurable dashboard widgets
• Blog engine
• Tagging
• Free Themes, and a Premium Themes Marketplace
• User accounts and profiles with email verification
• Translated to over 35 languages
• Sharing via Facebook or Twitter
• Multi-lingual sites

DEVELOPERS LOVE

• Custom templates per page or blog post
• Twitter Bootstrap integration
• API for custom content types
• Search engine and API
• Seamless integration with third-party Django apps
• One step migration from other blogging engines
• Automated production provisioning and deployments
• Disqus integration, or built-in threaded comments
• Gravatar integration
• Google Analytics integration
• Twitter feed integration
• bit.ly integration
• Akismet spam filtering
• Built-in test suite
• JVM compatible (via Jython)

One small complaint I have with mezzanine is that its a bit tidy to integrate in existing Django Project which sometimes can be the core requirement and is totally possible just can be a bit messy especially for beginners.