Well you would have read many articles claiming that Wordpress is the best CMS and it powers more that 50 % of all websites in the world. You would have also heard of alternatives - Joomla, and Drupal, and that Drupal is a complex CMS to master it, and has a very steep learning curve.
Now we are talking about an open source php content management framework, that can build complex websites / portals, however hosted on a good shared web hosting, like BlueHost / Inmotion. It should have an easy learning curve, and it should not require the composer, as you do not want to use SSH / secure shell access / command prompt. Further, you want all free plugins / modules and are not paid.
However, Wordpress suffers from following limitations:
- the flexibility of building a complex site / portal is limited
- a lot of plugins offer only simple features, but if you want more features, they fall under paid / premium plugins
Joomla has the following limitations:
- the flexibility of building a complex site / portal is better than that of Wordpress, but not as powerful as Drupal
- a lot of extensions offer only simple features, but if you want more features, they fall under paid / premium extensions
You had an option of using Drupal 7, though it had a steeper learning curve compared to Wordpress, but unfortunately Drupal 7 reaches its end of life on 5 January 2025.
Unfortunately, with respect to Drupal 10, though highly flexible, the documentation on installing the same on shared web hosting is limited. Moreover, Drupal 10 requires Composer, and hence management of Drupal 10 site has to happen using SSH on a command prompt.
Here comes the best alternative to Drupal 7: Backdrop CMS. Backdrop CMS is a fork of Drupal 7, which has the flexibility of Drupal 7 and simplicity of Wordpress.
One may build a complex website / portal using Backdrop CMS on a shared hosting, manage the site without needing Composer / SSH, more or less all the modules are free of cost, and the CMS has an easier learning curve comparable with the Wordpress. We have built many websites using Backdrop CMS.
To summarize, there is no absolute best CMS, however there is a best Content Management Framework under given circumstances. Under many such circumstances, you may explore and use Backdrop CMS!
