# Choosing RoR or CMS for a customer which wants to customize **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [June 25, 2009, 3:58pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/choosing-ror-or-cms-for-a-customer-which-wants-to-customize/171031 "2009-06-25T15:58:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![o\_topaz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/o/67e7ee/32.png) [@o\_topaz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/o_topaz)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2009, 3:58pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/choosing-ror-or-cms-for-a-customer-which-wants-to-customize/171031/1 "2009-06-25T15:58:01Z")
Hello All, PLEASE HELP I am starting the challenge of developing a business data site for a customer. As I heard RoR is so much object oriented and as I did lots of Java programming in the past, I have started to learn RoR and fell in love immediately. I am having this tough dilemma of using RoR or choosing other famous open source CMS. On one hand I definitely prefer as a developer to build and control my site and not be dependant and limited by some CMS. On the other hand, my client requires to have the control of making manipulations to the site using a browser - adding text, pictures and being able to change some pages design. So, even if ill build the best object oriented portal, I will be totally horrored by the fact that I will find it hard or even impossible to supply my client the ability to customize it using a browser. Could anyone help, please? Is there a way of building a site using RoR, and being able to FULLY allow users to customize it simliar to a CMS? Many Thanks, Will appreciate any help, Oran ---
**Author:** ![o\_topaz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/o/67e7ee/32.png) [@o\_topaz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/o_topaz)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2009, 4:20pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/choosing-ror-or-cms-for-a-customer-which-wants-to-customize/171031/2 "2009-06-25T16:20:35Z")
You are in luck my friend! Take a look at Radiant ([http://radiantcms.org](http://radiantcms.org)). It gives you the best of both worlds: a CMS written in Rails that you can extend all you want with custom functionality. Jamey On Thu, Jun 25, 2009 at 9:58 AM, Oran ---
**Author:** ![o\_topaz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/o/67e7ee/32.png) [@o\_topaz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/o_topaz)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2009, 4:39pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/choosing-ror-or-cms-for-a-customer-which-wants-to-customize/171031/3 "2009-06-25T16:39:34Z")
Thanks for your kind answer, Just to understand in theory - When I use a regular CMS, I can’t really control the pages the way I like, or build my site framework nor my database, as I am used to when building a regular app. Is radiant CMS different? Could I create pages independently using my favorite RoR IDE, and use radiant just to enjoy extensions and browser customizations? Does it store pages on database like joomla which is a major downgrade for me, or does it allow creating real html(.erb) pages?? Thank you, Oran ---
**Author:** ![o\_topaz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/o/67e7ee/32.png) [@o\_topaz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/o_topaz)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2009, 4:51pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/choosing-ror-or-cms-for-a-customer-which-wants-to-customize/171031/4 "2009-06-25T16:51:41Z")
It’s kind of the other way around… Radiant _is_ a Rails app, and, yes, it stores its pages in the db. But, you can write extensions, which are kind of like plugins, which is just like writing a rails app, meaning you have models, controllers, and views. And you can integrate these extensions into your Radiant instance, so that, to the end-user, it is all seemless. There are already a bunch of extensions that have been written that you can use, or you can write your own. I would suggest going to the radiant wiki on github and checking out some of the documentation. Jamey On Thu, Jun 25, 2009 at 10:39 AM, Oran ---
**Author:** ![o\_topaz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/o/67e7ee/32.png) [@o\_topaz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/o_topaz)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2009, 5:52pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/choosing-ror-or-cms-for-a-customer-which-wants-to-customize/171031/5 "2009-06-25T17:52:41Z")
I’m pretty sure there are Radiant extensions that let you use fckeditor, tinymce, or wymeditor. It’s true that Joomla is more mature, but as soon as you have to do any customizing, the beauty of Radiant is that you simply start writing Rails code. With Joomla, you have to use PHP. On Thu, Jun 25, 2009 at 11:16 AM, Oran ---
**Author:** ![o\_topaz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/o/67e7ee/32.png) [@o\_topaz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/o_topaz)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2009, 5:16pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/choosing-ror-or-cms-for-a-customer-which-wants-to-customize/171031/6 "2009-06-25T17:16:52Z")
Thank you, I have just briefly looked into radiant. Although looks promising, yet i see that there is no WYSIWYG editor, and seems to yet lack many of the functionality Joomla contains. There is a very nice HTML editor called FCKEDITOR which is commonly used by developpers. Would you know if it possible to integrate with RoR in a way a customer could actually change pages on a RoR site using it? Thanks, Oran ---
**Author:** ![o\_topaz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/o/67e7ee/32.png) [@o\_topaz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/o_topaz)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2009, 1:10pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/choosing-ror-or-cms-for-a-customer-which-wants-to-customize/171031/7 "2009-06-26T13:10:38Z")
Roderick van Domburg wrote: > +1 for Radiant CMS. It’s super easy to extend and there’s a lot of > existing extensions too. WYSIWYG / WYSIWYM is one of them. +1 (and a great community!) Cheers, Mohit. 6/26/2009 | 7:09 PM. ---
**Author:** ![o\_topaz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/o/67e7ee/32.png) [@o\_topaz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/o_topaz)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2009, 12:28pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/choosing-ror-or-cms-for-a-customer-which-wants-to-customize/171031/8 "2009-06-26T12:28:53Z")
+1 for Radiant CMS. It’s super easy to extend and there’s a lot of existing extensions too. WYSIWYG / WYSIWYM is one of them. – Roderick van Domburg [http://www.nedforce.com](http://www.nedforce.com)