Typo3

Typo3 is a very powerful and expanded CMS with huge possibilities. It's very advanced, but can do well in every case?

The script is developed as Open Source and is chosen mostly by more advanced programmers who are looking for a comprehensive application with many functionalities and are willing to invest much time in studying it.
The CMS can be downloaded and viewed at www.typo3.org

Advantages

Modularity

Probably the main goal for which Typo3 was created, was its modularity and diversity. That is why it's great as a script for a company page as well as a base for a large news site.

Extentions

The system offers several thousands extentions that can be quickly and easily installed. You can expand functionalities by additional image galleries, discussion boards, internet shop, etc.

Elastic administators system

Many systems allow for only one administrator. Typo3 allows for giving users all kinds of permissions, so that a user can be a plain user who can browse through the page content or an administrator who can manage it. What is more the users can be assigned to groups like editor groups.

Content types

There are many types of content you can define in Typo3. This gives you a lot of control over the page layout when you add images, forms, tables, multimedia or just plain text.

Support

Typo3 homepage has well extended documentation as well as a discussion board. You will find plenty of information and help concerning use and modification of the script.

Undoing changes

The system contains extended undoing changes module. In case of a big portal with several administrators, this option is highly desirable. You will be able to restore previous version of your page practically without any limitations.

Changing a page structure

One of the most important advantages is ability to set a page structure without pre-fixed order of blocks, sections or articles.

Internal TypoScript language

The script has an internal language called TypoScript that allows for creation of many elements like static HTML with dynamic content in it.

Disadvantages

Installation and modification

Typo3 is not easy to install and set up. It takes time to learn to use it, it definitely takes more time than you would need for WordPress or Joomla!. That's why it's not recommended for beginners, but for more advanced programmers.

Server resources and efficiency

Modularity and expendability often means bigger demands on server parameters. This certainly is the case. Still, if the website is not too large and there will not be thousands of visitors, there should be no problems, at least not in the beginning.

From simple to hard

While for editors content managment in Typo3 is simple, and administrators are required to have somewhat more of the script's know-how, it's a hard nut to crack for programmers.

Conclusions

Typo3 is versatile and can be used to create a simple website as well as advanced portal with all kinds of contents, but it takes a lot of time to master it on the programmer's side. Modularity and expendability are its significant traits, but unforutnately this means losing on efficiency and high demands on server resources. It's not always worth to take a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

Screenshots

  • Typo3 screenshot - admin panel pages list
  • Typo3 screenshot - admin panel pages management
  • Typo3 screenshot - admin panel page editing

Users comments

  • sun
    2014-04-15 12:35

    In my opinion it is a nice system. Unfortunately it is difficult to meet someone in my country (Czech) whoever knows its well at the affordable price.

  • berlaunim
    2014-05-13 03:24

    I feel sorry for anyone who based his page on the CMS. Its interface is terrible - quite useless. I would not recommend to anyone.

  • wDwRX
    2014-07-18 16:41

    Only usable by professionals or people with a lot of spare time. Typo3 can do just about anything you might want, but it is hard to set up the first time and it offers too many options which are not clearly structured. Good CMS!

  • Cowherd
    2014-10-06 00:19

    I just spent a whole night trying to get familiar with it. My process was:

    * Create and configure a virtual machine capable of running a LAMP stack. I used OpenSUSE 13.1 on VirtualBox, and this went on flawlessly.

    * Install TYPO3. I actually tried TYPO3 Neos first, but the thing kept throwing curved balls at me in the form of various esoteric installation errors due to it and/or composer's PHP version incompatibility and things not being as described in the docs. I have up on it and went for a pre-built RPM with TYPO3 6.x instead.

    * Configure TYPO3. Took me over half an hour to satisfy all its various requirements. Compared to the relative simplicity of installing, let's say, Bugzilla or MediaWiki, by this point I was far from impressed already.

    * Create a project and attempt to publish the simplest of websites. I followed someone's not too bad tutorial which showed me most of the critical concepts and more or less guided me through the process but it did seem like a lot of faffing around just to get things up and running in the first place.

    * Attempt to find and install a simple but usable theme. The extension management system seems again rather unfriendly and not very stable, with various packages I tried to install having unresolvable dependencies. I would have expected to be able to find a set of HTML templates that I could download from somewhere, unpack on the server, and get going. I was not able to find a good theme quickly in the way you can with let's say WordPress. I just gave up at this point.

    It's probably just me, but the thing does seem pretty horribly over-engineered. as per the comment from "sun" above, does not strike me as a very cost-effective solution unless you happen to know an enthusiast that can do the admin/maintenance for you at a reasonable price.

    Right, I'm off to try some of the other alternatives. :-)

  • asiya
    2014-11-26 06:59

    Brilliant CMS once you get it, but getting it is a problem. By far the biggest obstacle to adoption is the documentation, when it's there it's old and outdated, not to mention cryptic at best and when it's not there

  • snowguy
    2015-01-15 21:11

    I have really enjoyed using TYPO3 CMS. Version 7.x is really starting to address usability and now incorporates Bootstrap for a responsive backend. Also TYPO3 Neos is really starting to gain traction and is a completely rewritten CMS with modern standards.

  • Hrishi
    2015-06-14 20:48

    TYPO3 Neos has solved many of the problems developers face using TYPO3 CMS. So it is developed with huge experience from TYPO3 knowledge. For users Neos is easy to use and edit content with possibility of creating own layout. For creating new content elements you just need to write some YAML code and no need to go into PHP and SQL.

  • Eniac
    2016-03-16 10:16

    I Waste couple days for starting with this system. but in the end i think it is not hard .... it is
    unable to understand.

  • pcampagna
    2016-09-20 22:54

    I tried for a few days (a couple of hours a day) to get knowledgeable about this and it was/ is very impossible to get it up and running in a reasonable time frame. The interface is horrible and outdated. Installing it locally on a Mac, is impossible, which only an outdated version would even work anyway. Then I tired to do everything online and it was equally frustrating. - I finally gave up and went to word press and in 5 minutes I had a better test site up than days of work with typo3. Do yourself a favor and never even try this CMS.

  • Beautiful Stranger
    2017-04-26 13:27

    With the latest versions a lot of improvements have been included, addressing previously existing problems with missing documentation and usability. Modern PHP programmers should have no problem installing it via composer.
    Still, it takes some time to get used to it, but after you do, you can build any kind of project with it, independent of size and scope. I have yet to find a requirement that is impossible to implement with typo3.

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