Name – Sahil Sarwar

PRN - 20030121150

Assignment – 1
1. Difference between Open Source CMS and Proprietary CMS

Open Source CMS Proprietary CMS

• An open source CMS allows
the source code to be seen
and modified by anyone on
the internet
• Open source CMS can help
keep the business
expenditure down as they are
often offered for free
• Open source CMS has a
better user base as compared
to proprietary CMS
• Maintainability cost is very
less but is sometimes, time
consuming
• Security for Open source CMS
is high as they are developed
and tested by millions of
users around the globe
A proprietary CMS keeps the
source code closed to the public
Proprietary CMS are usually offered
at a price and are not free
Proprietary CMS do not have a
wide user base like Open source
CMSs’
- Maintainability cost is high but
the time is saved as it is done solely
for profit motive
Proprietary CMS is usually low in
security as only some people that
are associated with the company
have access to the code

2. Advantages and limitations of Open Source and Proprietary CMS

Open Source CMS

Advantages
• Open source CMS are Frequently Updated
• These CMS are cost effective which means that there is no licensing fee
which results in open source CMS being affordable. In other words, the
total cost of ownership comes down to almost $0.
Name – Sahil Sarwar
PRN - 20030121150

• Since the CMS code is provided to you, you can integrate anything you
want with it which makes it flexible
• Open source CMS are often familiar to many developers so you can work
with multiple developers at different points of time and they can work
on it without any special training

Limitations
• Since the code is available to everyone on the internet, while it can be
said that a lot of being see the code and improve it in terms of security,
some may also misuse the vulnerabilities inside the CMS and perform
malicious activities
• Since these projects are sometimes managed by a single developer, the
build quality can be inconsistent.

Proprietary CMS
Advantages
• These CMS platforms usually provide a 24/7 customer support
• Since these CMS platforms are backed by big companies, the builds are
usually consistent in terms of quality
• Since Proprietary CMS are meant for end users, the setup, install and
configuration is very easy and can be done by anyone

Limitations
• If any function isn’t supported by the company, you won’t be able to
manually include it using your own code as the complete code won’t be
provided to you
• The average ownership cost for a proprietary CMS is usually high
Name – Sahil Sarwar
PRN - 20030121150

3. When to choose Open source or Proprietary CMS

I would choose Open Source CMS if I were to start or help a small scale
business which earns below $1 Million as their annual revenue.
As the business value goes higher, there would be more money with the
business to spend it. Also including the fact that as the business value goes
higher, the reliability of the business has to be better so investing in a
proprietary CMS will be an apt decision for the company