Multilanguage CMS – solution for a clean, maintainable build?

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Hey, first time asking a question on Stack Overflow, so go easy on me!

I’ve recently begun working on a CMS driven website which requires multilanguage functionality (12 languages!). I have, in the past, rolled out Expression Engine/Wordpress builds but the end product has always been difficult for the client to use and often very difficult to maintain.

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For this new build, I want to find the (as close to) perfect solution to this, as a 12 language site could quickly become a nightmare!

I am wondering if there are any lightweight CMS’s that can easily be extended, so I can use the base CMS functionality and expand it to suit my needs. The CMS is required to be PHP based. Unfortunatly there is not time or budget to be able to build a bespoke CMS, so it has to be a ready made solution (otherwise it would be codeigniter all the way…).

Thanks!

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5 comments

  1. I have three suggestions for WordPress (not in your question, I know, but you tagged it) :

    If you are willing to spend money on it, I can recommend the WPML plugin for WordPress.

    If not, there are two posibilities for WordPress:

    • Use the Multi-Site-Feature from WordPress > 3.0 (one Site per Language)
    • qTranslate linked with qTranslate Meta. I use it, and it works realy good (But never tested with 12 languages).

  2. You’ve got plenty of beautifull CMS out there, no need to create another one!

    My recommendation goes to Drupal which is great for that, you can add every languages you want, you can have localized interfaces, localized content, a great translated navigation. Drupal is really designed to be used as a multilanguage tool.

    You can have an overview of the localized version of the interface around here: http://localize.drupal.org/translate

    If you are willing to go that way, take a look at the i18n module (short name for internationalization).

    You can also find a bunch of ressources on the web.

    Good luck in your quest.

  3. If you didn’t depend on your CMS being PHP for some reason, Plone (written in Python) would solve your multilanguage needs. (UI already translated to 40 + langauages, multilingual content management etc)

  4. One of the best solution is to use WordPress.

    Install WordPress and then use the WPML plugin for WordPress (http://wpml.org). The plugin works great and allows you to have 40 languages on the same site.

    One of the killer feature is that you can use automatic translation which can be customized if the translation is not done perfectly by the automatic translation which is the case with most automatic translation.

    WordPress Multiple Language (WPML) is a paid plugin but the cost is not much – for a blog it is $29 and for a website based on WordPress the cost is $79.

    If you want to take a look at more options within WordPress let me know and I would be glad to help.

  5. I can understand your problem. But you may not get all 12 languages you need ready available. So if its a mandate, you need to build your own translation library and fetch the corresponding translation from there.