Read this first: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_content_management_system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_content_management_system For users: - They get a

Read this first: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_content_management_system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_content_management_system For users: - They get a good admin section (without paying the developer to actually develop it) - If they are administering multiple websites, the admin section will be similar in the UI and functionality. For developers: - You get a basic framework to build upon. - Popular CMS-s have plugins for almost everything and you just have to integrate those stuff into your website. This saves a lot of effort. Note that you still will have to do some HTML (or PHP or whatever) coding to get to the exact requirements of the client. As for CMS choice: - wordpress: recommended for blogs, magazine website, news websites etc (mainly based on content like articles etc) -drupal: better for general purpose websites. (Wordpress 3.0 has many powerful features that are comparable to that of drupal, but most of the plugins (and the community) are still targeting the blogging crowd, so it is better to stick with drupal for now)