Cushy CMS: Cool tool, but it’s no CMS.

Great write-up! My thoughts exactly on this simple-yet-useful CMS. I’m interested in your flatfile CMS. Could you please send me a bit more info on it?

Cheers!

I just came across CushyCMS today. I agree with everything you said. I tested it and it seems to work perfect.
I would be interested in your flatfile CMS.

I really hope this CushyCMS worksout for me. I’ve been updating client sites for too long. Now it’s there turn.

Thanks for the great write up

Jeremy

[...] came across Cushy CMS a few days ago and was surprised I hadn’t heard of it or seen it discussed here. I did a [...]

[...] came across Cushy CMS a few days ago and was surprised I hadn’t heard of it or seen it discussed here. I did a [...]

[...] is a frakkin awesome tool, but it’s not a CMS. It’s more like a RCE (remote content editor).read more | digg [...]

I think there are too many great CMS’s proper that offer more for $28 PM if you want to offer it to clients. But i see it as a great way for shoestring netentrepreneurs who own a couple of sites and need to regularly update content and are tired of blogs, and for web savvy business owners.
If you are a web designer, then i think you could say to a client “look, i can build you a great looking site and charge my going rate. And i can also offer you a free CMS which you can easily use to update sections of your site, and it’s called CushyCMS, “. So, be transparent about it. They’ll appreciate your honesty and that you’re not trying to sell it as your own CMS or rip them off. The other route is offer the pro account.
take a look at:
tweakcms.com
squarespace.com
speaklight.com
easywebcontent.com

Loved the article..
I would just say that CushyCMS is built for a low budget websites and yet to be
a real CMS that works fine with search engines etc..
some customers just have a low budget and doesn’t care weather it’s CMS or not (CMS ???!!??)
I point that services to those who doesn’t have basic knowledge and won’t even care weather their own CMS
is branded or not.
I would love to hear about the one you where talking about

Very intriguing. I’m going to study its possibilities.

One issue: call be paranoid. Or cautious. But…

The demo shows user providing “Cushy” with my FTP username & pw.

Gives me pause.

Your thoughts? –ricardo

in reply to Ricardo, some hosts provide the option of creating accounts with certain access rights on the host server, which I guess is how I would handle cushy cms, create an account seperate from mine and give it write access but not the ability to do anything else.

Great review, and I agree. Also what is this flatfile CMS you speak off?

Thanks so much in advance!

Great article- you’ve got style. Cushy looks exactly like what I have been looking for- but I would like to try your flat file if you could send it out. Thanks!

Thanks for the great information. I stumbled upon the Cushy CMS site a while ago, and just recently had time to explore it further. I”m looking for a CMS that I can implement for my clients, and thought this might be an option. What I dislike about Cushy is that you have to use the class attribute of the various tags to designate an area as editable, which eliminates the option to have CSS enacted on that tag based on its class, or else you end up with unnecessarily bloated code from adding extra divs and spans to accommodate this. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this aspect of the program.

Also, thanks for sharing your flat-file CMS. I plan to experiment with it.

Terri
beyond the office

Good article. I’d be interested in your flat file CMS. Please can i know more.

Thanks

Terri, adding the CushyCMS class to an element doesn’t limit your ability to assign other classes for your own purposes. Just put multiple classes in the value of the class attribute, separating them with spaces.

Thanks for the write-up. I’ve been looking at Cushy for an independent freelance client.
I’m also interested in your flatfile CMS, if you could please email it to me.

thanks!

I’m also interested in your flatfile CMS, if you could please email it to me.

nevermind…i see it… but just for the heck of it post it again in 5 more comments! LOL

hi Greg, i hv seen it before.the cushy cms but if you don’t mind. I’m also interested in your flatfile CMS, if you could please email it to me.

thanks Greg!

Hi Greg,

I’d really like to give your CMS a go please.

Many thanks,

Ian

Hi Greg…

Just read you article on cushy and found it very interesting and thought that I would ask you a question as you seem well informed and open to giving people a helping hand..

Myself and a friend have just started working on a website and would like to incorporate a CMS to allow registered users to edit set website templates as the they see fit. I have been researching on the web and searching for a CMS that I could use and edit for this purpose…. However you made a comment in your article that highlighted a question.

You say

” However, it is not - in my opinion - a CMS. It allows you to edit content on a per-page basis. The content has to physically exist on your server and it’s all static unless you build yourself a flatfile CMS of your own”

Well this is what I would like to do,, so my question to you is do I really need a CMS? When a new user registers they select the website template they would like and the template will be duplicated to a new folder on the server.. then when logged into the CMS they can edit the specific content of their website template.

I ask because I am a programming amateur and am not entirely sure of the languages I should be using to achieve the results I want.. I would be grateful if you could point me in the right direction.

Thanks a lot
Tim

Hi: If your looking for a CMS / Editor to quickly private brand and provide to your customers, Easy WebContent may be worth taking a look at. If pages are HTML based you don’t even need to create editable areas and no installation on client or server side. http://www.easywebcontent.com

thanks.

I was excited about CushyCMS as it appeared to fill a niche, but I’ve tried it out and unfortunately it doesn’t really play very nicely with ASP/PHP pages. They recommend that you produce static HTML files and include them in your PHP/ASP files and then set CushyCMS to edit the content in those static HTML files - which for a lot of my existing sites would be more hassle than it’s worth, and probably not entirely practical - it’s a shame because everything else about it seems perfect.

There are many options available for CMS and as well HTML editors for small to medium sized web sites. Easy WebContent (www.easywebcontent.com) in particular is an online based HTML Editor, requires no set-up on server or your PC and pretty much works directly from any standard browser.

The other advantage of it is for those web designers and hosts who want to make a few bucks reselling the editor to their customers and you can put your own logo on it and sell as your own. The big advantage is that you don’t need to install any special codes or take more than few minutes to set-up a license and connect to the web site.

there is a free trial as well at: http://www.easywebcontent.com/editwebsite

thanks! Stacey.

Cushy CMS is great for personal use but for website designers when designing for clients it isnt really enough.

Evidently, Cushy CMS has spawned some competition.

Well there is so much information out there and now I have learned about a remote content editor as well. I must say I was impressed with the CushyCMS and how simple it was, perhaps a cms sytem is too overkill for my requirements. I would be interested in your flat file cms, perhaps that would be more suitable?

Sounds very good. Id be interested in your flatfile

Just checked out cushyCMS for the first time and it’s so user friendly it’s unbelievable. Was searching the net for a CMS that was easy to implement and came across a few, although the “3 minute” video was what sold it for me (it’s free by the way, but you get the point!?)

Also, has anyone checked out FLYSPECK CMS? Would be interested in some feedback…

For those of you interested in a mature and proven flat-file CMS, check out CMSimple. I’ve used it for several sites (currently Atmosphere Roofing is using it but I’ll probably move them to Joomla or Drupal) but not yet tried integrating it with Cushy since it’s already a CMS. BTW, it’s only about 100k in size so is perfect for limited storage hosting accounts.

Greg, re: constant requests for the flat file, you should just include the dl link as an update in the article. People are too lazy to scroll through comments to find it.

Not sure if you are connected with easywebcontent.com or not but, if you are, here is a bit of free advice. If you bury the actual cost of your product I will leave your website. 4 links for a free trial is wonderful but ultimately it is about the numbers. If I were to take the time to test drive products without assessing the potential cost first I would probably be out of business very quickly.

I am genuinely in the market for a simple method of in browser web editing without the complexity or learning curve (for the person who does the editing) and your product looks very close to what I need. Pity.

easywebcontent.com = spam

CMS = Content Management System - CushyCMS allows you to manage your content… um, so it IS indeed a Content Management System.

Cushy CMS is indeed a good tool but very limited, I would say it is great for small personal sites or even small business sites that don’t need to update much but text and a few images.

Nice read and some great comments. Thanks for the info; I am also interested in your flatfile, if you please.

Thanks,
Thantos

Hi

Interesting review. Would be interested in your cms. Pls send the link

This looks like a problem solver for me, at first I had few problems with the security of the whole thing giving out ftp access and all but thanks to your review ant a few others I feel confident giving this information to them. I have a problem now with it that I think is directory permission related (does anyone know if I need to change permissions to 777?) But if I can get past that it would be great.

the guys saw a whole in the market and gobbled it up

how to edit content in our website..like where to include “Cushycms” in our code..and if we do only this will the website be changed? it would be very useful if u help me out in this..Thank You..

The techs at my v-server have been talking about Cushy, for quite a while, as an alternative to Macromedia (now Adobe) Contribute. I’m interested in implementing this CMS (or RCE) for a couple clients of mine.

But I’m certainly interested in your flatfile CMS as well.
thanks

I just gave cushy a try and I have to admit its a pretty cool tool.

But i would love to take a look at your flat file please.

Thanks

It doesn’t allow clients to add anything of their own, which made it a deal breaker for me.

For a designer, Cushy seems a gift from heaven, after researching CMS for simple sites endlessly, some of which came with dozens of files, not well described — like Toko.
The code is no big deal to add to a few pages and definitely the paid version seems a better idea. Would love to receive your flatfile CMS!

I’d be interested in seeing your flat-file CMS. Please do send it over if you have a mo

Greg, what do you think of the simplicity added by remote editing, rather than having to set up the CMS on your own server or set it up on each client’s server? How much value do you see there? For a designer who might not be comfortable with databases, etc? I’d appreciate your thoughts.

Great review. I agree with your points completely, it is great for editing existing code but not for adding new content. I would like to give your flat file a go. Thanks

I would be interested in your flatfile cms.. many thanks
helen

I just came across Cushy, great review by the way. For small web design companies this is a great tool to offer their clients, about 2/3rds of small business websites the most they will need to change on their sites is text and pictures, take and add a video and so on. Great tool, great review!

Thanks a lot for this article.

And your flatfile cms seems to be very popular already…

Very interested in using Cushy, a computer mag in the UK had a review of it last year, and it seemed good. I’d be interested in knowing more about your flatfile CMS too… if I only knew what flatfile was….

Andy

Great review, kinda stumbled upon Cushy CMS; it was very simple to use but not great for what I wanted, especially since it wont allow you to have any PHP elements in it. Could you please email me the flat file CMS? Appreciate it.

On may 19th a similar website was launched and is in the beta phase. It’s called Simple CMSThey are similar to Cushy CMS but the editing is much nicer. You can actually see the page you are editing, click on the section you want to edit and then save. They are still getting up and running but I think this is a great tool for smaller websites.

sorry…bad link Simple CMS

What do you think about the long term viability of Cushy? That’s my only concern with using it as a free CMS. I don’t want my clients to be caught someday if the company goes down! I only use the free application - should probably get the PRO to ask them, but thought you might have some thoughts on their long range plans. Have stopped using Contribute because Cushy is so much easier and less $.

Thanks for your post on it and any thoughts you may have.

I know this is an old post, but is it possible that you could please still send me the “flat file” CMS that you were talking about in this post, it would be awesome!

It nice and easy, I agree. But it definitely lacks a lot to be called a content management system. I’m interested in seeing what you have as a flatfile CMS. Send it over please

I am not fond of Wordpress (waits for the boos)

But what I am fond of is a real, simple, free alternative.

Does it have all of the bells and whistles and capabilties?: NO

Does it allow me to charge my customers an extra fee for close to nothing?: YES

This is a simple and effective Web-based CMS from people who have their users in mind.

From being able to simply implement this system in to NEW and OLD projects for myself and clients, has been
LIFE and TIME SAVING.

I understand it’s no Wordpress or Joomla….but boooyyyyy is it Cushy!!

Cushy CMS does seem like a great way to let your clients manage simple sites! Thanks to this post, I’m going to give it a shot. I am also interested in your flatfile CMS if you are still willing to send me that. Thanks!

Typo: “These guys saw a whole in the market” should read “These guys saw a hole in the market”

Sorry, not trying to be the grammar police, but might as well get it right, right?

Good article though.

JIM

I just heard about this CMS and was wondering why it has failed every search I’ve done for CMS. I think I know now, thanks. I’d be interested in your flat file CMS also.

Thank you.

Has anyone tried Konductor? I would be interested to hear your reviews.

Just stumbled across this article, and gave CushyCMS a try. I mainly do small web sites for small business. A lot of the clients aren’t very computer literate. But most of them would still like to be able to do basic updates, mainly to ‘news’ sections etc. So something like Wordpress has always been overkill in these cases. There wasn’t a lot of other solutions that were easy to implement, and easy for clients with limited computer knowledge to use. So Cushy has been like a dream. It couldn’t be any easier to use. I’d imagine it’s limited for more advanced stuff, but for what my clients and I need to use it’s great. Thanks for the article.

Agree 100% with your article. Personally I use CushyCMS for the small (previously static) websites whereby the client’s hosting account doesn’t offer database access. Depending on functionality etc required, I then use Wordpress or Joomla as my preferred CMS. As for Ecommerce, I find OpenCart more often than not provides everything required to set up professional looking compliant online shops.

If your flatfile CMS is still on offer, I’d definitely be interested in giving it a try!

Hey thanks for the write up - was looking at Adobe Incontext editing but am not impressed with their -”we will charge but not tell you right now how much” nonsense.
You seem to be very knowlegable in all things cms so here is my question - as a small freelance web designer I spent quite some time trying to learn how to create my own joomla template - only to find it wrapped everything up in table tags ARRGGHH - what I want to know is there a good standards compliant easily customisable CMS out there - that does not charge like a wounded bull?
Both word press and joomla do not allow enough freedom to a designer
Thanks for you time
Vix