portal vs cms
 

what's the difference between a portal like vbIndex and a CMS like MiraServer or the one jelsoft are making.

A portal is generaly a script for fetching and displaying content.

A CMS is a content managent system, meaning that it can serv and host multiple types of content, and should allow you to manage this content.

Deciding what is right to for your site depends on the site itself. First of all you need to figure out if a full blown CMS is what you need, then if you decide to use a CMS you will have to pick the one that is right for you.

Choosing a CMS can be hard, many produce way to much overhead, others will simply not be suited for your server/site.

thanks, although it's not that i want one, i just got very curious as to what they were exactly.

actually, a portal is more closely akin to a links database.. most of the content is not hosted within the site and is only referenced and then subsequently linked to by the portal site host..

CMS is basically as brad says.. a good reference for both.. yahoo.com is a portal.. cnn.com is a CMS..

so vbindex is a CMS and not a portal?

A portal is just 1 page to show information of the website.

vbindex is more or less a portal.. a CMS is quite a bit more detailed in nature and a ton more thorough in the way it presents and handles content/ media.. not that anything is wrong with vBindex.. in fact, i use it.. but lately have been considering Mambo.. but i have even gone past that to typo3.. http://www.typo3.org

now that is a CMS.. but something not easily accomplished in a 5 minutes install script..

No it is a portal,

vBindex grabs content from your forum database and displays it on one page, it is a portal to your forum.

A CMS might sit on top of your forum and preform some tasks that the portal dose, however it should offer other services. Like adding pages to a website, or a links database.

Some script blur the lines between what is a portal and what is a CMS. You should explore all options avaiable to you and figure out which application suits your needs the best. Sometimes a application dose not fit the cut, and you might wants to hire a programmer or program something yourself.