Best PHP Open Source CMS: Drupal wins, Joomla and CMS Made Simple tie for second

Drupal was announced the winner in Packt Publishing's 2008 award for Best PHP Based Open Source CMS.

The Award for the best Open Source Content Management System written on a PHP/MySQL platform is today announced as Drupal. Receiving $2,000 as the judges’ and publics favourite, Drupal finishes ahead of Joomla! and CMS Made Simple, who finished on equal points as joint runners up and collect $500 each.

As Packt notes, this has become an annual tug of war between Drupal and Joomla! for top spot in these awards.

In the end, it was a combination of features that swayed the final votes and secured first position. The judges were complimentary about Drupal’s excellent installation of the system, modules and updates and especially the way it handles any errors during these processes. Comments were also reserved for Drupal’s strong social applications capabilities and how it integrates seamlessly with content management.

As most people know by now, I have a personal bias toward Drupal and have excused myself from judging on a panel where Drupal is a finalist.  So, instead of adding my own comments, I suggest we keep an eye open for the personal blogs of those sitting on the 2008 judging panel. Perhaps we'll find some details to how they may have judged the finalists for this year's best PHP open source CMS.