Web CMS vs API vs Framework - HELP?! :(

Question

I posed this question to my lecturer, but I would also like a variety of answers in order to better understand this conundrum of mine. Here is the original message with names omitted.

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Hi **,

Thank you for your intro lecture today, I look forward to the work involved in the coming weeks.

I am however, rather confused regarding the terms CMS, API and Framework. The internet isn't providing much help either because these terms get thrown a lot and often for the very same thing!

A have a bit of background in LAMP web development, and I will provide a hypothetical scenario, where hopefully you can tell me where these terms would fit in.

• I am using LAMP (Linux web server with Apache, MySQL and PHP).

• I am developing a website whereby the public can watch movies (umm... ignore the legal issues, purely hypothetical and for educational purposes of course!)

• I create my MySQL database using phpMyAdmin, and tables will involve 'users', 'categories', 'content' etc.

• I now create an 'admin control panel (CP)' which I will refer to as the back-end. Authorised users, depending on their access levels (as determined by their account in the 'users' table) can add/edit/delete various things. These changes are reflected on what I call the front-end.

• The front-end is the public facing website, whereby the public visit this website to watch films of their choice.

• The back-end (i.e. the Admin CP) controls/regulates the content of users and pretty much everything. Over time, the developers could add more features to this for more functionality. E.g. a comments. Alternatively, a developer could use the Facebook comments API to include into every 'film' page on the front-end, this makes it a lot easier.

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Now back to the main question at hand, is this a web CMS? Where would an API fit into this? Is this a framework?

Note: I'm not using anything like WordPress or Joomla etc., it's all custom coded by myself. Using PHP and HTML5, CSS3, maybe a bit of jQuery too, and of course SQL statements via PHP to interact with the MySQL database.

I appreciate your help in this confusion of mine.

Thanks,

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EDIT: I have commented my thoughts based on Justin's input. If I'm on the right track let me know, cheers.

Answer 1

Thanks for the post.

The three terms you have stated are used quite often around the web, and they are always changing. First you have a CMS, CMS stands for Content Management System, like above you have stated Wordpress and Joomla. That is where someone has already created the software to create a site/blog without having to mess with PHP, MySQL, and Apache. You are merely doing anything on the front-end, just simply posting your content, and making it live. The software does all of the back-end work for you.

API, simply put. Open-source "plug-in" which allows the user to integrate a service or application into their site or application for use.

Framework, Like Bootstrap, created by Twitter. A Web Framework is an easy way to develop a site on the front-end. It gives the learning amateur a chance at developing the front-end while learning great concepts along the way.