how to manage a big website?

Question

I have been building small website till now, but now I am going to work on a big project. That involves a multifaceted website with many features like forum, chat, social - networking. How should I go about developing this website. You can think I am making something like Facebook. Should I focus on hand coding or using a CMS? Or should I build a CMS of my own? The size of the website is going to be huge in the future and will be managed by many people.

Answer 1

Don't try building a CMS of your own. There is a reason the successful ones are built over several years with hundreds of developers. A serious CMS takes a lot more effort than you would expect when you look at it from a distance.

Find an open source CMS that has a vibrant community, and that is modular and easily extendable, that fits your technology preferences and skillset — so you can extend it. You will save a lot of time and pain, even if it seems harder at first.

For an easily extendable, Python-based CMS, take a look at Plone. For a PHP-based one, take a look at Drupal.

Answer 2

Take a look into Umbraco. It is very useful and has the majority of the features you require. It is available from the Web Platform Installer, or here. Umbraco is open-source, so you can adapt if necessary.