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I almost feel dumb/ignorant for asking but I have never used Wordpress in my life. My primary skill of recent has been developing secure internet/intranet applications in PHP for healthcare companies. Every now and then I get asked to do some personal work for friends or coworkers but don't have the time or willingness to learn something new with my busy schedule.

Recently, I was approached to develop a site for a non-profit education group in which the group would need to update content on a regular basis. Simple CMS system should do the trick and while I've never used it, what if I built the site for them on Wordpress? It would give a few of the employees the ability add and update blog posts and keep new content fresh on the site. The site would also need to maintain a member 'log in' area with security being a top concern which I have no idea if Wordpress is capable of on its own. I have no problem building the latter in straight PHP but I am curious, is it possible to truly integrate the two?

I would like to build something like this site: http://tf.dtbaker.com.au/template/child_care/index.html

but add in the security/member only area features they mentioned while keeping the ability for 'blogging'. I recently came across a few hosted CMS providers (such as Surreal CMS http://surrealcms.com/) as a method to manage the CMS aspects but if there are better solutions, I am all ears.

Note: Using WP solely as a subdomain for any blogging aspects is not an option.

Thank you ahead of time.

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    Wordpress is a blogging system that has some CMS features to it. If blogging is going to be a minor part of what your users will do, consider using a proper CMS that has a blogging module. WP's "static content" support is severely painful to work with. Commented Aug 12, 2011 at 21:00
  • @Marc B - I think blogging initially may start as 'minor' but could ramp up to be a big part of the site. Commented Aug 12, 2011 at 21:02
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    WP's static content support is so easy to use my 70 year old uncle uses it to update his dentist practice website. He doesn't know what a browser is but he had no problem using WP. You probably come across huge, non-blog websites built on WordPress but have no idea. Commented Aug 12, 2011 at 21:03
  • My SO pet-peeve, if you are going to downvote or vote for close or along the line - explain in a comment or answer. Commented Aug 12, 2011 at 21:06

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WordPress is extendable using PHP and their Plugin system. WP has a basic level of user authentication and permission level to handle site management and maintenance. There are plugins available which allow you to implement member only features. Google search for WordPress membership plugin shows up quite a few hits.

Regarding security of WordPress, we have 3 websites running on WordPress for the last 5 years. Security has improved since version 3.x of WP compared to the earlier versions. There are plugins that help from doing things like scan the system for security holes (wrong permissions on files etc.) as well as plugins that claim to make your site more secure. But the best security is really understanding the WordPress system, how it works, and ensuring that the plugins you install are properly tested and vetted before being installed in production.

HTH

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It's hard to make a recommendation without knowing the specifics, but if the majority of the functionality of the site has nothing to do with blogging, you'll probably end up spending a lot of time writing plugins to modify the way Wordpress works, and then you'll have to potentially maintain those plugins as the API changes as new versions of Wordpress are released. Since you're dealing with health care companies and a need for security, not upgrading when a new version of Wordpress comes out could potentially be a security risk. You'll probably also find that Wordpress's "blog-centricness" will start to get in your way.

From what you've said in your question, my inclination would be to use a CMS to build the site if I were in your shoes.

That's not to say that you can't use custom themes and plugins to add CMS-like functionality to Wordpress and end up with some nice looking sites. The folks at WooThemes (http://www.woothemes.com/) are doing a darn good job at that from what I've seen, and there are other folks doing the same thing. I just wouldn't go that route if I were you.

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this site is for education, not healthcare so in that sense I am not as concerned. Wordpress already allows for CMS-like functionality. I am looking to take the Wordpress blogging aspects and integrate seamlessly into a site built on solid PHP alone and a secondary CMS system (if WP could not handle). Note: Using a subdomain is not acceptable
Whoops ... sorry, I missed that in the original question. In that case, Wordpress would probably be acceptable for what you're wanting to do. You might want to look at some of the themes from WooThemes to get an idea of what is possible, and maybe look at this (ashford.turtleinteractive.com) as a potential starting point as well.

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