Big Medium 2 brings WYSIWYG CMS to web designers

is free so why pay these folks?

@sondjata: Josh Clark here, the developer of Big Medium. There are indeed a number of other content management systems out there, including lots of free and open-source offerings. But for many organizations, open-source CMS's are either overkill or too challenging. I invite you to compare them against Big Medium, and I think that you'll find that Big Medium is a different animal.

* It's different because it's easy. Big Medium is intended to be installed and configured by non-developers. The target audience is web designers who want a system that allows for extremely flexible designs but remains easy to set up.

* It's different because it's friendly. Its interface is attractive, clean, friendly... unthreatening to CMS newbies.

* It's different because it's focused. Big Medium is tuned specifically for traditional content sites: marketing sites, online 'zines, blogs, community newspapers, news sites. It provides a lightweight workflow and appropriate publishing tools for these site types. (Look elsewhere for e-commerce, forums or social-media sites.)

* It's different because it's well documented. The Big Medium guide is plain-spoken and easy to follow, starting with the basics and building to more sophisticated uses and configurations.

* It's different because all you need is HTML. Big Medium's templates are plain old HTML with widget tags sprinkled throughout: To add a photo gallery, just add the tag to the template.

* It's different because you never see a configuration file. All of the configuration happens in the browser, with a user-friendly interface. (But yeah, it's pluggable if you want to code your own custom behaviors and widgets.)

* It's different because it's squeaky-clean. The generated markup is standards-compliant.

* It's different because it installs anywhere, even the most modest shared hosting plan, which helps Big Medium fit the technical resources of small businesses and nonprofits.

Overall, Big Medium is a useful, friendly tool that fits the needs of a *lot* of organizations without overwhelming them with features they may never need. While not free, it is inexpensive and enjoys detailed personal support direct from its rabidly dedicated developer (that's me).

Happy new year, Josh

Honestly I have installed joomla on a number of client sites and truth be told, I only touched config files because I wanted to. It's not that hard. I haven't tried your product so I can't make direct comparisons to most of what you've listed but I suppose if it is convenient and more user friendly than Joomla/Mambo then a customer would be willing to pay for convenience.