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Just finished a community based website for a client and I'm pretty happy with the results. I've used many content management systems, some very complex, Documentum, RedDot. Others have been extremely simple, deceptively simple. Their richness is dependent on their flexibility as well as their feature list.

Most commercial content management products share a common thread of being expensive. They have an excellent ROI, but they are out of reach of most of us putting together a typical site.

However, there are alternatives for those of you tired of playing HTML roulette. You know how it works, you get an idea for a change to your website. If you do it yourself, you have to hunt down the files, make the changes, output the content. If you rely on a website designer to maintain your site, its worse. First you have to hunt them down and squeeze in your change into their schedule.

Content management systems separate the content from the look and feel of the site. Many of them have additional features that allow you to inject event management, ecommerce, crm features without coding on your part.

I found a great site that allows you to test out the major content management systems before downloading them. It gives a great overview of what's available, http://www.opensourcecms.com/