From the official Mambo website

Mambo is a full-featured content management system that can be used for everything from simple websites to complex corporate applications.


What is the Mambo CMS?

Mambo is a free, open source content management system (CMS) that is developed in the PHP scripting language.  It is a dynamic CMS and uses the free MySQL database for storing data. It is written and supported by volunteers whose commitment to the development of Mambo has seen it become one of the most popular applications on the Internet today.

The Mambo CMS allows you to easily create a dynamic web site . At its most simple, it can be installed through Fantastico on any web hosting space that offers cPanel hosting and you can quickly have a web site online with a minimum of effort and almost no programming or HTML skills. 

Don't let this simplicity fool you though - Mambo is feature rich, highly extensible, and very powerful. 

Mambo is used for everything from simple, single-page web sites to portals, intranets, and complex corporate applications. 

What is a content management system?
It is simply a system for managing content. 

Wikipedia defines a content management system (CMS) as  a "system used to organize and facilitate collaborative creation of documents and other content"
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_management_system). 

Essentially, a CMS allows you to gather, organise, maintain and serve content. With Mambo, you gather  your content (text, images, scripts, etc) and add it to your site through a web browser interface. In other words, you logon to your Mambo site and add the content you want included in your site.  This content is then stored in your database. Mambo allows you to determine the way your content will be served to your site visitors.  Then, when a visitor comes to your site, Mambo determines which content will be served for the page the visitor has requested and delivers it. 

We use the terms "dynamic" and "database-driven" to describe the way Mambo functions. Unlike traditional static web pages where all the content is hard-coded into each page, Mambo stores the content inside the database.  The "page" does not exist until a visitor requests it. At that time, Mambo determines which content should be presented on that page and how it should be delivered. It is this use of database technology that makes Mambo such a powerful content management system.

Continue reading for a detailed feature list.
Mambo is a full-featured content management system (CMS) that can be used for everything from simple websites to complex corporate applications. While the number of Open Source content management systems continues to grow at a fast pace, Mambo's rich feature set, long history and stable codebase continue to make Mambo the preferred choice of many professional developers. The list below provides an overview of the features and benefits of Mambo, but without focusing in depth on the technical architecture.

Content Management

  • Powerful WYSIWYG Editor enables creation and editing of pages without need to know code.
  • Supports creation of nested or flat content hierachies.
  • Manage content from a Web browser (Internet Explorer or Firefox recommended).
  • Manage Images from within system, or externally through FTP.
  • No specialized tools or programming languages needed to update site.
  • Preview content as you work, without publishing.
  • Bundled with site search.
  • Syndicate site contents in a variety of RSS formats.

Easy Templating

  • No specialized programming language needed to build or customize templates.
  • Flexible templating allows for creation of variety of looks -- no "cookie cutter" websites.
  • Can build Valid XHTML and Section 508 Accessible websites.
  • Edit CSS and templates from within admin system.
  • Large number of free or low cost templates available through the community.

User Management

  • Supports Membership option for websites.
  • Supports classes of users.
  • Enables easy creation of extranets.
  • Block problem users.
  • Mass mail users.

Workflow Management

  • Classes of users for content creation, editing, scheduling and publishing.
  • Schedule automatic Start/Stop dates for publishing.
  • Supports multiple administrators with variety of tools.

Extensibility

  • Bundled with many common functionalities.
  • Large selection of add-ons to extend functionality.
  • Bridges to many 3rd Party systems.

Help & Documentation

Technical Aspects

  • Written in PHP.
  • Scalable. Tested and benchmarked.
  • Effective, configurable caching.
  • Bundled with Magpie RSS reader.
  • Platform neutral. Simple requirements which allow installation on most hosting packages, including shared hosting.
  • Manage database from within the admin interface.
  • Installation wizard is simple and fast.
  • Flexible metadata at both global and individual Item levels.
  • Search Engine Friendly.
  • RSS-enabled.

Favorable Licensing

  • Free, Open Source Software.
  • Released under the GNU General Public License (GPL)

Community & Foundation

Download:http://source.mambo-foundation.org/content/section/5/62/
Demo:http://source.mambo-foundation.org/content/view/103/68/