Integrated or "Total" Solutions
I'll admit, I was originally intending to call this type of CMS the "Portal Solution". But, there is a lot of ambiguity around the meaning and definition of "Portal". In the classic text on IA : "Information Architecture for the World Wide Web", Morville and Rosenfeld separate portals from Content Management Systems(CMS), viewing them as "completely integrated enterprise portal solutions" (2007, p. 358). Notwithstanding that any definition that also contains the word being defined is problematic from the start, the examples given (Microsoft Sharepoint, Oracle Portal) show these authors view portals as largely intranet solutions.
Other definitions of "portal", at least in the sense of a "web portal", usually view it as a single destination site that provides access to other resources on the world wide web, but (like Yahoo, perhaps the most famous example) also provide "in-site" features such as forums, private messaging or email, and knowledge databases
So anyway, enough with the semantics and lets call this type of software an "Integrated" CMS. Integrated CMS's are sometimes referred to as Content Management Frameworks, and are distinguished by the plethora of features and modules that are included in the initial installation. Portals usually automatically feature member systems, forums, content authoring available only to members with correct privileges, ability to moderate page edits and other administration heirarchies, RSS feeds, blog and news posting ability, and so on.
Given this "all in one solution" approach to content management, integrated solutions are the most complex to set up of the content management system categories discussed on this site. Having your own hosting space with access to database software (usually MySQL) is a must, and you will usually need to have some knowledge of backend site administration, and access to other developer tools in order for it all to come together in anything but a basic manner.
These integrated solutions all tend to use different models of separating content from presentation and functional code (usually referred to as the model-view-controller pattern), so even if you are up to speed with your SQL, HTML, CSS etc., you will probably have to spend quite a bit of time learning the peculiarities of the particular piece of software you choose.
Why use an "Integrated" solution for my site?
- If you are quite proficient in making webpages already but want a better system to control your content, and are willing to spend the time in initial development to get it all right.
- If you intend to have members of the site who are able to richly interact with each other in many different ways
- If you don't want to be restricted in what you can do on the site, these sorts of CMS systems offer the most opportunity for expansion with additional modules and plugins
The Further Reading page on this site lists resources where you can find links to lots of different "integrated CMS" software, or you can read my review of Joomla.