Several tech sites run on Esselbach's Storyteller platform, notably MajorGeeks.com (more than half a million uniques per month, and it manages tens of thousands of downloads per month plus heavy user activity as files are updated.) I used Storyteller for an adult site a few years ago and loved it; just got settled into WordPress to the point that I doubt I'd be able to find the login button for any other CMS. Frank
Joomla is way ahead. Drupal has very few features and limited functionalities. Checkout the joomla sites here: http://community.joomla.org/showcase/ Yep, many and growing exponentially. And these are only the few that have been submitted so far as this is a new thing)
While you may find the occasional bigfish website that uses WordPress or Joomla, the vast majority of high content, big-time websites use custom made CMSs.
wordpress, joomla and drupal would be my first thoughts...but you can actually get a custom cms made with code ignitor...i'd look into it
always go for Custom made CMS, little expensive but serves you 100% of your business requirements, why to pay for stuff that you wont need at all. Get some professional Development team hired and start building your CMS now...
I think the Wordpress is being used widely and world wide. The wordpress is the only reliable and much advanced CMS i have experienced. Others I don't think are used as much as wordpress.
Drupal was the most open source CMS used by big web site and big companies or organizations with huge traffics ie. spreadfirefox, ubuntu, crooks and liars, votehillary.org, nokia, symantec etc.
Most of the big sites use a custom approach or heavily modify existing CMS... most would use Drupal because it scales great and handles tons of traffic. Joomla does not function that great under heavy loads. Wordpress is commonly used for corporate blogs.
They generally use WordPress or Joomla and less use Drupal. As mentioned above, some also use custom designed CMS as theverge does. But it is not very easy to maintain your own CMS on a daily basis and provide a wide range of facilities, as WP does.
THe most popular CMSs are WordPress, Joomla and Drupal. Some of the famous wordpress sites are : Mashable, Phone dot com, AndersonCooper 360 . few more are Drupal are: Penn State University, FastCompany, MTV United Kingdom, .