The story of 3 big CMSs WordPress, Joomla and Drupal is almost 14 years old, which is quite ancient and debated enough if related to the Internet sphere. The pace of development is measured in weeks or sometimes even days, so WordPress, Joomla and Drupal can be called veterans of the web market. These biggest content management systems power practically the whole CMS industry.
Why are WordPress, Joomla and Drupal so Popular?
The secret of their popularity is definitely not the time elapsed since the launch. There are numerous CMS platforms that date back to the end of the XXth century and aren’t anywhere near in the number of users. WordPress, Joomla and Drupal are both very good at providing their followers with a way to get their own Home on the Net. Additionally, they cut down on the time for learning, but at the same time, you learn how the specific CMS works and what is so unusual.
The infographic below represents the latest, constantly updated data on the key features of WordPress, Joomla and Drupal, such as technical characteristics, extensions, learning curve, support, etc.
Making the right choice between WordPress, Joomla and Drupal is a tough one. The comparison can hardly be objective in general, since both platforms are different. Each of them excels in its niche and has certain downsides. To make the final decision, it’s strongly recommended to try out each CMS. Since they’re free, it won’t be difficult.
Thinking of changing CMSs?
In case you’d like to:
- switch your website from Joomla to WordPress,
- migrate from WordPress to Joomla,
- Drupal to WordPress or WordPress to Drupal
– it can be done with the help of CMS2CMS. This automated migration service can easily move your website content to the new CMS saving your time for more important tasks to do.
Website Elements You Can Migrate to Joomla or WordPress
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Great Article. Thumbs Up!
Joomla does not require components to provide good seo. The built in Joomla seo works well.
The “better for bigger, more complex websites” claim for Joomla! is, in my opinion, no longer valid. I’m a developer and use WordPress, Joomla!, Drupal and, for more specific web applications, CodeIgniter. While Drupal and Joomla! have a fairly rigid approach, WordPress has a kind-of free-form approach to developing custom functionality. The purists will baulk (I did!), but this is more than compensated for by its robustness, extensive and excellent documentation and resources, the sheer quantity and quality of themes and plugins, and specialist customizations like the recently popularized WordPress ‘app-theme’, which allows me to design, develop and deploy websites in a fraction of the time. Not too long ago I’d have recommended WordPress only for a basic “five-pager and a blog”, and now I am using it as a development framework.
Thanks, Alihadith!
That’s a good point, Webdongle. Probably, what is mean is that SEO components can enhance the results, but they’re not necessary.
It is a very good recommendation for WordPress from a professional. Thanks for sharing, Potion.
I believe, learning curve should also be emphasised. WordPress get advantage on that. It is a lot easy to learn for both developers and end users.
Very nice sum up!
I agree that WordPress learning curve is one of it’s major strengths. Thanks for mentioning!
I love both but it can’t be argued that Joomla is a more ‘powerful’ CMS. Admitedly alot of its functions can be added to WordPress with 3rd party plugins but I just feel that because of that same ‘free-form approach to developing custom functionality’ WordPress has this ‘hacked’ feel in creating bigger sites.
Sorry.. that was ment as a reply to Potions post below (“,)
OK, so let’s let this go by the way of the dodo bird and stop comparing WordPress to something else that is defined as a CMS. WordPress is NOT in the same class as Joomla or Drupal and to make a comparison to these systems is like comparing a VW bug to a Ferrari! By definition WordPress could be considered a CMS and therefor by definition Joomla and Drupal should be classified as a WCMS (web content management system). So in your comparison if you really want to compare WordPress to these other platforms then you also have to include some other parameters. Such as User access control, nested category control, asset management, file management, contact management, user management, syndication and newsfeed management, portability to other uses.
See how WordPress answers some of these questions and you will rethink the idea that it can somehow win against these other two (True) examples of a CMS!
Thanks, Alto! I will take your recommendations into consideration.
Can anybody tell me the difference between wordpress.org and wordpress.com. From what I can gather wordpress.com gives you less scope and freedom than .org?? I am looking to start a small content based site, which could need ecommerce in the near future. Already have my domain name, the site will be simple but I still want it to look professional and have the ability to expand in the future.
Any suggestions would be very much appreciated!
Hello, basically wordpress.com is the hosted version of wordpress.org, which you have to download and take care of hosting and stuff. In your case wordpress.org looks like a more viable solution.
You can read about the differences about wordpress.com and wordpress.org in this post: http://cms2cms.com/blog/wordpress-org-vs-wordpress-com-freedom-or-cost-free/
Do both allow you to upload your own webpage template and use that instead of their layouts? I’ve essentially made my own website, but want it to be easily editable by less HTML savy admins. We haven’t chosen a host yet either, but we need it to have a .ch domain. Any suggestions?
Thanks for the great comparison graphic!
Thanks for asking, Shinobue. Yes, both WordPress and Joomla allow creating your own templates, so this won’t be a problem at all.
Joomla needs more time to setup….. wordpress rocks!!
I think there is something important missing: What happens with websites with a medium content (100-200 pages), but the need of a big forum behind? Anything like Kunena in the WordPress universe?
Thanks fo the article!
This is a very sensible mention. We’ll address this in the future posts. Thanks for your suggestion, Alemanista!
I’m working with Joomla and WordPress for a long time. I love this info graphic, however this article didn’t cover one very important point: the origin of the CMSs. Joomla was born as CMS, WordPress born to be a blog. This point makes these two options different in the essence of the core. If you look just at the basic installation, probably WordPress will look better. However, if you look at all powerful components that you can install in Joomla, you will see that this option is more solid and prepared to serious customizations. The “blog origin” of WordPress isn’t a bad thing! WordPress have native nice support to control content creation workflow (edition, revision a approve before publication), version control of articles, tags and other features that makes WordPress the best option for blogs, news and all situations that you need of this kind of control. But if you need to create a complex structure, with different templates working simultaneously and strong features for social network (Community Builder, Jomsocial, etc), forum (Kunena), e-mail marketing (Acymailing), e-commerce (Virtuemart, redShop) and other features, probably Joomla will be the best option. Components like K2 or Zoo will help you to create a better content administration for Joomla web sites. If you don’t know what is the best option for your case, I suggest you to look at the list of plugins for WordPress and extensions for Joomla before decide.
WordPress hands down for me. Fast reliable, so many good themes, countless plugins, viral community. I have built small scale websites, large ones with all the features i wanted with no problem at all. There is a reason WordPress taking the lead.
Joomla is good for business related websites, while WordPress has a much wider domain, comprising both personal and business websites. Additionally, WordPress is easier to use, is intuitive and its system of themes and plugins gives you practically unlimited possibilities. It powers more than 16,7% of whole Internet.
Thanks for sharing, Kostas!
I really like Joomla but curious about WordPress and was thinking about learning to expand my skillset
Hi Brian,
Since WordPress is free, I believe you can easily set out to learning it.
Good luck!
WordPress is like the IE of Browser market, Nobody loves it that much but still it is one of the most popular CMS system.