Nov 09
11
Review of Joomla vs. WordPress
WordPress and Joomla are two popular website content management systems that I have been using for a number of years.
There are certainly many others, but if you are contemplating various software foundations to build a website upon, you would be wise to become familiar with either, or both of these as they would be a good choice for many website developers.
Setting up websites has evolved considerably since the mid 90′s. In brief, it has become much easier.
A person with nominal knowledge of the Internet can set up a dynamic website pretty quickly. Of course, if a person is willing to devote more time to the subject, one can create more specialized and customized websites.
This article is not a technical treatise of Joomla and WordPress, but is a simple overview, specifically for non-technical users who are contemplating a software platform for their own website, or as a website for a group of users.
Website Content Management Systems
Website Content Management Systems (WCMS) allow non-technical users to work together as a group to easily add website content (such articles, photos, audio files, videos, etc.) on an ongoing basis.
Particularly for groups of contributors, website content management systems readily facilitate multi-user collaboration with varied levels of security access and coordination between administrators, editors and writers. (Which means that certain non-technical contributors, such as writers, would not have access to other portions of the website other than their own articles, and could not inadvertently and adversely effect changes anywhere than their own articles).
Heck, even if you don’t need the power of coordinating multiple contributors to maintain and update a website, these systems make great foundations for websites managed by one person.
Open Source Software
For simplicity’s sake, a compelling note about open source software is that such is free to use. Even more compelling is that popular open source website platforms, such as Joomla and WordPress, enjoy extensive communities that work independently and/or collaboratively to continuously expand the innate capabilities of the core software, while also building additional applications that extend the capabilities of what the basic software was intended to accomplish. Stated another way, from a user’s perspective, it’s like becoming the owner of a high-performance car (for free), that is continuously being tuned up for you (also for free), with more functionality being routinely added (also for free).
There are many more open source website platforms, but WordPress and Joomla are two big ones, and when it comes to blogging, WordPress stands alone as the premier service.
WordPress and Joomla
The differences between Joomla and WordPress used to be more significant, enough so, that for simplicity, I used to state:
♦ If you want a larger, more sophisticated website, go with Joomla. (I also used Joomla’s earliest iteration, which was Mambo, before Joomla development forked away from Mambo in 2005).
♦ And if you just need a blog, use WordPress.
Nowadays that simplicity still has merit, but the distinction has become blurred, and as both systems have expanded, their innate capabilities have overlapped each other. For example, you can use WordPress for much larger and more sophisticated websites, and Joomla certainly includes blogging functionality and just as well, could be used for smaller websites.
Joomla and WordPress Features
Even as late as 2008, a comparison of the “basic” feature sets between Joomla and WordPress would have been more useful. However ongoing advances have served to make those differences less important – at least from the perspective of a non-technical user. (By the way, Joomla and WordPress are built upon the same technical architecture).
Both Joomla and WordPress offer tremendous capabilities in terms of how to present the look and design of the site via “themes” in WordPress and “templates” in Joomla. There are countless free (and paid) themes and templates for both services that you can integrate into your Joomla or WordPress site to radically change the site’s design. Additionally, since this is open source software, you can start with an existing theme or template and make changes to that, to fine tune the presentation of your site in a way that better suits your needs.
♦ Want your site to look elegant or brash? Just pick a look you like and install it.
♦ Want your site red or blue? Easy! And just as easy to change it again.
♦ Want to use images or design elements that are not on any other site? You can customize Joomla and WordPress templates and themes as you wish.
Both WordPress and Joomla offer extensive opportunities to customize and improve functionality via “plugins,” “components” and “modules” for Joomla, as well as “plugins” and “widgets” for WordPress.
♦ Want to customize the way photos are displayed?
♦ Want to improve search engine optimization functionality?
♦ Want to integrate additional commercial applications?
Each of these (and much more) can be achieved with the various plugins and other add-ons that are continuously being developed and refined.
Special Note About WordPress
If you are new to WordPress, there is an important difference to realize: There are TWO different platforms of WordPress from the same company:
♦ WordPress.com is a completely free online platform that is extraordinarily easy to set up and use. However, that is not the WordPress that is being referred to in this article.
♦ WordPress.org (note the “.org”) is also free, but requires a web host and website address to build your website on (just like with Joomla). For the purpose of establishing a unique online identity that is completely under your own control, the WordPress.org version is the service that this article is referring to.
WordPress or Joomla: Which is Right for You?
Although the differences noted above, regarding whether you need a large sophisticated website (Joomla) or a simple blog (WordPress) have merit, the distinctions are less significant than in the past.
However, I’d say that WordPress is somewhat easier than Joomla to just simply get started publishing content right away.
But whether you go with Joomla or WordPress, ultimately you are going to want to customize it. If you have ready access to friends or associates who are already more familiar with one platform or the other, I’d go with the platform that your friends/associates are familiar with, because at certain times it can really speed up your website’s development to simply ask someone.
Having said that, both WordPress and Joomla have great online support communities, so you should be able to get any question answered relatively quickly.
Here’s an update on Nov 18: WordPress Wins CMS Award.