WordPress vs Joomla vs Drupal : Three Market-leading Content Management Systems Compared

What is Joomla?

Joomla is a popular and widely-used CMS solution that empowers you to build a website and a variety of business-specific online applications. The CMS runs flawlessly on most of the web servers without any issues. It is a user-friendly, extensive, and free, open-source CMS platform. Joomla is best suited for creating eCommerce and social networking sites. Though it is easy to use, you still need to have a basic understanding of technical skills to operate and maintain the CMS.

• It was first released in 2005 as a fork of the Mambo CMS by part of the Mambo development team.
• Governed by: Open Source Matters, Inc.
• The latest version: 3.9. 22
• Written in: PHP.

What is WordPress ?

Needless to say, WordPress is the world’s most popular free, open-source CMS solution. Initially, it was built for blogging purposes; however, by adding new features, it has emerged as the best CMS over the years. Today, it has emerged as the complete content management software. To start working on WordPress, you need to first install the software on a web server. WordPress is the premier choice for beginners because it is easy to use. It is a great platform for small-medium business websites, blogs, and small-scale eCommerce stores.

• It was first released in 2003 by Matt Mullenweg & Mike Little.
• Initially a blogging platform.
• Run by Automattic, Inc.
• Current version: 5.5. 1 “Eckstine”.
• Coding language: PHP.

What is Drupal ?

Drupal is the most robust, open-source web development platform that is used for creating an online content management system and user communities. Drupal CMS can be used for a variety of purposes ranging from a simple blog to large-scale, enterprise-level websites for large corporations. Drupal can efficiently handle high traffic sites and is adaptable to virtually any visual design. It offers a variety of plugins that allow you to edit root files and make a significant change to the CMS.

• It was first released in 2000 by Dries Buytaert.
• Initially built as a message board.
• Run by the Drupal Association.
• Current version: Drupal 9.0. 0.
• Underlying language: PHP.

Joomla

• Joomla offers a user-friendly site admin interface to manage huge chunks of content.
• Joomla is suitable for content-heavy websites.
• You can get a preview of the configuration before the installation process starts.
• In Joomla, most of the hosts offer installation using cPanel without requiring any technical skill.
• It maintains the right balance between ease of use and complexity of functionality.
• It is recommended for a multi-user environment, for example, university sites, government applications, etc.
• There are thousands of templates and themes available for Joomla development.
• Joomla CMS development can be easily migrated to a different web server.

WordPress

• It is easy to use and beginner-friendly.
• It offers a preinstalled plugin and template function.
• It offers over 55,000 plugins for almost all the functionalities.
• WordPress offers lots of customization options for a theme.
• It has the largest community that helps you find the right themes and plugins.
• Fast web development cycle.
• Enhancements every year.
• You get an option of WordPress hosting or self-hosting.
• It is SEO-friendly.
• The CMS offers backward compatibility.
• WordPress releases its patches regularly.
• WordPress Plugins offer excellent unofficial support along with the main help document.
• You can add multiple posts or pages on the site.
• Minimal install interface and quick installation process.
• Most of the hosts offer WordPress installation using cPanel with just a few clicks.

Joomla

• Drupal doesn’t require any specialized coding skills and abilities, like HTML coding.
• The CMS offers thousands of free modules.
• Drupal comes with both basic and advanced features.
• Drupal comes with ready-to-use professional-looking themes.
• It offers the cleanest core code and excellent modules that are loved by major search engines.
• A Drupal CMS-based website is more secure, unlike other CMS.
• You can find some excellent web developers available for hire.
• It helps in complex, multi-domain management.
• Drupal comes with plenty of built-in site management options.
• With Drupal, you can customize every aspect of your digital experience.

Joomla

• Built-in performance is very sluggish.
• It has relatively weak logging.
• Most of the useful plugins are paid plugins.
• The CMS is not developer-centric.
• It has a limited marketplace for extensions unlike Drupal and WordPress.
• It provides very few customizable options for enhancing features and functionalities.
• Plugins not always work optimally, so you need technical skills to fix.

WordPress

• Most of the third-party plugins which may not be updated; over 50,000 WordPress websites get hacked every year.
• Few plugins may not be compatible with the latest version of WordPress.
• Relatively weak core codebase, unlike other CMSes. However, it is improved every year.
• It does not offer built-in flexibility for more complex, sophisticated websites.
• WP core needs regular updates which may break your existing WordPress plugins.

Drupal

• Being a powerful CMS platform, Drupal is quite complicated to learn, unlike WordPress or Joomla.
• The CMS requires a web hosting service and domain name since it does not offer to hosted service.
• It takes a lot of time to set up if you’re using numerous modules.
• Having a basic knowledge of HTML and other web coding languages is a must.
• The updated extension and modules are not always compatible with the backend system.