Joomla or WordPress, Which is Better? 25 items Compared

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39 Responses to “Joomla or WordPress, Which is Better? 25 items Compared”

1. 

   Jon Lackey @zuno March 2, 2009 at 4:31 pm #

   Wow, community energy goes to WordPress??? I’m going to have to disagree with that one. You must not know Amy Stephen or Andrew Eddie :)

   I do find it kind of hard to compare the two. I see Joomla as much more of a framework to build on as where WordPress just gets your content out there. ( That’s a pretty general statement I know )

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   Adria Reply:
   March 2nd, 2009 at 11:20 pm

   Jon,

   Their names don’t ring a bell in my mind but that doesn’t discount their leadership, inspiration and energy they’ve put towards the Joomla community. What I’m saying is there is massive appeal in WordPress and many people who have become involved with WordPress have a different “feel” to them than the Joomla people. WordPress people feel “warm and fuzzy” to me while Joomla people seem “analytical and logical”. This is just my take on it.

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2. 

   Bernard March 2, 2009 at 4:56 pm #

   I tend to think Joomla is a CMS with blogging features and WordPress is a Blogging tool with a lot of CMS features, so there should’t really be any comparison.

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   Adria Reply:
   March 2nd, 2009 at 11:23 pm

   Bernard,

   This is the link that change my mind 14+ Awesome WordPress-powered sites

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3. 

   @compassdesign March 2, 2009 at 5:12 pm #

   WordPress vs Joomla, some disheartening misconceptions http://tinyurl.com/bxgzlx

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4. 

   @adriarichards March 2, 2009 at 7:47 pm #

   video is up! Joomla or WordPress, Which is Better? 20 items Compared http://tinyurl.com/bxgzlx

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5. 

   Stuart Thompson March 2, 2009 at 8:14 pm #

   Nice article. I haven’t ever used Joomla but I do know 2 people who have converted from Joomla to WordPress. At the time I remember them citing that they just weren’t using enough Joomla features to warrant it and had problems with some remotely hosted upgrades. I think a lot of it comes down to the software that you’re looking for and what you hope to achieve with it.

   For most people new to the web, I would highly recommend WordPress as I have witnessed several success cases with newbies to blogging who have been up and running in a single night with the easy to use interface. So far hosting WordPress myself has been trouble free, which is more than I can say for either DasBlog or SubText, both of which I used for over a year. When my SubText upgrade to 2,0 went south badly, I made the decision to switch to WordPress. Have been happily blogging there ever since.

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6. 

   @ImageArts March 3, 2009 at 3:21 am #

   RT @adriarichards: video is up! Joomla or WordPress, Which is Better? 20 items Compared http://tinyurl.com/bxgzlx or http://ow.ly/ALj

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7. 

   @AmyStephen March 3, 2009 at 11:05 am #

   Good Video-Adria has points (picks WP) @adriarichards video is up! Joomla or WordPress, Which is Better? http://tinyurl.com/bxgzlx

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8. 

   @JoeJoomla March 3, 2009 at 11:15 am #

   RT @AmyStephen: Joomla or WordPress, Which is Better? http://tinyurl.com/bxgzlx – "Wordpress people feel warm and fuzzy" – Great attribute!

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9. 

   Dave Hall March 5, 2009 at 6:48 am #

   The only mention drupal gets is in the google hit count – I am disappointed.

   I know we agree to disagree on this, but I feel the need to point it out to your readers.

   WordPress is primarily a blogging engine with some broader CMS plugins thrown in. Joomla is a CMS. You should comapre apples to apples.

   Here is my quick run down:
   1. End user experience – Tie (if you mean browsers of the site not admins)
   2. Ease of upgrades – Drupal – download code and run a script
   3. Editing content by end users – Drupal
   4. Design flexibility – Drupal – core architecture is a lot nicer
   5. Pull in content from other sites – Drupal – aggregator module in core
   6. Version control, roll back – Drupal – versioning built into core
   7. Backend navigation – Hard to say – drupal with rootcandy theme is good
   8. Ease of installation – Drupal 6 – simple wizard
   9. Size of community – Don’t have stats
   10. Popularity – ditto
   11. Active development – Drupal is very active moving towards D7 release
   12. Schedule content to appear – Joomla (drupal requires contrib module)
   13. Rotating content – Joomla
   14. Menus – Drupal
   15. Modules, Plugins, Extensions, Components – Drupal – I am sure they offer multiple kitch sinks
   16. Multiple Authors – Drupal any user can be a an author – full role based ACLs in core
   17. Search functions – Drupal I find Joomla sites slow when searching
   18. Administration – Drupal
   19. Scalability – Drupal – massive site use drupal
   20. SEO – Drupal – SEO in core

   Maybe you could do a more independent 3 way comparison

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10. 

    Adria March 5, 2009 at 10:40 am #

    Dave,

    Thanks for the comment on Drupal. The thing is, the last time I installed Drupal was August 2008. Before that, 2006. In both cases, I didn’t do much past the basic install so I don’t feel I have a working knowledge of Drupal and it would be unfair to compare it.

    Joomla I know well, WordPress I know well. Eventually I do need to find time to dig into Drupal.

    You do have to admit that for front end design, Drupal is pretty boring, eh?

    I disagree that WordPress is only a blogging platform. Most of the business owners I work with simply want to use Joomla to update their own content. Most of them find the navigation, menu system, module positions and file management confusing. This is why WordPress won several items. Joomla is just too fancy pants for most people. Now, if a webmaster is managing the site, Joomla is awesome.

    Thanks for stopping and thanks for all your awesome feedback last year!

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11. 

    ciphun March 14, 2009 at 9:25 am #

    Adria:

    Just came across your site, and noticed this sentence, which you (as you would say) have a word that might not be spelled well, ;p:

    Two well know CMS’s are Joomla and WordPress. Today, let’s compare them side by side and see who is truly “the best”

    The word in the sentence is “know”, in this your sentence, it should be “known”.

    That’s all. Your site is very informative, I was interested in using Joomla and didn’t realize that WordPress was a comparable system, I solely thought of it as blogging software, not as a full system for CSM. Thank you for the comparison, watching the video now.

    Andre

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12. 

    RaiulBaztepo March 28, 2009 at 6:03 pm #

    Hello!
    Very Interesting post! Thank you for such interesting resource!
    PS: Sorry for my bad english, I’v just started to learn this language ;)
    See you!
    Your, Raiul Baztepo

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13. 

    Anthony April 19, 2009 at 10:06 am #

    Enjoyed the piece, and agree wholeheartedly. I’ve been a Joomla fan since the beginning (I was originally using Mambo). I was a quasi WP fan, up until the release of 2.6. That version became a game changer . When evaluating projects I found myself recommending WP more and more. I Didn’t realize this until looking at the body of work I had done. I think it’s important to understand that Joomla is an incredible project, and can be used a variety of ways, but the versatility..and ease of use/training of WordPress just makes it a common sense choice for most content driven sites.

    Great Post/Vid

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14. 

    Sam Lowel July 6, 2009 at 7:38 am #

    Thanks for the post, i installed both wordpress and joomla and found that wordpress is easy to work with since im new to cms world and also it gives ideas if you are a creative person..
    with joomla and all its plugins and stuff its almost ready to rock your website but also it will slow it down!
    so after a month of trying both and working with both i give up on joomla and will work with wp but must keep up with security stuff and keep both eyes open
    best regards

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15. 

    Joanne Glasspoole September 29, 2009 at 7:19 pm #

    I will admit upfront that I’m biased toward Joomla, because that’s what I specialize in :) That said, I don’t see Joomla and WordPress as competitors–not like Joomla and Drupal. Also, most of the features you compared above, Joomla does too–maybe just not out of the box. In the end, which CMS is used should be based on project requirements versus biases, because all three are Open Source, popular and have active communities. Believe me, I am not afraid to recommend WordPress or Drupal if I think they’re a better fit than Joomla. It’s better to lose a prospect than to have an unhappy client.

    Adria, You have nice rankings for this article. You should rewrite it and substantiate your claims with hard numbers (statistics). I bet it would be a very popular article on the ‘Net.

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16. 

    Storage Shed Plans October 6, 2009 at 9:58 am #

    Actually, maybe I won’t use Joomla next time

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17. 

    hanum October 23, 2009 at 1:20 am #

    each of that CMS has benefit and weakness. But I prefer joomla to build web to wordpress. Good comparison review. Nice posting. Thank’s

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18. 

    Demaster October 26, 2009 at 9:39 pm #

    First of all…I wish to thank Adria for taking the time to put this subject out because I think it is very important. I’m pretty new to web development, but I have a programmer history and work as a network engineer. That makes me a pretty techie oriented guy. I have to agree with Adria…because I’m techie oriented…I think I prefer to use Joomla. I’ve been using WordPress for a while now too, and I must say that the backend that you use has to be based on the client and the job outcome. The two don’t truly compare. They each have attributes that are amazing, and I’ll use either one depending on the client and the site that I’m building. I’ve tried to use Drupal many times, and there is one site that I must use Drupal for on a regular basis. Drupal just doesn’t work for me and my style at all. Once again…thanks Adria

    Demaster

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19. 

    5starshop October 29, 2009 at 7:45 am #

    wow what a great discussion here. I was thinking of using wordpress now I am having a second thought. Thanks.

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20. 

    Stephen November 22, 2009 at 4:51 pm #

    I developed a very extensive site in iWeb but have outgrown that platform, although it is an amazing tool for beginners. Now looking for the right CMS for me. In my investigations, I ran into your site and listened to the whole video carefully. I do appreciate the information, but in my opinion you are bias toward WP as can be seen by your facial expressions and tone of voice. My investigations lead me to see WP as a younger, still immature sibling of Joomla. Google likes it because it is simplistic, and that makes it easier and faster to evaluate. At this point, I am moving toward integrating both, i.e. Joomla for website and WP for its blog. I would just caution you to be more objective and more aware of your bias. Thanks.

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    adriarichards Reply:
    November 22nd, 2009 at 5:57 pm

    Stephen,

    Thank you for your comment. I've been using Joomla since 2005 and used
    Mambo before that (foundation CMS of Joomla) so that means I've been using,
    installing, configuring and supporting Joomla for 5 years.

    It's complex and bulky compared to WordPress. It's less secure as well.
    Millions more people are loving the easy and beauty of WordPress.

    WordPress is a better website platform.

    Maybe I'll do another review on the two in January.

    Thanks for your warning on being “more objective”, lol. I define the
    requirements of a project based on the needs of my clients vs what I am
    comfortable with.

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21. 

    itjobs1 December 8, 2009 at 12:32 pm #

    Hello,
    Very Interesting post! Thank you for such interesting resource!
    http://www.Staffingpower.com

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22. 

    reikoarashi December 19, 2009 at 8:59 pm #

    I agree with everyone saying they're different but my issue is that i'm a former wordpress user dealing with the fact my wordpress install had gotten hacked into – eaten to bits and securley malware infected… Why? Probably cause i was target to being on a godaddy host? 8D. I may try this “DISQUS” thing on my new joomla install but joomla can get rendered useless if all you have is no cash and all freebie plugins.. what happened to OPEN SOURCE?

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    thelawprofessor Reply:
    December 23rd, 2009 at 8:21 pm

    Drupal should not even be mentioned in the same breath as WordPress and Joomla and credibility is gone once you say it is an easier install than both. Drupal is a development framework that is only useful if you have real money to invest in PHP developers. Without them, everything looks like it's in Drupal and that is not a compliment.

    Joomla is nice looking and has a great deal of flexibility. But it also has a ton of mediocre modules and a very poor method of SEO. It finally is improved but it still spits out some very ugly looking URLs. It is much more difficult to manage content and has a higher learning curve but is also far more powerful when it comes to control over how to place and use content. Some things are lame brained (like requiring a bot to be written to enable authors to have links to their profile/articles.) WordPress seems to be, by far, the most search engine optimized, much easier to use although it does lack in ease of extensibility in several ways. The inability to remove the “category” slug for 2 level categories is absurd (and don't point me to any articles how to do it because NONE of them work.)

    I look at them as follows. For industrial sites with money that require a lot of custom work, I might consider Drupal. Joomla is good for quick and dirty sites for businesses that don't require SEO but need content flexibility and layout. WordPresss is for the rest and easiest to get started too.

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    adriarichards Reply:
    December 23rd, 2009 at 8:29 pm

    Thank you for your feedback there. You sound sort of upset. Will you be
    attending The CMSExpo in Chicago for 2010 or would your head just explode?

    *smile*

    There are over 160 recognized dog breeds in the AKC registry. These dogs
    have been bred for specific purposes or in some cases, no purpose other than
    to be a great lapdog (See http://bit.ly/blueythedog)

    Same goes for CMS solutions like Joomla, WordPress and Drupal.

    Everyone has to start somewhere learning about their next dog and this show
    gives folks a starting point for content management systems.

    Hope you feel a little less feisty now!

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23. 

    reikoarashi December 20, 2009 at 2:59 am #

    I agree with everyone saying they're different but my issue is that i'm a former wordpress user dealing with the fact my wordpress install had gotten hacked into – eaten to bits and securley malware infected… Why? Probably cause i was target to being on a godaddy host? 8D. I may try this “DISQUS” thing on my new joomla install but joomla can get rendered useless if all you have is no cash and all freebie plugins.. what happened to OPEN SOURCE?

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24. 

    RBellefond July 25, 2010 at 9:28 am #

    That was a very interesting post as I am in the process of having my website, http://www.rbdata.com redone so that it looks nice and is easier to navigate but do not want to lose my current seo rankings. My current website is done in FrontPage. I have around 90 webpages on my website and and over 1,000 backlinks.

    It was essential to me to keep exactly the same url names including the .htm extension. Anyhow, another item that you might want to put on your list is it is my understanding that you can do this with WordPress with a plugin but you cannot do this with Joomla. If I am mistaken please let me know.

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25. 

    TianjinExpats July 29, 2010 at 11:25 am #

    From what I've experienced, WordPress is great if you have a blog or a primarily content-driven site. Drupal is great if you have patience and want to build a truly powerful web solution. Joomla is good if you want to get up something fast which has a lot of extension options.

    Of the 3, I probably have the most experience with Joomla, as I've been using it for about 3 years, and have about 5 sites running on it. After 3 years of using it, I have to admit that frustration is setting in. My biggest complaint with Joomla is that there are thousands of extensions that are completely and utterly worthless, broken, or out of date. If you want anything that has features and works properly, you have to pay for it. Thus, you end up getting nickel and dimed for every single plugin, module, or extension on your site, and even then, most of them will end up with serious bugs or glitches that bring down the user experience. Also, pretty much every extension you install will have it's own annoying set of CSS files, themes, and hardcoded styles which clash with one another. It is damn near impossible to get a site in Joomla that looks and feels like an integrated website, rather than a bunch of separate php scripts cobbled together. Lastly, the default permissions system is extremely limited, and getting around those limits is a royal pain in the ass. I am told this will change with 1.6, but I'm worried that this will necessitate yet another round of painful upgrades where I once again have to fork out tons of money for half baked products. Before I used Joomla, I was using MD-Pro for my main site. The community was absolutely pathetic compared to Joomla, but they had certain things working better with their tiny community 4 years ago that Joomla today still can't produce, (IE, a bug free, integrated forum with advanced permissions).

    WordPress, I have used somewhat, but it still seems somewhat limited if you are looking to build a community website or something with interaction that goes beyond blogs and comments. Also, nearly every person I know who has a wordpress site has had their site hacked at least once, if not on multiple occasions. Perhaps this is due to the fact that wordpress tends to attract novice users who don't monitor their sites very much, but it has made me a bit worried about using it again.

    Drupal, to me, is the future. That said, it isn't for everyone. The learning curve is huge, and putting together a site with all the features of an advanced Joomla site can take months, where Joomla takes days to weeks. However, the Drupal site will end up being better in almost every way. You can customize it to your liking, you can set up the permissions to restrict or permit whatever you want, and rather than installing a bunch of extensions to do things on your site, (ie a forum, calendar, gallery, etc), you use the drupal modules like tools to build your own. And the scary thing is, pretty much every module both works well and is free. It is an incredibly liberating experience, coming from someone who has spent the last 3 years trying to confine my community to the limitations of Joomla's extensions. The added bonus is that, for those willing to take the time to build a site properly, you are able to really individualize the look, feel, and most importantly, the function of the site. In Joomla and WP, I can look at pretty much any site and figure out in 5 minutes how they built it. Usually, it goes something like “used x forum extension, y gallery component, and z for their calendar”, pretty much just uploading and enabling the software without extensive configuration or customization. Looking at the Drupal showcase websites, I could look at some of them for months and still not fathom how they got their site to do what they did. While not everything in drupal is perfect, I think that in the future, I can't see myself going back to another CMS unless I need something done quickly.

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26. 

    Karolsteve2 August 29, 2010 at 5:04 pm #

    joomla is for people who know what they are doing. Where as wordpress is for any Tom, Dick and Harry.

    Drupal can be same with joomla, But joomla still is a way much better content-management solution that either of the two.

    Forget the plugins, forget the extensions. Joomla can and will beat the other two competitors. SEO wise, joomla also outdo's the others. You just have to know what you are doing. Hence i say this blog post is very misleading

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27. 

    Woodworking project plans September 27, 2010 at 5:52 am #

    I've tried to use Drupal many times, and there is one site that I must use Drupal for on a regular basis. Drupal just doesn't work for me and my style at all.

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28. 

    Reply SMS Hindi December 20, 2010 at 7:56 am #

    Hi, I am not too familiar with Joomla. How do you build a Joomla site and incorporate a Word Press blog into it. I have played with Artisteer creating a Joomla site and it does appear to be fairly easy. I like the design and content I can create withJoomla.

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29. 

    income tax calculator February 11, 2011 at 4:58 pm #

    This is a really great comparison article!

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30. 

    Online Shopping March 1, 2011 at 10:39 am #

    I am likely to believe Joomla is a CMS with blogging features and WordPress is a Blogging apparatus with a lot of CMS features, so there shouldn’t actually be any assessment.

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31. 

    Mark LaPointe April 7, 2011 at 2:35 pm #

    I recently spent a month learning Joomla 1.5 & 1.6, using two online manuals and even bought a book before I gave it up. Too many bugs with the extensions. I asked myself why I should be digging through PHP trying to fix things when CMS is supposed to be the the easy way to build a website! Maybe it was because 1.6 is still new. Then I tried WordPress 3.1, as the free service from WordPress.org, spent about a quarter of the time on it that I spent on Joomla, and loved it! The plugins worked more often, and when they didn’t then I would write a forum complaint and the developers would get right on it and e-mail me that they had patched it. WordPress cannot do as much as Joomla, but more options made Joomla more complex, for me the developer, and also for the end user I was trying to train on how to use the website I made. I think the difference is that paid professionals at WordPress.com are keepting tabs on their free service at WordPress.org and they have a vested interest in the user experience of both translating into street cred for the paid service. It is kept simple and nearly bug free.

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    Adria Reply:
    April 7th, 2011 at 2:50 pm

    @Mark LaPointe,

    You have hit on the #1 reason why WordPress outranks Joomla. It’s easier and faster to learn and when you explore sites like http://welovewp.com, you can see just how beautiful WordPress can be!

    thanks for sharing your experience!

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32. 

    Dinoraptor101 April 11, 2011 at 5:45 am #

    Thank you very much for your comparison .. this is very useful and what I was looking for since morning.

    I decided to use Joomla for the site base and wordpress for blogging and more end-user friendly designs.. :) thanks again

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33. 

    Charla October 16, 2011 at 3:41 am #

    All of my quetnsios settled-thanks!

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