Choosing the right Content Management System is something every blogger/webmaster must do before they create their website. Drupal and Joomla Hosting are two of the most popular choices and both have their benefits. Looking at the most important areas, functionality, ease of use and features, you can figure out which CMS is the right one for you.Many websites and blogs have posts specific to Joomla vs. Drupal and they all say basically the same thing. Most of them will tell you both of these CMS systems are lacking the features, support and ability of WordPress. This is simply because WordPress is leaps and bounds above both Drupal and Joomla in popularity, features, customization and every other category.Even though most bloggers and webmasters choose WordPress for their CMS needs, Drupal and Joomla are still useful. Whenever looking at Joomla vs. Drupal or any other comparison, you need to understand what each is best used for.
Drupal’s Best Uses
Companies, such as Best Buy, McDonalds, Yahoo, AT&T and many others use Drupal, but not for their main site. Yahoo uses it for their style guide, while Best Buy uses it for their mobile magazine. These are just a few examples of what it can be used for in different industries.
Another usage Drupal provides come in the form of education sites. Duke, Stanford and Rutgers all use Drupal for their mail website because of the look and how easy it is to manage. MIT uses it for their media lab, as well.
Many other huge sites and companies use Drupal because of what they can do with the system. It’s certainly not for everybody, but it fits with a small audience with the technical knowledge to get the most out of the system.
Joomla’s Best Uses
Joomla fits into a similar class as Drupal because it’s used by many education sites and it’s more technical than WordPress. The learning curve is steeper than what’s found with WordPress, but many say it’s worth it. Those in the photography industry might find the graphic capabilities as a better fit and many large companies use Joomla for part of their website, if not the entire thing.
Harvard uses Joomla for their Graduate School of Arts and Sciences website and the University of Notre Dame uses it for the Alliance for Catholic Education section. It’s not just found in the educational sector either with The Hill, which is a congressional newspaper, Linux, iTWire, MTV Greece and The Faison Spot all using Joomla for their websites.
Joomla may not have the popularity of WordPress, but it still fits with the technology sector and parts of the educational sector.
Drupal
Functionality
Drupal provides everything a webmaster needs to create a great-looking website without much hassle. With plenty of free designs to choose from and plug-ins to make the site more functional, you gain quite a bit of flexibility with the Drupal CMS.
Ease of Use
If you’re used to Blogger, TypePad or one of the many free platforms, you might find Drupal hard to use. What you gain in functionality and power with Drupal, you lose in the ease of use. However, Drupal isn’t exactly difficult to use. It will take some time to get used to using the system, but it doesn’t require programming knowledge.
Along with the Drupal Community, which is available free of charge, there are many tutorials, videos and articles floating around the web on the functions of the system. The easiest way to learn Drupal is to dive in and just “Google” anything you can’t figure out.
Features
Many features come with both Drupal 7 and Drupal 8. You can create a blog, use the image gallery, create an e-commerce store or even use the pressroom. You can also create multiple features through the exportables and modules. However, it’s important to note, beginners will find creating features with Drupal overwhelming and difficult. It requires a bit of programming knowledge, but if you take the time to figure out how to create features, you can customize your site with in many ways.
Joomla
Functionality
Joomla is all about management and provides many personal options within the user management area. With many other managers, such as the banner, language, contact and media managers, you gain plenty of functionality when you choose Joomla for your CMS.
Ease of Use
Some have said Joomla is the most powerful of the CMS choices out there, but just like Drupal, more power does mean it’s a little harder to use.
However, with Joomla, there are a ton of great resources to help someone with no experience. Although it’s not the easiest CMS on the planet to use, it gives you plenty of features, which are very easy to learn how to implement.
Features
Joomla provides a ton of great features, which allow you to easily access, edit, publish and administrate. You can use the media manager, banners, polls, search, categories, syndication, newsfeed, custom menus and so much more. Joomla has a ton of great custom features you can implement to make your site better.
Understanding the Nuts and Bolts of Drupal vs. Joomla
When you know WordPress isn’t the right choice and you’re trying to decide between Joomla and Drupal, it’s important to understand what this decision entails. Most users think Joomla is a little easier to use than Drupal, but Drupal is a little more popular. They are about the same when it comes to features, but most will tell you Joomla’s features are easier to implement.
If you plan to pay to have a site designed on either platform, expect to spend over $1,000 for a simple website. Drupal sites tend to be a little more expensive and both are far more expensive than WordPress sites. Joomla is more of a true CMs than Drupal, but you can still do about the same things with both.
It’s evident by looking at the larger websites and companies using both Joomla and Drupal, these can make a difference with one section of the site. Very few large sites use either CMS for a full design, but they do integrate it into a section of the site.
Our Recommendation between Joomla vs. Drupal
When looking at Joomla vs. Drupal, it really comes down to your needs. You may need Joomla for one part of your large website, but not for another. The same goes with Drupal. Most users of both systems find they are great for building websites or parts of websites, but lack on the blogging side. A full comparison of the features of Joomla and Drupal provides a clear winner, Joomla. The features of Joomla are plentiful and they are much easier to use than Drupal’s features.
Overall, Joomla is a better CMS system for most webmasters and bloggers than Drupal. However, if you’re advanced with plenty of experience with programming, you may find Drupal as a better fit for your project.
