Over the past few weeks, I have been telling people about being able to use WordPress to get their site up and serve as the CMS running behind, and most of them will ask me to compare WordPress and Joomla.
I surfed on and found an superb article comparing WordPress to Joomla. The article in Mamboat emphasises more on the extendability and use of both systems. Eventually, Joomla may outperform WordPress as a CMS, but as a personal publishing platform, WordPress rules! Here’s what the author, Tash said:
… to compare these two software as a personal publishing system, I would say that WordPress built around writing content and publishing that content. Joomla from the beginning built around presentation of content – reflecting absolute meaning for CMS – Content Management System. Managing content in some nice way first and only then writing and publishing it.
I’ve personally tried both, and what I feel is that Joomla seems like a very complete system, like it comes out of the box able to build your menus, your weblinks, your “contact us” form, polls and everything, your content can be static or dynamic, and its great to use Joomla if you are familiar with all the great features. In addition to that, you can also extend Joomla with different components, mambot and modules. The downside is – for the Joomla newbie, its tough to pick up. I had to download a user guide and read it to understand how it works!
WordPress comes out of the box as a clean blogging platform, and getting started with publishing your blog posts is really intuitive. WordPress is extendable using plug-ins, and customizable using themes – and you can find a truckload of them from WordPress.org. However, again, for the newbie to start customizing it takes time. You don’t have a navigation menu at the top out of the box, even though its easy to find a theme that does that in the WordPress site.
My personal feel to this is – if you are going to be the person customizing and extending the system and then using it, I guess its easier to start with WordPress, because by the time you’ve learnt about the templates and the template tags, you are already ready to customize WordPress into whatever you want out of it. However, if you’ve got an expert to create and build the CMS base for you, and you are only the person managing the content, I still feel that Joomla does a better job.
I absolutely agree with the last post. You cannot begin to compare Joomla/Mambo and WordPress. Joomla is built to be much much more than just a blogging system! I’ve so far built about 6 different types of websites using Joomla. My sites now range from portals to a simple informational sites.
Thanks Muztagh. By the way, I’m not too sure about this, but is search engine optimization easy for Joomla? When I tried it Joomla the other time, it was all messy because I couldn’t seem to control much what each other components created.
The beginning process of Joomla is little more difficult compare to wordpress, but once you have learned it you will love it. The best thing about Joomla is you can treat each post(or page) individually so it will not look like template created similiar pages. There are many components and modules which can help you to make your pages more search engine friendly (such as search engine friendly URL creater).
Thanks Muztagh! Heh, I guess we all would take time to learn a new system… Hopefully one day I have the time to really try out optimizing a Joomla installation!
Kian Ann / Muztagh,
Do keep a look out for Joomla Singapore User Group.
We hope that with this new local group. Joomla Users in Singapore will have a new channel of support and knowledge base on information to spearhead the usage
and development of one of the World’s Award Wining CMS here to our shores.
Cheers..
What Muztagh said was true, when using wordpress, every pages have the same header and it make it look like a template. And in Joomla you can also change the header so it won’t look like a template. In WordPress there is a way to make a random header image or an image set only for the page to view, the way is you need to learn PHP for you to able to change things in WordPress template so it won’t look like a template.
Thanks Dodski,
Actually once you know PHP, it is all about diving down to the code level and then making the changes – but that is where the tough part begins.
I have used WordPress for numerous client sites and it really does a great job. It is so much more than a blogging platform now and you can find plugins for every type of functionality imaginable. You can also create different layouts and looks for each page on your site by creating “page templates” within your theme that will then show up in a drop down menu when creating a new page.
I lost a few hours of my life trying to use joomla. I couldn’t even figure out how to add a new page and make it show up. So I have been very reluctant to consider it for clients who are less tech-savvy than I am.
Content is king on the web because content is information. People love information and search engines want to make people happy. Feed the search engines good content and the search engines will bring you people, just like one big happy family. It’s easy-sort of.
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I have used both but my experience was not extensive. I created a Joomla site (BestDisneySites dot com) because I wanted to create a free Directory, and Joomla had the free extension to do that. I didn’t check to see if WordPress had plug-ins for that but I thought not. I can tell you setting up the Joomla site was not as easy as setting up a WordPress blog. I felt like I was in the cockpit of an airliner. It’s hard to figure out all the dials! But once you slog through the manuals, it gets easier.
Hahah.. Yes, Michelle, the learning curve for Joomla is not exactly for the faint hearted. Somehow I just feel the way Joomla sees “content” is weird. 😉
“Joomla or WordPress ? which is better?” Nowadays these questions make me crazy 🙄
Wordpress is more easy to use but not designed for everything,The biggest problem of joomla is finding theme, There are thousand free and beauty themes for wordpress,wordpress indexes from google easier than joomla.But joomla is unlimeted you can do what you want! The last centences makes joomla bigger,
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I have to agree with the consensus on this. WordPress blogs out of the box offer some awe-inspiring features but you do need some degree of knowledge to implement it effectively. The Joomla out of the box is much friendlier for the novice and can be implemented without much in the way of web savvy.
Good article. I actually just published an article myself on the similar topic. I compared Joomla! and WordPress from a usability point of view. My verdict is that WordPress beats Joomla! by a light year when it comes to usability.
http://www.playingwithwire.com/2009/03/open-source-and-usability-joomla-vs-wordpress/
I am building a portal and my first choice was Joomla because there are extension that just fits to the type of portal I would like to have. However now, I like a look and simplicity of a WordPress, because it is very complex to customize Joomla modules and the portal is heavy. I wounder if my portal would run faster with WordPress??
Me also think like same for Blogging WordPress is suprab tool and for great websites everyone should go for Joomla..
Thanks
each of that CMS has benefit and weakness. But I prefer joomla to build web to wordpress. Good comparison review. Nice posting. Thanks
😉 i checked the website that you listed showing the comparison for joomla and wordpress. but he just showing his personal view about joomla and nothing more than that. wordpress is good for beginners and easy to manage. once you started your first blog in wordpress, you never feel to use joomla since joomla is bit difficult to use for beginners but is very more powerful than wordpress. joomla is moslty used by only professional webmasters !
I’ve used both Joomla! and WordPress and hands down Joomla is the better option. Yes, Joomla is more of a learning curve, but I wanted more out of my site. It’s all about your needs but I strongly believe we all need a great platform with plenty of robust features and flexibility, Joomla! is just that.
I got the gist of Joomla! in 2 days but gave myself a 2 weeks to soak up the Joomla! world and as a result I had more at my disposal than I did with WordPress. WordPress is great but Joomla! is WONDERFUL. So give yourself a chance at taking your blog/site to the next level. If your blog/site is worth the time the create, it’s worth making it the wonderful!
Twitter.com/FollowSaien 😉
wordpress is better than joomla