To start a successful website you will need more than a good plan. You will also need to have a reliable platform to build it on, such as a CMS. There are to choose from, but two of the most popular among experts are and .
To decide which of these CMS platforms is the best for your site, we are going to compare Drupal vs Joomla using the following criteria:
- Easy to use
- site administration
- customization options
- Performance
- Security
Combined, these five factors should tell you everything you need to know to decide between the two options. So let’s see which is the best alternative for you, Drupal or Joomla!
Introduction to Drupal vs. Joomla
First of all, it is important to know that both Joomla and Joomla fall under the category of user-hosted CMS. That means they are open source software, which you can download and install on any server you want.
Open source CMSs are a great option for most websites because they offer extensive control over the look and functionality of the site. However, each platform offers different settings and options, so it can be difficult to choose between them.
In terms of popularity, Joomla is second only to WordPress. It’s a PHP-based CMS that allows you to create just about any type of website you want and gives you a lot of control when it comes to managing your site:
Drupal, on the other hand, is more of a niche option when it comes to CMS platforms. However, that doesn’t mean it’s a bad option. In fact, Drupal has a stellar reputation among web developers, and many large websites use this CMS due to its unique features:
What you can take away from this introduction is that although Joomla and Drupal share many of the same features, they are not aimed at the same audience. This will become apparent in the following sections, when we compare Drupal vs Joomla in more detail.
Drupal vs Joomla: Ease of Use
When working on a website, you’ll want to use a CMS that gives you a lot of flexibility without being too difficult to learn. In other words, if you have to read tutorials for weeks to learn how to use a CMS, then it might not be that easy to use after all.
The first thing we can say is that Joomla strikes an excellent balance between offering a wealth of features and making those features easy to use. This is evident as soon as you log in to the Joomla control panel:
There are many options to play with; however, it’s easy to figure out what each does. For example, if you click the tab articlesyou’ll see a list of all published content:
Similarly, if you click on the option to create a new article, a powerful text editor will appear. In our experience, Joomla offers one of the best editors around, and also includes many built-in search engine optimization (SEO) options:
Drupal’s panel, on the other hand, doesn’t look as elegant. At first glance, it offers fewer options than Joomla. However, once you start digging, you’ll notice that Drupal includes a staggering number of settings that you can play around with:
When it comes to creating new content, Drupal’s editor doesn’t offer as many text formatting options. This is because Drupal assumes that the user has at least a basic understanding of HTML, and can add as much formatting as they want on their own:
This is a recurring theme in Drupal. The platform assumes that you already have at least a basic understanding of web development. If you don’t have that experience, you’re going to have a hard time learning how to use this CMS. However, there are other positive aspects of Drupal’s design, which we’ll talk about shortly.
However, it is clear that Joomla has an advantage when it comes to ease of use. That is why we give the winner of the first round of Drupal vs Joomla to the latter platform.
Drupal vs Joomla: Site Administration
In addition to ease of use, you also want a CMS that gives you plenty of options to manage your website. That is, it should help you perform the daily tasks that you will have to deal with as a website owner.
Joomla, for example, offers you a large number of settings that you can customize. For example, you can adjust SEO, enable CAPTCHAs, configure your caching settings, configure multiple languages, and more:
The best part is that the platform gives you information about all of these settings, in case you’re not sure what each one does. To access that information, you just have to hover over a specific setting:
However, in all the site management options that Joomla offers, Drupal goes one step further. This CMS includes many advanced management options, including built-in error logging and . It also stores the searches that people perform on your site:
Overall, both platforms give you all the basics you need to run a professional site. However, on closer inspection, Drupal includes much deeper configuration options, which can be an advantage if this is not your first time building a website. With that in mind, this round of Drupal vs Joomla is won by the first platform.
Drupal vs Joomla: Customization Options
Depending on the CMS you use, it should be possible to create any type of website you want. However, for this to work in practice, your CMS should offer you a high level of customization.
Joomla and Drupal stand out when it comes to customization options, and we can tell you first hand that they are great options for just about any type of site. The secret behind the versatility of both platforms lies in their theme and module systems, as well as the fact that they are open source platforms.
With Joomla, you get access to what you can use to add more features to your website in minutes. In addition, many of them are free:
Joomla also includes a theme system. That means changing the style of your website is relatively simple, as long as you can find a theme you like. However, keep in mind that there is no official Joomla theme directory, so you will have to search for options on your own.
You might be surprised to learn that Drupal has even more module options. In fact, you can find in its official repository, a number only surpassed by WordPress:
In addition to that, the official Drupal page also features a wide collection of themes, with more than :
Aside from plugins and themes, we can tell you that both CMS are fully customizable at their core. If you have some web development experience, you should have no problem modifying its functionality. However, if you’re comfortable doing manual modifications, you’ll probably get more out of Drupal (since it offers more features by default).
Therefore, even though both platforms are highly customizable, Drupal has the edge over Joomla in this regard. And that is why she is the winner of this round of Drupal vs. Joomla.
Drupal vs. Joomla: Performance
On any type of website, performance is critical if you want to keep visitors happy. That means your pages have to load fast, and your website needs to adapt to all kinds of screens. Otherwise, your audience might go elsewhere to find the content they need.
There are many factors that can affect the performance of your site, but two of the most important are:
- The CMS you use.
- The platform and hosting plan you choose.
No two CMS are the same, so it stands to reason that some options are better from a performance standpoint than others. Joomla, for example, offers solid performance by default. This CMS also gives you the option to enable features like caching and , which can further improve load times.
As for Drupal, it has a reputation for being highly scalable and light on resources. That means your website should be able to handle more traffic before it starts to slow down due to a bottleneck. This is one of the reasons why Drupal is popular for large, high-traffic sites.
However, it is also important to understand that since we are talking about two open source platforms, there are many options that are in your hands to improve loading times. There are many plugins and extensions that you can use in both CMS, and that allow you to optimize the performance even more. You can also adjust various settings manually to increase speed. In other words, you can have a fast website using either platform.
Of course, your hosting provider also plays an important role. You’ll need to choose a plan that can keep up with your site’s traffic if you want to avoid speed drops. For example, a website that receives thousands of visitors a day will require something more robust than a shared hosting plan, such as .
Fortunately, as much as they are fully compatible with , which makes it easy to create a fast website. With all that in mind, we give this round of Drupal vs Joomla a tie.
Drupal vs. Joomla: Security
Most websites today store at least some amount of user information, even if end users are not fully aware of it. This means that choosing a secure CMS is more important than ever, as it can help you avoid situations that put your visitors’ information at risk.
Fortunately for you, both Joomla and Drupal are excellent in terms of security. To be transparent, both platforms in the past. However, it is something that would be expected since we are talking about two of the most popular CMS, and therefore they are frequent targets for attackers.
The good thing is that security vulnerabilities are usually detected and fixed quickly on both platforms. Overall, this constant back and forth helps keep both CMSs secure. In addition, both Joomla and Drupal allow you to modify the settings to further strengthen security. In addition, you will have access to many extensions that you can use to improve the security of your website on your own.
In short, both platforms are only as secure as the effort you put into protecting your website. You should be fairly protected if you use a strong password for your administrator account and keep your software up to date. Overall this round of Joomla vs Drupal is also a draw.
Advantages of Joomla
Joomla is a very powerful platform on its own, and this is evident when you take a look at the usage statistics. These are the main reasons to use it:
- It offers a great balance…
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