One of the most crucial decisions you will make while building a website for your business is which Content management system (CMS) Should I choose among Drupal vs WordPress vs Joomla?
As a CMS is responsible for your overall web presence, it is imperative to choose the right one for your need. Before we begin the journey of finding the perfect CMS for your business, let’s check out the current market share of these three CMS for your web development.
Source: Web Technology Surveys
WordPress is the most used platform for building websites and starting a blog. The overall market share of WordPress is 63.5%.
The next is Joomla with a market share of 2.7%. The other competitor Drupal has a market share of 1.8%.
These were the popularity of the CMS among its user. But is it necessary that because WordPress is used widely so you should go for WordPress?
The answer is No! It is not necessary.
In this article, we will go through the comparison between Drupal, WordPress, and Joomla. In the end, you will know which one is best for your requirement.
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An introduction to Drupal, WordPress, and Joomla
What is WordPress?
WordPress is one of the most easy to use content management system. It is used for creating websites using drag and drop widgets and adding plug-ins as needed.
Who created WordPress?
Back in 2003, Matt Mullenweg and Mile little invented WordPress because existing blog software b2 catalog was terminated by its developers. WordPress is based on it but has gone through significant changes over the years.
When is WordPress Used?
If you think that you won’t be able to build a website because you don’t have coding skill, then forget that.
WordPress is a platform where you can build simple to business level website to a business level website. Not only this but by using its easy to use a plugin called WooCommerce, you can build your own online store.
WordPress has become the best asset for bloggers around the world.
What is Joomla?
Joomla is a free and open-source content management system that allows you to easily create and manage a dynamic website.
Who created Joomla?
Joomla is created by Open source Matters Inc and the Joomla development community.
When is Joomla Used?
Joomla helps you to create more complex sites with little to no coding knowledge required. Joomla is in many ways similar to WordPress and allows you to publish your content and expand your site’s functionality with extensions to improve the appearance of your site.
What is Drupal?
Like the other two, Drupal too is a free and open-source CMS with a large and supportive community.
Who created Drupal?
Dries Buytaert is the programmer and founder of this content management system.
When is Drupal used?
Drupal is mostly used for building and maintaining highly secured websites. Many governments and school websites that you don’t know are built with Drupal. However, unlike WordPress, and Joomla, Drupal needs a programming background to effectively create and manage the websites.
Now that you have a basic idea and knowledge about what these Content management systems are, without further ado, let’s start comparing these top CMSs.
Drupal vs WordPress vs Joomla: A Quick Comparison
| CMS | WordPress | Drupal | Joomla |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software | Free & Open Source | Free & Open Source | Free & Open Source |
| Market Share | 60.5% | 4.6 % | 6.6% |
| Ease of Use | Easier | Hardest | Hard |
| Installation | One-Click or Manual Installation Within 5 Minutes | One-Click or Manual Installation Within 10 Minutes | One-Click or Manual Installation Within 10 Minutes |
| Plug-ins & extensions | 55,000+ plugins | 39,000+ modules | 7500+ extensions(all) |
| Themes & templates | 5,000+ official Free Themes | 2500+ official | 950+ templates at Theme forest |
| Top Websites using Platform | Vogue India, TechCrunch, & more | U.S department of energy. University of Minnesota | Discover Magazine, NCA( National Crime agency |
| Pros | Simple to use, A large number of templates, SEO friendly | The most secure, Multi-language functionality | Large community, Customizable |
| Cons | More Vulnerable | Not user-friendly | Steep Learning curve |
| SEO friendly | Great | Better | Good |
| Maintenance Cost/month | 250$ | 1500$ | 500$ |
| Total Websites run on platform | 75 million | 1.1 million | 2.8 million |
| Latest Version | WordPress 5.2 | Drupal 8 | Joomla 3.9.5 |
Drupal vs WordPress vs Joomla: A Detailed Comparison
Learning Curve
WordPress:
WordPress is generally easy to pick up, even if you are new to handling CMS. It is user-friendly and intuitive for non-programmers looking to build a website from scratch.
The What you see is what you get (WYSIWYG) editor and drag and drop functionality has made WordPress the easiest CMS for blogger and businesses as well.
Besides, the vast community support makes it simple for users to solve any query regarding WordPress.
SEE ALSO: Want to Build Your Website in WORDPRESS?
Drupal:
As I said earlier, Drupal needs a programming background and is a bit complicated to learn. Actually, it’s not hard to use, it’s hard to learn. Once you get your hands on coding it will be a cake walk.
Joomla:
The installation process of Joomla is somewhat similar to WordPress and offers one-click installation. But the control panel which allows you to manage all the modules is not for beginners.
Hence, it will take little time to understand Joomla’s control panel. Though in a learning curve, Joomla falls between WordPress and Drupal.
Security
WordPress:
It is undoubtedly the most used platform for blogging and creating websites. But when it comes to security, due to its popularity it is more likely to attack by hackers.
Since users use different 3rd party plugins to extend the functionality of the site, there are high chances of getting malicious code from 3rd party firms.
However, there are some security plugins that you can install to increase your security measures.
Drupal:
Drupal mostly does not depend on the 3rd party plug-ins offers more secure websites as compared to other platforms.
Highly stable & secure source code and database encryption on various levels make Drupal an impenetrable CMS. Due to its security measures, Drupal is mostly used by government organization and schools where the protection of important data is a prime focus. In comparison to Drupal vs WordPress security, Drupal wins the race.
Joomla:
Joomla is somewhat the same as WordPress in security measures. You will have a quick response to patch up if you face a malicious attack.
There are lots of Joomla security extensions that are available to back up your site. You can protect Joomla installation with the help of experienced Joomla professionals.
SEE ALSO: Top Joomla Development Company
Performance
It’s your website’s performance that attracts users. If the performance of your website is sub-par and slow, users are likely to leave your site as they land on the page.
WordPress:
As described above in the article, WordPress is a preferable option for small to the big size of organizations. With customization in the theme and plug-ins WordPress gives the best performance and speed..
Drupal:
When it comes to performance, Drupal is smart enough to handle your website whenever it faces gridlock. Which makes Drupal the best option for large and heavy websites.
Joomla:
Joomla, on the other hand, is a lightweight and optimized content management system. It competes with Drupal as far as performance is concerned. The in-built performance-boosting feature allows your site to load quickly.
E-commerce
WordPress
If you are looking forward to building an eCommerce site then there is no other best platform than WordPress. Creating an eCommerce store on WordPress is as simple as selecting an eCommerce theme. You can build your online store specific of your industry with different payment processing system.
WooCommerce is the best plugin of WordPress for eCommerce development.
Drupal:
It would be advisable not to go for the Drupal, if you are building your own eCommerce website. It requires coding skills to add something important. eCommerce websites are dynamic and need an update from time to time. You will waste your hour and hours learning to manipulate modules rather than focusing on your customers.
Joomla
Same as Drupal, Joomla too is less intuitive backend interface. Joomla is best for massive, dynamic websites with lots of content, but it is no simple task to manage the products pages if they need to be updated regularly.
Click here to Create Your Successful Ecommerce Portal!
SEO Perspective
WordPress:
When it comes to SEO, WordPress is the favorite CMS for the Bloggers. Because the easy to use optimization gives newbies and non-technical person to easily optimize their page without much hassle.
The popular plugins like Yoast SEO makes your optimization efforts worthy. WordPress allows to create tags from the posts, optimize permalink structure and set the metadata for the pages and post.
So, even you are new to WordPress, you can optimize your blog or website for higher ranking.
Drupal:
Drupal has readily available SEO capability. It offers its users with several modules available for SEO activity and web statistics. It automatically produces customizable meta tags or creates title based Url Nodes for a website. Which is not present in Joomla and WordPress.
Joomla:
It requires care and attention in the starting but it has great potential to rank very high in case a website or blogs are set up properly.
Joomla has possible to turn on SEF URLs, which takes a step further by enabling URL writing. You can also decide whether to enable URL suffix or not. Besides, you can add global meta description, meta keywords, define meta tags and title tags at a page level.
But, SEO in Joomla is not user-friendly if you want to do proper SEO optimization then you will have to learn coding in Joomla properly.
Themes, Extensions, and Add-Ons
WordPress:
WordPress provides 5,000+ free themes and 55,000+ free plugins. It offers so much of themes to begin with, and more plugin to add unlimited functionality to your website.
Drupal:
Drupal offers you about 2500+ themes and 39,000 + modules. Almost all of the additional functionality you need is by default built into the main themes. Which eliminates the need to depend on the third-party plug-ins.
Drupal is more efficient in handling a large amount of data and content so consider Drupal as more flexible. But the catch here is; for custom CMS website development, you need professional web developer.
Joomla:
Joomla has similar numbers of templates and extensions as WordPress. There are extensions available related for creating your eCommerce store to email management. But the template and extension are not as robust as WordPress and Drupal
Top Websites Made in WordPress
Top Websites made In Drupal
Top Websites made in Joomla
Cost
WordPress:
When you are considering money flowing in the WordPress website then you must consider the cost of adding premium plugins.
Because not all the plugins are free there are some for that you need to pay for.
For example, E-commerce PlugIn WooCommerce is free but the extension like Payment always and other advanced features may cost you somewhere between $29 to $299.
Also, unless you have a server at home you need a cost to host your website which is common in other CMS also. Apart from that, if you need to add complex functionality, you may have to hire WordPress experts and that adds the cost in your total cost of WordPress.
Drupal:
Drupal was made for Security and faster performance. Hence, the hardware needed is less which ultimately saves the server cost. You might need some premium themes that also adds the cost in the overall Drupal website.
As Drupal is not suitable for beginners, you must have to consider the developer’s cost.
SEE ALSO: Choose Drupal For Your Next Web Development Project
Joomla:
The expenses to run Joomla is similar to WordPress. Other than that, you will need to pay for some premium extensions and templates. As we know that Joomla is a little bit tougher than WordPress so you might need a developer for your website. As a result; you must consider developer’s cost as well.
Concluding: Drupal vs WordPress vs Joomla
WordPress:
For a beginner or someone new to CMS world, WordPress is the best option you should go for. If you are a blogger, prefer to use WordPress for creating and managing your personal blog.
Whether you have a small business or large business you can make WordPress your CMS. SEO friendly, user-friendly and best for building E-commerce makes WordPress popular among other management systems.
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Drupal:
As explained earlier the security of Drupal is almost invulnerable. So if you are running a big organization, school or creating any government website where the security of data is vital, Drupal is undoubtedly the first choice. In addition, if you want your website to have a world-class performance you can go for Drupal.
Joomla:
Joomla falls somewhere between where both WordPress and Drupal meets. If your goal is to build your business website then Joomla can be your partner as a content management system. Although, It is still used by some popular brands. But it is less SEO friendly, so bloggers should not prefer Joomla.
So, these were the combat among top 3 CMS Systems. If you are still confused about choosing the right one from Drupal vs WordPress vs Joomla, feel free to contact our experts.
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