Joomla vs Drupal
This article will give out comparison between Joomla and Drupal – two of the leading cms solutions on internet. Both joomla and drupal are powering millions of personal and enterprise websites for it's safe design and rich templates/module resources. Because you can get most your work done by either solution, sometimes it's hard to determine which one to deal with. Here we compiled a list of pros and cons to both software including code structure, safety, hosting server compatibility and support resource etc. You will get more clear guidance in choosing the right one.
Joomla Introduction
Joomla(www.joomla.org) is one of the oldest open sourced content management solutions which is featured for easy and user friendly. You can use joomla platform for enterprise website, ecommerce site and content management site creation. Joomla comes with a bunch of modules and extensions to help with your website customization. Till today, there're over 1,5000 extensions in its galleries and still add hundreds of new ones per day.
Drupal Introduction
Drupal(www.drupal.org) is dedicated for content management purpose and provided under GPL license. You can use drupal for enterprise website and blog site creation as well as online contents management. Unlike all other content management system, you can assign different user roles via drupal so your data is well protected to avoid unthorized access.
Joomla vs Drupal -for Ease of use
Joomla wins for ease of use comparing to drupal. Joomla comes with powerful GUI design and easy navigations to each functions. You can customize the global configurations via mouse clicking and few typing from admin panel. Most features can be turned on/off directly by ajax control thus you don't have to go to code behind to make changes. From admin panel you are able to manage website templates, install/uninstall modules & extensions, monitor user activties, publish/unpublish articles. In a word, you can complete over 90% works there without having to touch the code behind.
Drupal is some kind complex to play around. Drupal is simple to navigate but you don't have too much options to make further customization. The drupal wins on code structure where you can configure different user roles so each user can only manage their own stuff but not affect others. It's a little hard to setup your site just by default installation because of the simplicity. You need to play a lot from code behind and make lots of changes to fulfill your needs. On this point, you have to be a developer or programmer in order to use drupal in the best way. Developers and make full use of the core platforms for any website creation.
Joomla vs Drupal – Online support resource
Joomla wins too for online resources. Joomla is supported by lots of communities from each corner in the world by multiple languages. It's available in English, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, French and more. You can find your local support community easily no matter where you're located. Besides all those supports, there're also lots of joomla modules/extensions to customize the platform for different website purpose. Most of the time, when you pick up a template, it has everything included so you don't have to search for extra extensions. For example if you find an ecommerce template it comes with products management, customer management and billing management. It's almost a full functional store so what you need to do is to upload products and setup payment gateways to accept online orders.
On the other hand, drupal is mainly supported by its official forum where most people are developers. They discuss on how to add custom codes for various functions because very limited tasks can be done through GUI operation. The module and template resources for drupal are also very limited so if you're not familiar coding, drupal would not be perfect choice for your website development.
Joomla vs Drupal – Hosting Server compatibility
Both joomla and drupal are php/mysql powered software thus most hosting servers should work properly. However, the latest Joomla(3.1) and Drupal(8) works with PHP5.3+ and Mysql5.0+ only. Means if you're going to take advantages of the newest software release, you must find a decent hosting provider who can meet up with all basic requirements. Who provides leading hosting solutions for joomla and drupal? We highly recommend WebhostingHub and Arvixe for small to large size website hosting.
Webhostinghub(www.webhostinghub.com) is leading in webserver speed and code security. Their max speed zone configuration on two datacenters will drive your website in most possible fast speed. They never oversell their server space so you can always expect the same performance on website unless you have outgrew their service. Only $3.99 to start with and you can enjoy 120% faster speed than most other shared hosting service!
Arvixe(www.arvixe.com) is your best choice if you require affordable and feature-rich hosting solution. Arvixe will provide you free domain registration and unlimited mysql databases. Their support genius have deeply optimized their hosting servers based joomla and drupal tech requirements and have done great pressure testing to make sure their servers be able to handle medium size websites in right direction. If we sign up arvixe 2 years upfront, we can enjoy 30% discount for only $2.8/mo!
Joomla vs Drupal – Best practice
We have created websites on both joomla and drupal platforms since 2007. Our sites vary from blog to enterprise site and ecommerce stores. From our personal experience, both solutions are great depends your management skills. Joomla is highly suggested if you would like to setup website in quick time and don't want to deal with lots of coding customization. Instead, if you're doing web development for clients and need to deal with various requirements, drupal would be perfect choice because you can edit code behind directly without having to start everything from beginning.