Which Content Management System suits better my needs: Drupal, Joomla or WordPress CMS?

Sunday, 21 March 2010 01:51

Which Content Management System suits better my needs?

5 September 2010 - 5/09/2010

The humble CMS can be an invaluable tool to any website owner as they provide them with a quick and easy to use means of sorting and manipulating data of all varieties in a timely fashion. The CMS (content management system) is like any other industry in that there are a number of products all of which are vying for dominance, and a select few that have managed to claw their way to the very top of the pile. In the CMS market, these are:

• Drupal
• Joomla
• WordPress

(Please note that I have placed them in alphabetical order for organizational effect, and this should not be interpreted as a reflection of either my own opinion, or the success that they enjoy in the general market). The purpose of this review is to consider each of the different CMS’s in turn, and critically analyze them.

Drupal has been widely recognized and commended as the most user friendly of all of the various content management systems as it provides the user with a remarkable variety of different options whilst at the same time ensuring that they do not become overwhelmed with the choices. In short, Drupal is the ideal system for both novices who want to test the water for plunging in, and for intermediate users who are looking to expand their comfort zone.

Another crucial strength of Drupal is the thriving community that is associated with it, and there are literally hundreds of websites scattered across the internet all of which go to a considerable amount of time to explain in intricate detail the various functions on offer.

The downside is that Drupal is very much designer orientated meaning that if you struggle to process code, and or find it tedious then Drupal is not the best option for you. Drupal also requires a considerable amount of fine tuning on the part of the developer as well.

Joomla can be readily used by coders, admins and graphic designers with little fuss or drama. This is the main reason why Joomla is the most used content management system in present.

Just like Drupal there is a very strong enclave present which will be more than happy to assist you where and when possible with any questions or issues you may have. Joomla has also been in a constant state of improvement for the last few years meaning that it is so much more robust and portable indeed.

However, the drawbacks of Joomla is that it is not nearly as powerful or far reaching as Drupal is.

Wordpress has been widely regarded as the CMS for blogging and little else, and so whilst it performs exceptionally well within this narrow niche, the same cannot be said for other activities and indeed, there has been many reports that the various patches and updates released for it have brought additional problems. Many of the official updates for Wordpress have been riddled with bugs making life even more difficult and challenging for the long suffering CMS user!

As a final conclusion, if you intend to build a blog, Wordpress is the ideal content management system to use. If you want to build a more complex website with a nice design, Joomla should be the CMS you choose even if you are an experienced web developer or not. If you website will have more advanced functions, like a shopping cart for example, Drupal is the best choice you can make.

For e-commerce websites, beside Drupal e-commerce, there are some more other great content management systems you can use. Some of them are osCommerce, Zen-Cart, Magento.

5 September 2010 - 5/09/2010

---

Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites