Drupal vs. Joomla: which one do you prefer?

**Iimitk** · Jul 16, 2008, 05:07

For those who have worked with both CMSs, which one is better based on your experience? What are the features that you liked in one CMS and didn't find in the other and vice versa?

I tend to like Drupal more because of its more flexible architecture but I would like to hear from you who have excellent experience with Joomla, which albeit is a great CMS, I think there's much bloat in it that makes it less flexible than Drupal.

Your opinion please.

**briansaxon** · Jul 16, 2008, 08:55

I use Drupal for all my blogs. I agree with your concern for bloat. Drupal has a better support system to boot.

**dvduval** · Jul 16, 2008, 13:34

If I had to pick right now, I think I would choose Drupal first. But I have flip flopped a little on this over the last couple of years.

**Yankee85** · Jul 16, 2008, 13:36

Joomla, because it has a lot, I mean a lot of plugins!

**Nick Burd** · Jul 16, 2008, 13:40

Joomla... I am currently learning 1.5 now but have used the previous version more.

I like 1.5 better so far.. much easier to use, although it does not have so many extensions like the previous, but I still perfer it.

**dalt** · Jul 17, 2008, 05:08

Joomla is much simpler to create a decent website than Drupal. Joomla has more offerings with extensions, templates, etc., and I find the support fine.

If you need to call on an expert to solve a problem, Drupal is don't go their territory. Drupal pros seem to charge triple the price of the Joomla pros. Ask yourself why is this. I use Joomla for the simplest of sites and don't understand this 'Bloat' mentality. After having a serious look at Drupal, I moved to Joomla and created over 60 websites with this cms in the last 12 months.

I don't see a good long term future for Drupal. Another good reason to go with Joomla.

**Iimitk** · Jul 19, 2008, 14:04

Originally Posted by dvduval

If I had to pick right now, I think I would choose Drupal first.

Why?

Originally Posted by dalt

Joomla is much simpler to create a decent website than Drupal. Joomla has more offerings with extensions, templates, etc., and I find the support fine.

I'm not looking for "simple" solutions becuase I know that the project I'm going to work on is not simple. Both Joomla & Drupal aren't really meant for developing "simple" websites. For small 20-30 pages kind of websites, I would rather go with Textpattern, WordPress or MODx.

Originally Posted by dalt

If you need to call on an expert to solve a problem, Drupal is don't go their territory. Drupal pros seem to charge triple the price of the Joomla pros. Ask yourself why is this.

I'm not planning to hire anybody for this project. I'm a developer and could write my own modules if I needed some functionality that isn't available. Why Drupal experts charge more than Joomla's? Well, if your assumption is correct, I guess the reason would be that Drupal has a more steepy learning curve than Joomla, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's less superior than Joomla. From what I understand, Drupal is more a content management framework than a content management system, which makes the inner workings of it more abstract and hence a little harder to learn and master.

Originally Posted by dalt

I use Joomla for the simplest of sites and don't understand this 'Bloat' mentality. After having a serious look at Drupal, I moved to Joomla and created over 60 websites with this cms in the last 12 months.

That's my point above exactly. I don't intend to use Drupal or Joomla for the "simplest" websites. Could you tell me how much effort does it take to design a completely new theme for Joomla from scratch?

Originally Posted by dalt

I don't see a good long term future for Drupal. Another good reason to go with Joomla.

Could you elaborate more?

**dalt** · Jul 20, 2008, 14:40

Originally Posted by simsim

Why?

Could you tell me how much effort does it take to design a completely new theme for Joomla from scratch?

Could you elaborate more?

How long is a piece of string? Some concepts are complex, some are simple.

I do the designs in photoshop and then when my client and/or I am happy with the concept, I then integrate this. I allow several days to a week to complete a large site. This includes the design + integration, adding content, relevant modules, etc.

In regards to Drupal long term. This is determined from what I read on the webmasterforums including Sitepoint. The fact that Joomla's development is proceeding at a fast rate and it's development base is expanding exponentially. If Drupal can't match this development and make itself more user friendly for newbies, it has been said it will die a slow death. I tend to agree with this statement.

**Yankee85** · Jul 20, 2008, 21:33

Drupal has some lack of features/plugins.

**dvduval** · Jul 21, 2008, 05:25

I would also encourage you to look at some example sites running each script, and see which sites you like best with regard to features, and overall how things are done. Also, might be worth checking to see how well their support forums seem to be helping the users. You can surely be successful using either script, and much depends on what you do with it.

**bcdxer** · Jul 21, 2008, 17:41

joomla - for its easy learning curve

**marcel** · Jul 23, 2008, 10:26

Joomla has a fake blog cms. You can't really call it a blog.
Drupal for me

**dvduval** · Jul 23, 2008, 10:43

I was reading that Drupal's next release will only be compatable with php 5.2 or higher. It's good to see they are staying current with technology.

**itseasyaspie** · Jul 23, 2008, 11:49

i coulnt get an answer from joomlas website what is actually did, i tried several times reading it and it doesnt really say that clearly. I will check out drupal tho.

**BrandonE** · Jul 23, 2008, 12:10

I vote for Drupal as well. Very flexible and powerful for developers. However there's more of a learning curve and can be overkill for simple projects.

IMO it's not the best for blogging as I would stick with WordPress.

**Iimitk** · Jul 23, 2008, 13:48

So the only reasons to use Joomla according to many here is just simplicity & lots of add-ons? What about core functionality? For example I know that Drupal has a much better access control system than Joomla, which is severely lacking behind in this regard, even in the new 1.5 version. What core functionality Joomla has that Drupal hasn't or is lacking behind Joomla?

I've been going through each CMS documentation and support forums, and I'm really impressed with Drupal's so far. Very well-organized and updated information.

The project I'm considering to build is for kind of a research center which has huge amount of data so information architecture is very crucial. I'm so far very impressed with Drupal's taxonomy feature; it's certainly would be great in such a case.

**Yankee85** · Jul 24, 2008, 21:56

Originally Posted by marcel

Joomla has a fake blog cms. You can't really call it a blog.
Drupal for me

fake? if you want a blog from joomla, you have a lot of choices in plugins

**Blue Star Ent.** · Jul 29, 2008, 10:10

After studying many of the different cms types, I chose Joomla! Sure it was a learning curve for me, but after that, no worries. LINK

**Iimitk** · Jul 29, 2008, 11:23

Why you chose Joomla over Drupal?

**mobyme** · Jul 29, 2008, 17:46

For what you have in mind I would definitely go the Drupal route if only for the taxonomy feature which makes even the most complicated information classification and retrieval an absolute cinch.

**Iimitk** · Jul 29, 2008, 19:53

Thanks Chris.

It's true, Drupal has a very strong ground regrading information architecture (taxonomies, controlled vocabularies, tagging systems, etc.), and this is why I think it's not meant for simple & flat websites.

Other than that, do you think Joomla has other things to win over Drupal that have a significant importance?

**mobyme** · Jul 30, 2008, 07:51

I cannot think of anything that can be done in Joomla that cannot be done in Drupal although it's fair to say that as a simple cms for flat sites Joomla comes into it's own and much of Drupal's huge possibilities become redundant. A handy tip is to install the JCE editor because that way you can work in Word at your leisure and then copy and paste when you have time by selecting the paste from Word button which posts clean html without smashing your style formatting to bits. Hope that makes sense.

**Yankee85** · Jul 30, 2008, 13:42

Joomla! Joomla!

**nukeemusn** · Aug 1, 2008, 13:06

I prefer Jroompal. Or Drupla

Honestly, for MY purposes, I prefer Joomla. But that's because there's an issue with the latest release of Drupal on some shared servers. When server load gets to high, sometimes the server clamps down on PHP. If this happens in the middle of a large DB query, it can corrupt the database and break the site.

It happened to me. So now I use Joomla becasue I'm using shared servers.

Drupal is not to be discounted though, though it's a little more work IMHO to keep the site having a unified look and feel.

**JakeJeck** · Aug 1, 2008, 22:37

Drupal. Views + CCK = endless possibilities.

Look at what all the people who have been registered here forever are recommending.

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