Do a search on Google for “Wordpress vs. Joomla” and you will receive in return almost 16,000,000 search results. Why? Because there has been an on going conversation amongst web designers and developers on which is the better content management system. As a web designer who is experienced in creating websites with both systems, I will try to give you some guidelines to make it easier for you to pick a cms.
System Overview
Typically when visitors want to learn how to make a website they immediately turn to Wordpress and it’s easy to understand why. Wordpress is widely known in the blogging community and the easiest way to put up your own website and and start publishing to the web with minimal technical know-how. Although Wordpress has the stigma of just being a “blogging tool”, recent versions have began to shed a new light on the popular content management system. Since Wordpress is already configured as a blog, it can be setup in a matter of minutes. Plus cool features like pinging services, multiple author profiles, trackbacks, image galleries, video/audio embedding and commenting are already built into the system.
Joomla has been labeled as the more powerful, perfect for businesses content management system, but has a steeper learning curve. Because it takes time to become a expert in navigating the Joomla administration area, it is widely thought that this system is best for developers. Joomla is not as user-friendly as Wordpress, but has a large capacity for development and customization. This content management system has all the same features as Wordpress but also includes a much more control over administrator and author rights for publishing.
Usability
Let’s face it. Wordpress is simpler to use than Joomla. The html editor, template editor and WYSIWYG make it a painless experience to add new content. Both systems work very similar, but Joomla can be a headache when trying to add simple functionality. Adding images, static content, frontpage items and organizing your information architecture is confusing. But the worst part is that in Joomla, if you create your sections, categories and content wrong, it’s not so easy fixing it after the fact.
Versatility
Joomla and Wordpress allow you to construct the site you want, because they are both completely customizable. Wordpress has been thought to be used only for blogging, but with the materialization of premium themes, you now have the ability to create more than just a blog style. Joomla also offers a blogging system within it core files, so not matter what type of website you want to build, either system will work just fine.
SEO
To sum up the differences between Joomla and Wordpress for SEO, Joomla default settings create outrageously nasty URLs, even worse titles and duplicate content everywhere. Wordpress is known for being much more search-engine friendly out-of-the-box and that makes Google happy! Despite the short comings of Joomla there are tons of extensions that can be integrating into the system to make it much more search-engine friendly.
My Final Thoughts
No matter which content management system you choose, Wordpress or Joomla, you can’t go wrong. Both systems allow you to create a website with little to no web experience, but are also powerful enough to expand to a website which can receive millions of unique visitors per day. The biggest deciding factor is you. If you don’t mind learning new things, being upset, but learning tons along the way, choose Joomla. If you just want to build a website and get started in minutes with a system that is user-friendly out-of-the-box, use Wordpress.