wordpress vs. joomla?

[jkiley]

I want to build a new site, which one should I pick? wordpress or joomla? I don't know either, so I want to pick one where there is more support.

thanks

[Louise Green]

It depends on what you want the site to do.. I usually stick with Wordpress because it's easy to use, takes 30 seconds to install, easy to modify / theme, tons of great plugins and add ons for it, and it's very search engine friendly.

Although I'm sure the same can be said for Joomla if I took the time to really explore it.

For me Wordpress is pretty much set to go straight out of the box.

[rlpruitt]

I'm a WordPress bigot, so WordPress would have to be my short answer.

Besides, I've never found a free Joomla template that I really like - whereas there are great looking, free WordPress themes all over the internet.

However, Joomla does have some fancy features that you may be interested in. And its modularity is great for creating more "flexible" websites so...

If you're not technical, forget Joomla and go with WordPress.

If you are technical, then go with WordPress if you're in a hurry to get started. But you'll probably want to look at Joomla as time goes on.

Ralph

[freudianslip27]

If you are just starting out, WordPress hands down. It is WIDELY supported, loved by the search engines, and easy to use.

Joomla, is a bit more powerful, but it has quite a learning curve. It is pretty deep and you can do alot, and like wordpress it is widely supported, but trust me it is not easy!

Don't get me wrong, wordpress is very robust.


Matt

[NickArnold]

There isn't an answer for this question, because it really would depend on what sort of website you wanted.

Personally I'm a Joomla head, but of course i can see the advantages of wordpress for simple blogs or websites, especially as wordpress is easier to get your head around when you're getting started.

[John Cabral]

I have not used WP but was thinking of looking into it for one of my sites. I have one site slectyourprice.com that I am playing around with B2Evolution and I have fitbodynews.com using Joomla.

I did not find Joomla all that hard to install, well that was because it was done from my cPanel but I have installed B2evolution which was not that bad.

Still deciding which one to stay with.

Good luck on which ever you decide.

[BWM]

As most of the answers above... it really depends for what type of site you will use it.

WP is much easier and supportive.
Joomla can be a pain if you are limited with time but it have some awesome features.
keep in mind that there is a major risk of getting joomla site hacked, so I suggest to start with very good hosting (not shared)

[sbucciarel]

Joomla can create some amazing sites. I love it. That being said ... there was a pretty big learning curve for me to get good at Joomla. Wordpress is simple and support can be found all over. Don't get me wrong ... I love Wordpress too ... they are two very different systems.

[InternetMarketingIQ]

Different beasts. I use both. You may want to learn both. WordPress is a bit easier to learn. Joomla is more powerful for manipulating data. For example with Joomla you can organize your posts in any order very easily. With WordPress they get time stamped and it's not so easy to keep certain posts in front of others.

JoomlaShack has some great Joomla Templates a few of which are free like "Jamba".

Joomla is not good for commenting so if you want user interaction then I'd stick to WordPress.

I also find that WordPress is a bit easier to keep up to date. But there are some terrific looking templates for both.

I find it amusing when people complain there are not enough good "free" anything. Templates are so cheap. Buy a multi-site license and it costs very little to have a professional designed site you can replicate.

Why do people expect to make money with free stuff? And if it's only a few dollars to have a really sharp looking website vs a free hack that doesn't do what you want then why not? If you want to make money buy the right tool.

One word of caution if you are using Joomla... pick a host that supports it fully. Things like "Global Register" can be annoying if your host has them configured wrong and you get installation errors.

[kindsvater]

I've used them both - but now almost exclusively use WordPress. It can't be said that one platform is always better than another as it depends on what you want to do with your site. But generally speaking, I'd say right now WordPress is a far more flexible, easier, and better platform.

[Joe Giannetti]

wordpress is more widely used.....

[burnsai]

Joomla is great if you're making a very simple site. But if you're trying to do anything complicated then prepare to spend alot of late evenings trying to work out the bugs.

[blur]

Do yourself a favor - give drupal a shot. There is a learning curve (not much more than wordpress for basic posting) but it's sooo much more extendable..er...scalable for when your sites grow.

[Revolves]

If this is going to be your first site then give CMS like wordpress, drupal and modx a look.

[shaddai]

I've run all three of them.

Joomla-will do almost anything you want, but it is complicated to learn at first. It can be finicky about server settings. Themes all over the place.

Wordpress-user friendly, easy to learn, just works. Again, themes all over the place.

Drupal-about in the middle of the two for a new user. Doesn't have a 'back end' and I've never ran into server issues. Themes are around if you look....drupal seems to be gaining support all the time too.

Just my $.02

[Patrick Mader]

i would pick up wordpress...it´s just easy... many plugins are around and many people know it so you can get many help if you have questions...

cheers,

Patrick

[AceHazel]

I've used Joomla before and it's quite complicated yet was very good.

I was introduced to wordpress and I really like it.

[greff]

Joomla can work very well for SEO. Not sure why. Maybe because Google doesn't have many rules against it?

When I tried to get my mind around Joomla code my mind kinda melted.

I'll take Wordpress any day, though if someone were to show us that Joomla really is a better SEO vehicle, then maybe I'd better take a second look.

[mscopeland]

Like a couple of people in here mentioned, it's not a simple answer.

Yea it's easy to install. Less than 5 min if your host uses cPanel as it's generally available in Fantastico as a server side install.

The thing is, what do you want the end result of your site to be. You really must know what you're perfect site would be like, then choose the engine that wiill do what you want.

I have both Joomla and Wordpress, and even have been messing around with Elgg.

I mean look at Internet Marketer Magazine that is actually done on wordpress. So there's a lot you can do with it. Customizations aren't that expensive and there are TONS of user supported themes, plugins and widgets.

I guess the same goes with Joomla too.

If you could tell us a little more about what you want your site to DO then we'll have a better feel for the engine.

Functionality is the key here, so make sure the engine is able to provide the functionality you seek from the start rather than switching engines in the middle.

I started a site with Joomla, it has forums, community, live chat, instant messaging, videos and all the bells and whistles. BIG PROBLEM though... it's too much. While that's what I wanted the site to end up with, it's good to start small and when the community asks, give them the next big thing.

so, what do you want your site to be/do?

[MichaelHiles]

DotNetNuke

Heck with this interpreted script stuff. Go binary and serve more with the same resources and dump MySQL in the process.

[reapr]

What can I say I'm a wordpress whore ...
All funning aside I have used both. If your are doing simple sites or a blog ... wordpress hands down. I think out of the box SEO has Joom beat.

Don't overlook joomla though if you have a complex situation that joomla can fill. Joomla is amazing in it's on right.

I would suggest looking at what you want your site to eventually do, go and see if all plugins and solutions can be fulfilled by wordpress and if so then I would go with it.

Have you ever considered Drupal if you are looking at a membership type site something to consider.

I think theonion dot com uses drupal ... but the learning curve hurt my head but I have one site that is powered by it and the search engines eat it up.

[achivement84]

It depend on your end usage for the site,For me i am famlier with wordpress more , i find it easy and there`s many themes, plugins and widgets thar are available for user.But you still have to consider the end use of your site.

[Ricky Parker]

My opinion is Wordpress for sure. Way easier to get going with and learn for someone starting out.

[kendrickyi]

maybe, if youre starting out you could try WP. later on when you are more advanced in IM you can try out the others that were mentioned here.

[mark z]

It depends of the type of your site.

If it would be typical blog I suggest you to use WordPress.
If you`re looking for more feature rich CMS I would suggest you Joomla (or even Drupal).

Both of them are easy to install (cPanel & Fantastico) and have great support community online.

[bayusyerli]

You can't compare WordPress with Joomla.. it depends on what kind of site that you want to build..

[zerobloq]

Hey guys, I kept reading about wordpress and drupal but I'm unable to use both, I went to download.com to download both and could not get either one to install, well, they install but could not open them, do these programs work with windows office?

This is what i got from drupal;

<?php
// $Id: block.tpl.php,v 1.2 2007/08/07 08:39:36 goba Exp $
?>
<div class="<?php print "block block-$block->module" ?>" id="<?php print "block-$block->module-$block->delta"; ?>">
<div class="title"><h3><?php print $block->subject ?></h3></div>
<div class="content"><?php print $block->content ?></div>
</div>


Didi I do something wrong here, i am desperate to use one of these software because of the amount of positive response.


Please help.


Thanks.

[mamasboy]

Hi everyone,

Whether WP, Joomla or Drupal, all can be installed within minutes. They use mySQL database, so if you know a little bit of db connections stuff, it'll help.

I started with WP but found that it was a little limited for building robust sites. WP is the best platform for blogging but if you need more variety and sth more robust, Joomla and Drupal are the other top CMS.

I shifted to Joomla not long after WP. Never look back since. I'm a Joomla hardcore now and have done a lot of sites for my clients.

As for hacking, any platform are open to hacking. It's how you protect your system, etc. Besides, all 3 CMS are being updated all the time to close up the holes against hackers.

Cheers!

[John Cabral]

Originally Posted by zerobloq

Hey guys, I kept reading about wordpress and drupal but I'm unable to use both, I went to download.com to download both and could not get either one to install, well, they install but could not open them, do these programs work with windows office?

This is what i got from drupal;

<?php
// : block.tpl.php,v 1.2 2007/08/07 08:39:36 goba Exp $
?>
<div class="<?php print "block block-" ?>" id="<?php print "block--"; ?>">
<div class="title"><h3><?php print ?></h3></div>
<div class="content"><?php print ?></div>
</div>


Didi I do something wrong here, i am desperate to use one of these software because of the amount of positive response.


Please help.


Thanks.

Hi,

Not sure what you mean by do they work with MS office. Where are you installing them?

These are to be installed on a server unix/linix running PHP

They also require you to setup a database. If you need to edit these file you should get an editor that can handle php and html. I use a free one called Alleycode.

[Micah09]

It all depends on your needs. They're both good choices. Wordpress is more of a blogging platform, while Joomla is a full fledged CMS. They can both be customized and be seo friendly.

[SurviveUnemployment]

If you expect you site to grow (and you should) I would not choose either of those because they both have nasty performance issues under heavy traffic. If you just want to put up a small blog and expect fewer than 1,000 uniques a day, Wordpress should be fine.

[hukumat]

Try Wordpress... it is best in the business...

[Steve Steinitz]

Hi,

There is a place for WordPress -- its a Disneyland of quickly-usable web capabilities. I use it on five sites.

Still, I cast another vote for Drupal. I use Drupal for all new sites. Its performance is incredible. With caching enabled its as fast as a static site. Its less resource hungry than WordPress (though that debate continues).

I even use Drupal for xfactor adsense sites. Its out-of-the-box multi-site capability works well for maintaining large numbers of sites.

For what its worth, there's a recent article on Drupal.org claiming that the White House has chosen Drupal as its platform. I'm not sure what that really means but it gives us Drupal aficionados a warm feeling.

Steve

[Steve Powers]

wordpree is a good choice.It's easy to use and have so many plugins to download.So if you want to build your personal blog in few minutes,wordpress is just for you.

[maksym]

My opinion is WordPress is better option for you. Great system and easy to learn.
Also, there is a very great option - pinging. Joomla, as far as i know, doesn't have that.
Regarding Drupal, haven't used it yet. May be I will try soon about it.

[Rich Muir]

I have both, Joomla is okay bit I found it took a lot more effort to get my head around and even then still unsure of its full potential where wordpress seems much simpler.