Joomla vs WYSIWYG vs Xsite Pro vs Site Build it!

Wordpress.
Then Joomla maybe.

I'd stay away from standalone site building solutions because you locking yourself into smaller community, closed source code, your main development computer and inability to manage your site via web browser.

Wordpress sites are normally a bit faster and infinitely more flexible.
In 5 minutes work Wordpress based site will have the best SEO features.
Also check my free tutorial on building flexible navigation menus for Wordpress. Good luck with it - if you'll be using other site building solutions.

Gleb

WORDPRESS You can easily bend it to your will (With some research)

Just go to hostgator.com and open hosting account. They have interface to install Wordpress in 2 minutes. Same for Joomla actually.

Gleb

I wrote a Little tutorial on setting up a domain and using fantastico to do everything....its very simple and straight forward.

SiteBuildIt - hands down.

Another vote here for Wordpress, especially if you want to be able to create / edit your own themes.

Template creation for Joomla is much more difficult as you have to use a series of css classes specific to Joomla. With Wordpress, you can basically setup your theme however you like, and then just plug in the pieces of code that tell it to communicate with Wordpress. Much easier and much more flexible.

I am a design idiot, I know nothing about code, html,ftp, or the like. I can easily and quickly set up a word press site, install a theme, and make it look pretty decent.

Trust me when I tell you, if I can do this....anyone can do it. After I set it up, if I have a designer creat a header and install it, you would swear it is a custom built site by a pro.

Enterpryzman

I recommend Joomla!
I'm using Joomla on most of my sites, and I think it was the best choice that I made working in the web design business.
If you want to build a powerful site, use Joomla!
Building a design (template) for it, you will need some css, html and php knowledge.

If you want a professional, unique template, please contact me. I can make high quality joomla designs for very good price.

I use Joomla, but it has a steep learning curve, and I've been designing web sites for over 10 years. I agree with the recommendations for starting out with WordPress - templates are plentiful and fairly easy to change.

However, if you are looking to have a "community web site" - either Joomla or BoonEx - Community Software Experts is the way to go.


Linda

i would do wordpress as it easy to use.

It's true that Wordpress doesn't have any forum plugin or bridge like Joomla or Drupal does, but having worked a LOT with Joomla I still say go for Wordpress. The perks are just too good to pass up, especially the part where while your new Joomla site is languishing in the rankings, your Wordpress site will be zooming up the list and getting new content indexed almost immediately.

If you need a forum, I'd say just go for phpBB or one of the other top forums. You would be primarily using Wordpress to post your articles, and there's a good chance you don't need people registering as users in your article posting area. You can just keep those memberships separate with a forum, dedicated as a members area.

Build THREE sites (not one) one size RARELY fits all

Blog - WordPress - this should be your first and it remains king of the hill for blogging

Forum - SMF, vBulletin, or PHPBB3 (or modphpbb3) ( like modphpbb3, but all are great)

Community - assuming you are going for membership or a state-of-art Web 3.0 interactive site, don't screw around with this one - use joomla, drupal, or leave all the rest behind and move up to Xaraya - you'll NEVER look back :-)

Make sure all 3 run on TOTALLY SEPARATE Class C IP addresses (most hosts will look at you funny when you ask for this one) - your linking strategies and opportunities will increase manifold this way.

Wordpress, Joomla and Drupal let you build websites and blogs and you do not have to pay to acquire these cms.

Since you are on a shoestring budget xsitepro and site build it is out of question. Even if you have the money its better to put it in something else, like for advertising your site or link building etc..

If you are looking to go custom then you can begin by using Visual Web Developer which is a free software from Microsoft.

i would vote joomla - take a look at one of my clients sites of a similar niche: Chica Girl Magazine

we did the site about 3 years ago and are in the process of doing a major upgrade

template design is not that difficult you just need the right direction...

this site handles around 3500+ users right now but we have other sites with many more users

feel free to ask me any questions regarding joomla

I've used Site Build It, and can tell you that is easy to use and can jump start your web business but you will be paying $300/year. It's system has you geared towards generating traffic on specific keywords in a particular niche.

If you are planning to make money from this site, I would suggest doing some research into the profitability of such a niche and find out exactly what information young women are looking for when searching the web.

Since you know already the overall theme of your site - I would suggest building up a simple, easy to navigate site with Wordpress.

And concentrate most of your energy on learning SEO and getting the clicks onto your site.

Good Luck!

All os'es are crazy and evil for me - I stay as far as possible from it. I had one shop on joomla and it was more hassle then use of it. When you're good at it, and have loads of time - you cant use it. It's not stable and it's not reliable in my opinion. This is the issue probably with all open source platforms.
I'd definitely suggest wordpress. you'll spend 100 times less times working with it - and it's the most flexible, yet reliable system out there

I would go with wordpress as its more customizable and you don't really need to know much php let alone html.

Hi, In my view Wordpress is the best option. It is easy to use, and are widely supported. There are numerous plugins that provide fantastic opportunities to promote your site...

Drupal is harder to understand than WP and Joomla...

I've decided to design my web site myself (on a shoestring budget) and I'm looking at my options.

I represent an organization that helps distressed homeowners and I have been following this Joomla / Wordpress conversation and I am leaning toward Wordpress. I was going to do it myself but due to the sheer volume right now I am not going to be able to do it myself.

Anybody interested?

wordpress dominates all cms.

Gotta go with Wordpress. Just installed brand new one in under 5 minutes- yes I cheated with fantastico. =) I used to use Frontpage and was so horrified with the % characters it added to my page urls that I bailed for XSpro. Then kept having troubles with various error messages and finally got desperate enough to try WP. Glad I did- love it! Joomla sites are beautiful...just couldn't get the hang of it!

I would recommend Wordpress due to its fast implementation, easy to learn & SEO friendliness. WYSIWYG woulds be the second choice considering ease of use. Joomla would come last here bcos you have to manage it yourself althiugh Joomla has more punch & supports!

I love joomla. The amount of plugins and extensions for joomla are unbelievable and save a ton of time with programming.

XSitePro - I love my options and what I can do. I was tired of paying a web designer to fix and test stuff (costing me $10 a change), so I got put onto XSitePro. I think it is easy and it gets the job done great. I created this: New - MRSA Treatment 'Silver Bullet' with it. You can customize templates and all. I guess you can say I like to be "in control" a bit more than others. But it is just as easy as typing out your message on word and publishing it if that's what you are looking for. I love it -

js

Yes, WP is easy to use. And the CMSs have a steep learning curve, and allow a forum.

But I think a more important question to consider is, do these systems help you drive lots of traffic to your site?

Considering a forum at this early date is putting the cart before the horse. You'll need lots of traffic before a forum is worth the management effort (finding moderators, clearing out spam, etc.).

Site Build It!, which I use for two sites, provides several tools to help you get traffic to your site. It also teaches you the basics of how to write a content page that the search engines like and that humans will like.

Just like in the offline world, where it's cheaper to keep a customer than it is to find a new one, it's much easier in the online world to get a visitor to come back than it is to find a new one. And your content is what has them returning again and again.

One part of SBI that I really like is Content 2.0. I haven't added a single page to my site in almost 2 years, but my visitors have added 200 pages for me. Since I started using Content 2, my traffic is up about 40%, and all I've had to do is manage those 200 submissions, plus the comments they've all generated.

If you want an easy-to-use system, with traffic-building tools, then you'll find SBI the best overall system.

I am more of content guy - so for me its Wordpress. My aim is always to keep the techie stuff at minimal and maximize my time on content. So its a WP vote for me

Joomla. Period.

Wordpress is good too, especially for beginners who may not have time to learn Joomla.

But I would strongly advise against designing your own website. That would be the worst thing you could do especially if you are trying to start an online magazine LOL and actually compete in your target market. Really you need a large budget and a team of designers, programmers, and writers.

I would suggest using Word Press as your main platform as it is very versatile and there are so many plugins that will take care of all your needs. There is so many great WSO's to help you with learning how to set things up and performing SEO to get you site going.

I started with SBI and even though they have a great platform and many awesome tools only available internally, but the knock is once you get a hang of SEO and building sites you will want to move you site as I did. That is not as easy as you would think with SBI, basically all they did was start the URL transfer and that is all. They can not give you your content files to transfer all the content so I had to get a scrape of the content and then rebuild all the pages on the Word Press platform.

So with that said I really enjoy creating sites now with Word Press and will never use anything else.

I hope this helps!