Posted by: David Dittman
June 16, 2007
Issue #153

Steel Cage Death Match:
Joomla Vs Wordpress

Welcome back to another installment of Working IT Out!

Once again we’re here attempting to make sense of the technologies out there and see if we can use them.

In this issue:

• What is a CMS?
• Which CMS should I use?
• Some Features of WordPress …
• Some Features of Joomla …
• And the battle royal, steel cage death match between Joomla and WordPress!

I’d like to geek out a bit this week and talk about two great CMS systems that you’ve probably heard of: Joomla and WordPress.

I want start by saying that I like both of these systems. Which one you use is entirely up to you and the goals of your website. Both are very effective.

I know I promised a steel cage death match but in reality I’m going to do my very best to be objective and just compare these great systems and not attempt to declare a winner in this battle royal between two CMSs.

Before we get specific and geeky, let’s start with a quick, down and dirty explanation of a CMS site. CMS stands for Content Management System. A CMS is typically used by the author or web designer to create, modify and arrange the content of their web site, typically with an easier, less code intensive user interface.

Features vary, but most have web-based publishing, search capabilities and allow for a variety of different orders and locations for your content, such as 1, 2 or 3 column layouts.

The question of which CMS to use does not start and stop with Joomla and WordPress. There are many, many different types of CMS out there and just when you think you’ve heard of them all, a new one is born.

When I was planning my first CMS site I asked myself a big question. What do I want to do with this site?

Well, I wasn’t too sure but, I knew I wanted something big and full of bells and whistles.  I wanted something I didn’t have to build from the ground up. And I could afford to just have something I could plug data into.

Enter Open Source software to save the day …

So I narrowed the field a bit but I still had so many options it was hard to decide.

What I needed was a way to narrow the search even more.

Now, I knew that I wanted features but, I also wanted easy and easy means that I needed a place that has dynamite support.

Unfortunately, very rarely do dynamite support and free go hand-in-hand.

Then, (cue the superman music) Open Source came to the rescue once again!

For those of you unfamiliar with Open Source, I find it easiest to think of it as a night club for geeks to hang out at and give each other code that either proves they are smarter than you or helps improve your code. Now since it’s for geeks, we do it on the web where we can’t actually come in contact with other human beings not interested in our club.

So the story goes like this …

A programmer, or group of programmers, designs a pretty nice piece of software. They decide that because they worked hard and they need money to keep the lights on, they’re going to go ahead and charge others for the software.

Now another programmer comes along and finds this paid, proprietary software and attempts to use it for something similar but, probably not what the software was originally intended for. Now this programmer is just one lone programmer, not a team of programmers, so he decides that in order to compete with the other software, he needs help.

He’s just a poor programmer so he can’t afford to buy help but he knows a night club that has other poor wandering souls just like him. So he saunters down to the open source club … alright, it’s more like he clicks on a message board. Geez, can’t you let me have my dreams?

So now the programmer bands together with other programmers and they create software. Each programmer can add pieces to the overall software package. This allows for many different people always working to enhance the written code.

Typically, the rules for open source under GNU open source licensing agreement are that you can use any part of the code as long as you allow others to be able to add onto your code.

Of course in reality it’s a complicated legal agreement that is well beyond my pay grade to discuss in any detail. And I truly don’t pretend to know the intricacies because whenever I use open source code I read the usage policy of the specific piece of software.

For now, just know that in most cases you are free to use them even if it’s for a commercial endeavor.

Open source programming has the advantage of many minds working on the same project but has the disadvantage that most people involved don’t profiting directly from the project.

Now, support has to be your main concern when deciding on a CMS for your website.

You need to be sure that when you have questions there is a place you can go to seek help. As Clayton has mentioned: that Murphy guy was really busy. Something is bound to go wrong sometime, even with the best program.

To me, that is a huge advantage that Joomla and WordPress have over most other CMS/Blogging software. Frankly my whole steel cage death match theme works better with just two contestants.

Which CMS Should I Use?

This all depends on:

1. What is the goal of your website?
2. What is your level of expertise?
3. How much time do you want to spend on adding items?
4. What is more important? Presentation of the content or the content itself?

As I stated before, there are many different CMS packages out there but I’m going to stick to the two I know and like best: Joomla and WordPress.

The fact of the matter is that you can design complete, professional looking websites with either WordPress or Joomla. I have found that both have their strengths and weaknesses.

No matter which system you use, both require that you have a hosting account that allows you to have a PHP server and mySQL database. You’ll find however, these two things are extremely common and most hosting packages will have them.

If you don’t have them, the most common problem is that you are using a Windows architecture as apposed to a Linux architecture. In most cases, the hosting company will allow you to choose one or the other. When you’re choosing hosting, keep that in mind.

The bad news is that if your hosting company does not support PHP and a MySQL database you’re probably out of luck with that hosting company.

The good news is that most hosting companies have plans starting at $5.00 or $6.00 a month that will have both a PHP server and mySQL support. So it’s pretty cheap to maintain a very robust site.

When I suggest GoDaddy.com as a hosting company I get one of two responses.

1. GoDaddy.com is terrible. They completely screwed up everything for me and I hate them!
2. GoDaddy.com is great, it’s easy, cheap and did I mention CHEAP. Also, they have instant access to both Joomla and WordPress and a bunch of other open source programs.

I’ve had my share of problems with GoDaddy.com but I would still recommend it to people on a budget.

Frankly, I’ve had many more positive experiences with GoDaddy than negative and I have no reservations about recommending them.

Everyone has had hosting horror stories and if yours was with GoDaddy I don’t blame you for picking a different hosting company.
 
So basically, if you hate GoDaddy.com don’t use them; if you don’t hate them I would use them.

Now let’s get back to the CMS showdown. Time for our first contender: WordPress.

Features of WordPress

WordPress is great. It allows you to put a fully functional blog website together in five minutes, most of the time. It can take longer depending on how handy you have all your MySQL information and your Internet connection speed for uploading files, but if you have a high speed connection and have written your mySQL host information, it will take about five minutes.

Now I’m going to go right to the horse’s mouth for a quick overview of WordPress and its features. I found the following information on WordPress’ website and took out the parts that I don’t think are all that interesting. Check out their page for the full details: http://WordPress.org/about/features/.

I like this excerpt from their site because it shows the mentality of the developers and makes you feel secure that they’re not trying to control your efforts.

“The following is a list of some of the features that come standard with WordPress, however there are literally hundreds of plugins that extend what WordPress does, so the actual functionality is nearly limitless. You are also free to do whatever you like with the WordPress code, extend it or modify in any way or use it for commercial projects without any licensing fees. That is the beauty of free software, free meaning not only price but also the freedom to have complete control over it.”

WordPress Key Features:

• Full standards compliance – This means that you can feel secure that as long as you have the most up-to-date software it should work in the most current browsers.
• No rebuilding – Changes you make to your templates or entries are reflected immediately on your site, with no need for regenerating static pages.
• WordPress Pages – Pages allow you to manage non-blog content easily, so for example you could have a static "About" page that you manage through WordPress. This is the key to allowing a fully functional website, not just a blog site.
• WordPress Themes – By far my favorite part of WordPress is the way in which they allow you to quickly change the entire feel of your website through a theme. They have hundreds of different themes to choose from and people are always adding more themes.
• Comments – Visitors to your site can leave comments on individual entries, and through Trackback or Pingback can comment on their own site. You can enable or disable comments on specific posts also …
• Spam protection – This can be a huge problem for blog-type sites and WordPress has some great built in features as well as some great plugins to help protect your site from spam bots leaving comments on your posts.
• Full user registration – WordPress has a built-in user registration system that (if you choose) can allow people to register and maintain profiles and leave authenticated comments on your blog. You can optionally close comments for non-registered users. There are also plugins that hide posts from lower level users.
• Easy installation and upgrades and easy importing from other blogs – If you are currently using a blog, it very easy to transfer your information to WordPress.
• Workflow – You can have types of users that can only post drafts, not publish to the front page. Very nice feature!
• Multiple authors – WordPress’ highly advanced user system allows up to 10 levels of users, with different levels having different (and configurable) privileges with regard to publishing, editing, options, and other users.

The bottom line about WordPress is that it’s very easy. Like anything there will be a learning curve while you get acquainted with the interface but it’s much easier than most.

I think the best compliment I can give them is that when they designed the product, you can tell that their thoughts always returned to the user’s experience. They took a lot of time and addressed some of the biggest frustrations that most users have such as installation and complexity.

It’s amazing that the tech world has been so reluctant to provide an easy installation process for users and I’m glad that some software developers are recognizing that, such as WordPress.

So as you can see there are a host of positives for WordPress and I would say in most cases it’s a great system. Especially, if you’re not too worried about completely customizing it.

I really only have two negative comments about WordPress and both are subjective.

1. Editing a WordPress theme is not as easy as it could be.
2. Building one from scratch requires time and some programming experience.

Bottom line: WordPress is great!

Now you know I love WordPress so why do I choose Joomla when I design a new site?

Joomla is a fully functional CMS. Think of the most robust features you have seen in a website; you can do those with Joomla.

Now I’m not knocking WordPress but ninety percent of the time if you have a WordPress site I can tell right away. They all have a similar feel due to the fact that all have a blog style home page.

Now with Joomla you can create something so unique that a person would have no idea that it’s Joomla or some other CMS.

And for me, the kicker is the ease of creating a template for Joomla.

In almost all cases I create a complete template for Joomla almost exactly the way a client wants, easily.

Let me go ahead and say that again: easily.  

Now, I’m not going to list all the features of Joomla because it really doesn’t make sense. There are too many and you can design virtually any site using Joomla.

Here is a short list from Joomla’s website of what they can do:

• Corporate websites or portals
• Online commerce
• Small business websites
• Non-profit and organizational websites
• Government applications
• Corporate intranets and extranets
• School and church websites
• Personal or family homepages
• Community-based portals
• Magazines and newspapers

Now, the interesting thing about Joomla is that, although I love it and use it on multiple sites, it’s much more daunting than WordPress. One thing that is glaringly obvious is that Joomla was designed for web designers, not writers.

That being said, it’s not rocket surgery, and with the aid of a good reference book or the support forums, you can be up-to-speed as long as your patient.

Whooo! Well, that’s the skinny on Joomla and WordPress.

An easy way to help you decide which CMS one is best for you is this:

WordPress is very robust and extremely easy to use, you don’t have to be too technical to figure it out.

Joomla is even more robust but it takes some time to learn the interface and it’s not as easy for people with no html experience. If you can get through the beginning and get comfortable with the interface, Joomla is great and well worth the slightly larger learning curve.

Well, I hoped this help out and I look forward to your questions and comments!

Thanks and have a great weekend!

Editor, Working IT Out
THE TOTAL PACKAGE

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8 Comments »

1. Comment by Jacob Bear — June 16, 2007 @ 8:30 am

   A link to this arrived in my inbox just when I was trying to decide whether to use Wordpress or Joombla for a new info site. All I can say is THANK YOU! :zzz

2. Comment by Pete Moring — June 17, 2007 @ 4:49 am

   Wordpress Really is great for simpletons like myself to get something looking pretty-decent up and running.
   My only concern is when there\’s a problem, no-one answers your queeries.
   Other than that, GREAT!!

   Cheers, Pete.

3. Comment by Abi — June 17, 2007 @ 7:37 am

   Thanks for the witty editorial.

   I\’ll be stealing the article for another website in the near future.

   Cheers,
   Abi

4. Comment by David Dittman — June 17, 2007 @ 11:00 am

   Thank you for the positive feedback and I’m glad it helped! I would have to completely agree with Pete about the limited support I have been able find for specific questions within the Wordpress community. Their general troubleshooting support seems fine but, I have also had trouble finding reliable sources for specific questions. I have however, found that Joomla\’s community is a bit quicker to respond to actual questions, posted on their site. Can anyone recommend an active, reliable support board for Wordpress?

5. Comment by John C. A. Manley — June 19, 2007 @ 5:46 am

   Joomla. I\’ve never heard of it before. But you got me interested.

   I\’ve designed all my sites in MS Word. Why did I never move to Dreamweaver? Because it took so long to tame Word (which involves using text editor on the HTML) code that I never wanted to move on.

   Word Press always seemed too limited to me. But I suspect Joomla might be be what I\’m looking for. I\’m getting tired of fixing the code in MS Word, and have always suspected Dreamweaver was more robust than I needed.

   Thanks again,

   John

6. Comment by Jammer - audiobookgiftshop.com — July 28, 2007 @ 7:13 pm

   Hey John, thanks a bunch for your short and sweet message with such clarity its almost impossible to resist the temptation to jump off the Empire State building with a smile and heartfelt, soulful satisfaction in using either one to get the job done.
   Thanks agin for sharing…

7. Comment by QuaChee — June 5, 2008 @ 2:10 pm

   Heya, well written - I guess I now know which one to use for my future projects

8. Comment by Janssen — July 28, 2008 @ 12:53 am

   very usefull article.
   thank you. now i’e decided what i need.