Drupal, Joomla or WordPress as Community CMS Website
I am helping a friend build a website and the topic of which CMS software to use has come up. In previous articles here, posted about a year ago I compared Joomla, Drupal, Xoops, Life Ray, Typo3, Word Press etc as a CMS. Back then I decided that Drupal was the best fit. Find one article I wrote on the topic a year ago here. I went ahead and learned Drupal then built a community website that has 150+ users now. I also built a knowledge base system for my workplace that is being used and is getting very high reviews. It’s needless to say, I quickly became a Drupal fan.
Now, a year later, I decided to take a quick look and see what has changed since the last time I visited other CMS’s.. Also I am reconsidering using Word Press as a CMS for my friend’s project because Word Press continues to impress me, I love that GUI and simple upgrade process.
I am looking at Pligg, Joomla, Drupal and Word Press this time around. I quickly removed Pligg of my list, it just wasn’t mature enough, yet.
So, to start with, here’s a list I created on CMS Matrix, I did update it a little after I found a few errors. What’s interesting is that despite how far Word Press has improved in the last couple years, this list has information from 2007 and WP version 2.2.1 so it is very outdated. Keep in mind that as of the date of this article WP is at version 2.7.1
| Product | Drupal 6.9 | Joomla! 1.5.9 | WordPress 2.2.1 -> 2.7 |
| Last Updated | 1/15/2009 | 1/11/2009 | 7/25/2007 |
| Security | Drupal | Joomla! | WordPress |
| Audit Trail | Yes | No | Limited |
| Captcha | Free Add On | Free Add On | Yes + reCaptcha |
| Content Approval | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Email Verification | Yes | Yes | Free Add On |
| Granular Privileges | Yes | No | Yes |
| Kerberos Authentication | No | No | No |
| LDAP Authentication | Free Add On | Yes | No |
| Login History | Yes | Yes | Free Add On |
| NIS Authentication | No | No | No |
| NTLM Authentication | Free Add On | No | No |
| Pluggable Authentication | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Problem Notification | No | No | Free Add On |
| Sandbox | No | No | Limited |
| Session Management | Yes | Yes | Free Add On |
| SMB Authentication | No | No | No |
| SSL Compatible | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| SSL Logins | No | Yes | Free Add On |
| SSL Pages | No | Yes | Limited |
| Versioning | Yes | Free Add On | Free Add On |
| Support | Drupal | Joomla! | WordPress |
| Certification Program | No | No | No |
| Code Skeletons | Yes | No | No |
| Commercial Manuals | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Commercial Support | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Commercial Training | Yes | Yes | No |
| Developer Community | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Online Help | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Pluggable API | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Professional Hosting | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Professional Services | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Public Forum | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Public Mailing List | Yes | No | Yes |
| Test Framework | Free Add On | Yes | Yes |
| Third-Party Developers | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Users Conference | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Ease of Use | Drupal | Joomla! | WordPress |
| Drag-N-Drop Content | Free Add On | No | Yes |
| Email To Discussion | Free Add On | Free Add On | Limited |
| Friendly URLs | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Image Resizing | Free Add On | Yes | Limited |
| Macro Language | Free Add On | Yes | Free Add On |
| Mass Upload | Free Add On | Yes | Free Add On |
| Prototyping | Limited | Yes | No |
| Server Page Language | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Site Setup Wizard | Limited | No | Yes |
| Spell Checker | Free Add On | No | Free Add On |
| Style Wizard | Limited | No | No |
| Subscriptions | Free Add On | No | Yes |
| Template Language | Limited | Yes | No |
| UI Levels | No | Yes | Yes |
| Undo | Limited | No | Free Add On |
| WYSIWYG Editor | Free Add On | Yes | Yes |
| Zip Archives | No | No | Free Add On |
| Performance | Drupal | Joomla! | WordPress |
| Advanced Caching | Yes | Yes | Free Add On |
| Database Replication | Limited | No | No |
| Load Balancing | Yes | Yes | No |
| Page Caching | Yes | Yes | Free Add On |
| Static Content Export | No | No | Limited |
| Management | Drupal | Joomla! | WordPress |
| Advertising Management | Free Add On | Yes | Limited |
| Asset Management | Yes | Yes | Limited |
| Clipboard | No | No | No |
| Content Scheduling | Free Add On | Yes | Free Add On |
| Content Staging | Free Add On | No | No |
| Inline Administration | Yes | Yes | No |
| Online Administration | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Package Deployment | No | No | No |
| Sub-sites / Roots | Yes | Yes | No |
| Themes / Skins | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Trash | No | Yes | No |
| Web Statistics | Yes | Yes | Free Add On |
| Web-based Style/Template Management | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Web-based Translation Management | Yes | Free Add On | Limited |
| Workflow Engine | Limited | No | No |
| Interoperability | Drupal | Joomla! | WordPress |
| Content Syndication (RSS) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| FTP Support | Limited | Yes | Free Add On |
| iCal | Free Add On | No | |
| UTF-8 Support | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| WAI Compliant | Limited | No | Limited |
| WebDAV Support | No | No | No |
| XHTML Compliant | Yes | No | Yes |
| Flexibility | Drupal | Joomla! | WordPress |
| CGI-mode Support | Yes | Yes | No |
| Content Reuse | Limited | Yes | No |
| Extensible User Profiles | Yes | Yes | No |
| Interface Localization | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Metadata | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Multi-lingual Content | Yes | Free Add On | Free Add On |
| Multi-lingual Content Integration | Free Add On | Free Add On | Free Add On |
| Multi-Site Deployment | Yes | Free Add On | No |
| URL Rewriting | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Built-in Applications | Drupal | Joomla! | WordPress |
| Blog | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Chat | Free Add On | Free Add On | Free Add On |
| Classifieds | Free Add On | Free Add On | Free Add On |
| Contact Management | Free Add On | Yes | Free Add On |
| Data Entry | Free Add On | Free Add On | No |
| Database Reports | No | Free Add On | No |
| Discussion / Forum | Yes | Free Add On | Free Add On |
| Document Management | Limited | Free Add On | No |
| Events Calendar | Free Add On | Free Add On | Free Add On |
| Events Management | Free Add On | Free Add On | No |
| Expense Reports | No | Free Add On | No |
| FAQ Management | Yes | Yes | Free Add On |
| File Distribution | Free Add On | Free Add On | Free Add On |
| Graphs and Charts | No | Free Add On | No |
| Groupware | Free Add On | Free Add On | No |
| Guest Book | Free Add On | Free Add On | Free Add On |
| Help Desk / Bug Reporting | Free Add On | Free Add On | No |
| HTTP Proxy | No | No | No |
| In/Out Board | No | No | No |
| Job Postings | Free Add On | Free Add On | Free Add On |
| Link Management | Free Add On | Yes | Yes |
| Mail Form | Free Add On | Yes | Free Add On |
| Matrix | No | No | No |
| My Page / Dashboard | Free Add On | No | Yes |
| Newsletter | Free Add On | Free Add On | Free Add On |
| Photo Gallery | Free Add On | Free Add On | Free Add On |
| Polls | Yes | Yes | Free Add On |
| Product Management | Free Add On | Yes | No |
| Project Tracking | Free Add On | Free Add On | No |
| Search Engine | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Site Map | Free Add On | Free Add On | Free Add On |
| Stock Quotes | Free Add On | No | No |
| Surveys | Free Add On | Free Add On | Free Add On |
| Syndicated Content (RSS) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Tests / Quizzes | Free Add On | Free Add On | Free Add On |
| Time Tracking | Free Add On | No | Free Add On |
| User Contributions | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Weather | Free Add On | Free Add On | Free Add On |
| Web Services Front End | Limited | Yes | Free Add On |
| Wiki | Free Add On | Free Add On | Free Add On |
| Commerce | Drupal | Joomla! | WordPress |
| Affiliate Tracking | Free Add On | Free Add On | Free Add On |
| Inventory Management | Free Add On | Free Add On | No |
| Pluggable Payments | Free Add On | Free Add On | Free Add On |
| Pluggable Shipping | Free Add On | Free Add On | Free Add On |
| Pluggable Tax | Free Add On | Free Add On | No |
| Point of Sale | No | Free Add On | No |
| Shopping Cart | Free Add On | Free Add On | Free Add On |
| Subscriptions | Free Add On | Free Add On | No |
| Wish Lists | Free Add On | Free Add On | No |
For right now,
These are my thoughts on the runner ups:
Drupal: Powerful, well designed, VERY flexible, takes a while to setup as needed.. can do anything. Cons: Server side resource intensive, can throw errors or run slow on shared/cheap hosting.
Joomla: Quicker to setup than Drupal less flexible.
WP: Very impressive progress, wysiwyg, EASY to upgrade, lots of popular add-ons, many users are comfortable with it due to familiarity. Less flexible than Drupal. Biggest Limitations include: lack of different ‘content types that have different fields and different styling etc..’ and lack of multiple categories/taxonomy.
After discussing my friend’s requirements we decided to use WordPress. Slight modifications to the theme and a bunch of plugins should do the trick
I have a list of about 15 essential plug-ins I add to most of my wordpress websites. I will blog about it in the future.