A content management system or a CMS is an application designed to create, edit, modify, publish, as well as manage and maintain the content on a website. CMS platforms like the WordPress, Joompla or Drupal are some useful tools if you want to have a website or blog running but do not have the technical expertise of coding. These are open source platforms which mean they can be customized and also free of cost. So, when it comes to choosing the right one, it can be a difficult choice.
While there is fan following for each of the above CMS platforms, statistics show that over 40% of the sites using CMS use WordPress, and over 60 million websites use WordPress, making it the most popular choice. WordPress started off primarily as a tool for blogging but soon evolved to be a CMS tool with its simplicity and user-friendliness to build websites.
A quick lowdown on its features will help us understand why it scores in popularity over its competitors.
Easy Installation and interface: WordPress is highly user-friendly, which makes it the first choice among website hosting service providers who offer the installation of a website within minutes with WordPress sites. WordPress also has a very easy interface and is especially very handy for users who are not well-versed in the coding or web maintenance departments.
While Joomla is not too complex, it is definitely not as easy as WordPress either. WordPress is more suited for blogs, small and medium-sized websites, corporate websites whereas Joomla works best for e-commerce website since it is very easy and quick to create social networks using Joomla.
Themes and plugins: Since it is so popular among users, designers develop and design themes and plugins especially for WordPress. Consequently, users have a choice to choose from over 30000 and 2000 free themes and plugins respectively. Most of them are easy to use and customizable.
Joomla pales in comparison when it comes to the sheer number on offer. However, while most themes and templates for WordPress are suited for blogs, Joomla has a wider variety. Then again, the themes offered by Joomla can rarely be modified to suit your preference.
SEO capable: Search Engine Optimization or SEO as is popularly known is a huge factor in attracting traffic to your site and WordPress has an array of SEO plugins that aid in making your website SEO optimized.
SEO optimization is definitely one of Joomla’s weaknesses. The ease with which you can add the SEO functionality to a WordPress site with the aid of a plugin is missing with Joomla and requires one to do a lot of background coding to get it right.
Multiple permissions and Multi-site: This is a special feature of WordPress where you can run a website with multiple authors and multiple permissions. Not just this, with WordPress you can have multiple sites and all of them can be managed under a single admin interface.
Joomla does not offer this feature.
Community support: WordPress has a huge community that ensures quick and efficient troubleshooting support when in need, in addition to the exhaustive official documentation.
Although Joomla is still trying to gain traction among users, it has a very good portal for any technical support.
WYSIWYG editor: The editor in WordPress is extremely straight forward and you don’t have to struggle with formatting and editing posts before publishing.
Although the TinyMCE article editor in Joomla comes with a similar toolbar, it is not very user-friendly. Also, the Code Mirror in version 2.5 caters to those users who are comfortable with HTML coding.
Security: Joomla comes with its share of advantages like being more secure than WordPress. WordPress uses a lot of system resources, hence comes with its share of security risks. WordPress supporters argue that this is the case with any open-source platform and due care can be taken to minimize security risks.
ZDNet’s David Gewirtz said ,”The WordPress community is extremely diligent in their efforts to keep WordPress secure and as long as you use best practices, you’re going to be as safe as you would be with any other environment. The Internet and all our connected technology is, together, a living beast. There is no longer any safe ‘set-it-and-forget-it.’ You must update regularly because there are bad guys out there.”
As we can, the choice of a CMS largely depends on the kind of website you’re trying to build. If the website is for large corporates, highly technical or has specific needs like those of e-commerce stores, then WordPress cannot be a solution. For the rest, this definitely offers the best possible combination in terms of simplicity and maintenance.