While WordPress powers 23% of all websites on the internet, it’s not the only open source content management system in the market. There are some other really awesome software like Joomla and Drupal. All three of them have a lot in common, but they still have their own pros and cons. In this article, we will compare WordPress vs Joomla vs Drupal to find out which is the best.
Note: We are comparing WordPress.org and not the WordPress.com hosting service. Please see our guide on the difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com.
What’s Common in WordPress, Joomla and Drupal
All three of the web’s most popular CMS have a lot in common in terms of technology, philosophy, and community.
WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal are all free and open source software licensed under GPL. See our article on Why is WordPress Free to learn more about free software.
All three of them are written primarily in PHP.
They all support MySQL as their database management system. WordPress exclusively supports only MySQL, while Joomla and Drupal support other database management systems.
All three of them use themes and templates for visual appearance of sites, and plugins, modules, or extensions for extending features.
As open source software, they are all community-driven projects.
While there are a lot of similarities, they are different in many aspects. They have different policies about what to include in the core software, how to handle modules and templates, how to deal with security, etc. These differences make a big impact on users, and how they build their websites.
Having that said let’s take a look at how WordPress, Joomla and Drupal compare to each other.
Ease of Use and Beginner Friendliness
Most people creating their websites are not web developers, designers, or programmers. They are average users who just want to build a website. Ease of use is the most important factor for majority of users.
WordPress
WordPress comes with a famous five minute install. Most WordPress hosting providers also offer one click install of WordPress. This makes it fairly easy for a new user to get started with their website.
The post install user experience of WordPress is way better than Joomla or Drupal. The user sees a simple clean cut user interface with the menus to create posts, pages, or start customizing appearance and themes.
Joomla
Joomla installation may not look as quick as WordPress, but it has very similar steps. Apart from that many shared hosting providers offer one click install packages for Joomla as well.
After the installation, the user lands on a control panel that is not as straight forward as WordPress. There are just too many menus to click on and customize your site. Joomla fans would say thats because Joomla is a lot more powerful than WordPress, but we think it is kind of scary for a beginner.
Drupal
Drupal’s installation is similar to both Joomla and WordPress. Simply download and upload the package and run the installation script.
Drupal also offers distributions. These are pre-packaged Drupal bundles with modules and configurations to create specific kind of websites.
The post installation experience for absolute beginners is a bit complicated. Users will find it difficult to figure out how to change things on their site. Drupal makes it very obvious how to add the content, but changing appearance and adding non-content elements is not very obvious.
Winner: WordPress
Themes and Addons
All three of these popular CMS come with themes and plugins / modules as a way to extend the features and appearance of the software.
WordPress
WordPress allows users to change their site’s appearance using themes. WordPress comes with a few default themes pre-installed. At any time, you can click on the add new button from your Appearance page and install free themes from official WordPress.org theme directory.
Apart from free themes, you will find many more premium WordPress themes developed by third party theme shops like StudioPress, Themify, or ThemeLab. These are paid themes and come with premium support options.
The real power of WordPress lies in plugins. There are more than 38,000 WordPress plugins available for free in official WordPress plugin directory. You can also buy premium plugins which come with paid support provided by plugin developers. Check out our list of 20 must have WordPress plugins for 2015 to see how plugins make WordPress awesome.
Joomla
Just like WordPress, Joomla also comes with templates and extensions. There are great extensions to do just about anything from creating an ecommerce store to managing email.
However, the quantity of these templates and extensions is not as high as WordPress. This could make finding the perfect template and the perfect extensions a bit difficult.
By default Joomla does not have a feature that would allow users to search and install extensions or templates from the administration area. There is an extension that allows you to add install from web feature for extensions. But for templates, users will still have to manually search templates and then install them by adding their URL.
Drupal
Drupal has the same issue with the availability of themes and modules. Users will have to leave their site, search for the module and theme they want to add, then locate the project’s zip file URL. Finally they can enter the URL in the Modules or Themes page to install them.
There are modules to do just about anything and new ones are added regularly. Still, the overall quantity of modules is lacking when compared to WordPress.
Winner: WordPress.
Support Options
Availability of help and support options is very important for beginner users. There will surely be some hurdles when you are trying a new software. That’s ok as long as you can get help.
WordPress
WordPress has a strong community of users. You can find WordPress help on official support forums, docs, handbooks, codex, Slack channels, Stack Exchange, and almost every forum on the internet about web design and development.
There are sites like WPBeginner, containing hundreds of tutorials, video tutorials, and articles catering to beginner level WordPress users. There are many ways to ask for free WordPress support and get it.
Apart from the free support options, there are ways to get paid support for WordPress as well. Online platforms like Upwork, Fiverr, and elance where you can hire WordPress professionals from around the world to quickly solve a problem for you at very reasonable price. Due to immense popularity of WordPress, finding WordPress developers is easy and affordable for small businesses and individuals.
Joomla
Joomla, just like WordPress has a large and very helpful community. There is an extensive documentation on the Joomla website which is a valuable resource for beginners. For more interactive support, users can join forums, mailing lists, IRC chatrooms, etc.
Apart from community support, there are third party resources, paid training, and development agencies that can be helpful.
Unlike WordPress, finding affordable expert help is quite difficult for Joomla. Hiring a developer or expert for Joomla development, troubleshooting or assistance can cost way more than WordPress.
Drupal
Drupal has a very proactive community of fans and users. You will find all the community support options for Drupal just like WordPress and Joomla. There is extensive documentation, support forum, mailing lists, user groups, irc chatrooms. All good places to get advice and free help.
Drupal tries to connect users to developers and companies offering professional Drupal services. You may find them in Drupal Marketplace.
Winner: WordPress
Localization & Multi-Lingual Support
A large percentage of websites created each day, are non-English or multilingual sites. It is much more likely that many beginners would probably be looking for a CMS that can handle multiple languages or has support for different locales and languages.
WordPress
WordPress does an excellent job at offering a good platform to build a multilingual site. It does not support multiple languages out of the box, but there are some excellent plugins that allow you to easily create a WordPress multilingual site.
WordPress is available in more than 53 languages. New languages can be installed with just a click from WordPress admin area.
Most popular themes and plugins are also available in multiple languages. Theme and plugin developers are actively seeking help translate their packages into other languages.
All these efforts make WordPress a great platform to build a non-English or multilingual website.
Joomla
Joomla comes with out of the box capability to handle a multilingual website without installing any extension. Simply go to language manager, add a content language and start creating multilingual content on your website.
Translations are also available for admin interface in many languages and can be easily installed from the admin area.
Drupal
Drupal comes with built-in support to handle non-English or multilingual sites. You will need to enable locale and content translation modules. After that you can add site and admin interface languages from Drupal’s configuration section.
Winner: Tie – All three of them support multilingual sites and are available in multiple languages.
Security
Security is a very important factor when choosing a CMS for your website. Almost every website on the internet is vulnerable to security threats.
WordPress
Being the most popular CMS in the world, WordPress based websites are often targeted by hackers. However, WordPress is built on a very secure code, and it responds to security vulnerability very quickly. WordPress also has an auto-update mechanism which allows WordPress websites to automatically update when there is a new security patch.
WordPress sites can be further secured with automated backups, two factor authentication, and other best practices.
There is also a built-in mechanism to show updates for WordPress themes and plugins. This allows themes and plugin developers to rapidly respond to any security vulnerability.
Joomla
Joomla is very similar to WordPress when it comes to security. They actively respond to any security vulnerability and are very quick to patch it up. However, maintaining a website and installing updates is still up to the user.
There are extensions available to backup your Joomla site. You can also strengthen your Joomla site’s security by following the same best practices as WordPress.
Drupal
Drupal takes a very serious approach to security. They publish security vulnerabilities on their own site as they are discovered and patched. There is a perception that Drupal is more secure because you don’t hear about Drupal sites being hacked as often, but that could be cause it’s not as popular Joomla or WordPress.
Winner: Tie – All three follow proper security standards.
Conclusion
Drupal, Joomla and WordPress are all fantastic content management systems. Drupal and Joomla come with many more built-in features than WordPress. However, WordPress beats them with its ease of use, huge global community, plugins and themes. We feel that most non-developer users would find it much easier to build with WordPress than Joomla or Drupal.
Overall Winner: WordPress
We hope this article helped you compare WordPress vs Joomla vs Drupal, to find out the best CMS for your site. You may also want to see our guide on how to move your site from Joomla to WordPress.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
To leave a comment please visit WordPress vs Joomla vs Drupal – Which One is Better? on WPBeginner.