Drupal vs. Joomla
:An open source CMS shootoutChoosing a Web content management system often comes down to one question: Joomla or Drupal?
For many organizations (or individuals) with content to post and manage, blog tools like the highly popular WordPress may be more than adequate. But for companies with greater amounts of content, users, or complexity, including integration with ecommerce and also with other internal and external applications, a more comprehensive content management systems (CMS) is needed.
Here's a look at two popular open source content management systems: Drupal and Joomla! (the exclamation point is part of the official name, tsk tsk, but for punctuative simplicity I'm omitting it for the rest of this article). I've asked developers to weigh in on the strengths, weaknesses and unique features each offers, to help determine which is the best match for your organization's content needs.
Before we begin, it should be noted that both Joomla and Drupal keep getting updated -- e.g., Joomla 1.6 was released January 10, 2011, and Drupal 7 on January 5, 2011 -- and get more add-on modules. This is a good thing, obviously. But it also means that the opinions expressed in this article may become outdated or invalidated.