Which CMS is better: WordPress or Joomla

The main purpose of CMS systems

By CMS understand information system of content management. In essence, it is a set of software, on the foundation is organized the entire cycle of creation, editing, and management of content, content. Any CMS performs four main functions:

1. Provides tools for working on content, including a whole group of people at once.
2. Stores content, including different versions of the same information. Makes it much easier to edit when several specialists from different fields are working on the same material at the same time.
3. Publishing on the site, including the possibility of fine-tuning timers to maintain a clear schedule.
4. Structuring and cataloging of all content stored on the site, as well as easy navigation.

CMS-system saves a lot of time when working on content creation. And the more complicated the process of creating materials, the more specialists work on them, the more the need to use such content management systems is felt. Work with documentation, movies, photos, texts, or scientific data - CMS facilitates work with any content, the nature of information does not play a role here at all.

So, the main purpose of modern CMS-systems is to provide tools for convenient work with content. Such systems provide order when working on materials, as well as simplify storage and navigation in this entire environment. WordPress and Joomla are the foundation on which hundreds, thousands of websites around the world are built today. These content management systems are completely free and versatile, so they can be used to develop sites of any type and complexity. Let's bump heads with these two CMSs and compare them by key criteria.

Installing templates and plugins

WordPress gives you access to a huge number of add-ons and themes straight from the admin panel. Here you can add any plugins in a couple of clicks to expand the standard functions of the site and introduce new and interesting features. This is incredibly convenient and saves a lot of time.

Joomla in this regard is not so friendly. If you do not have HTTPS-protocol, then the system will force you to spend a lot of time searching for extensions, and not always found plugins and templates will be compatible specifically with your version of the engine. First, you have to download everything on your PC, then move the archive to the server, making sure you have a service file for the installer, and only then can you install the necessary extensions. With styles and templates situation even more pitiable - directory Joomla does not contain official templates and themes design, so that have to trawl the expanses of the Internet manually, while risking more and safety. Oh yes, and then it all has to configure, specifying the system arrangement of content blocks and forming links to the categories of materials.

In terms of convenience and time-saving WordPress is a much better engine, it is much easier to work with, while Joomla does not even try to seem simple, and from the first minutes of use you will feel that to work with this CMS-system requires deep knowledge and experience.

Publishing materials

Here too, in terms of simplicity and convenience, Wordpress is the undisputed leader - in the admin panel all the blocks are located on one page, they are ordered and structured, everything is clear almost at the level of intuition. If you need to add a category for some cluster of materials - easy. You can set up the layout and display of blocks, too. Create additional parameters for cataloging and navigation - and for this, it will not get up.

Joomla traditionally forces the user to try. First, there is a division of the publication window into several service tabs, so to edit the same Title and Description you will have to switch between them. In WordPress, it's all conveniently located in one tab. The same goes for the display control - it is also placed in a separate tab. In general, the process of publishing on Joomla takes longer, which is especially acute for beginners. But this CMS is much better suited for multilingual sites, it has a deep and flexible system of access control, which allows delimiting the possibilities of individual users.

Security

And here is where WordPress is an outsider compared to Joomla, and the reason is precisely its popularity. According to statistics for 2020, WordPress sites take up about 32% of the entire web. And of all the sites that are developed on the basis of CMS, 59% are accounted for by WP. And back in 2018, GoDaddy Security, a security organization for private organizations, published statistics that 90% of all hacked sites were on the WP engine, and only 4% of hacks were on Joomla. The number of vulnerabilities is decreasing every year, but they still exist, and that is why Joomla is a much more reliable solution from the security point of view.

Here you should understand that you should not rely on the engine alone when organizing security, and you still have to take a set of measures to protect VPS from intruders.

Server Load

The logic and fundamental principles of WordPress are such that when generating new pages, all the modules and plugins that are connected to your server are engaged, even those that are not actually needed at the moment. And this is not the best way to affect the consumption of server capacity, especially when the engine is attached to a large number of plugins and templates.

By Joomla this is better, this CMS-system intelligently spends server resources and connects to work only needed at the moment plugins. That is why when administering a site in WordPress, it is recommended to carefully install new plugins, choosing only those that are really needed. This is a matter of principle in terms of optimization.

Pricing plan comparison

Despite the fact that both CMS are completely free, they are strikingly different in cost of launching and administering. Both engines will work fine on any hosting site, even an inexpensive VPS with minimal configuration will do. Rent for hosting and domain name fee will cost about the same, but there is a difference in templates and extensions.



Cost of templates

The bulk of the design themes for WordPress is distributed on a free basis. The assortment of these very themes will be quite extensive, you can find the blanks for restaurants, news portals, online stores, and even for a travel company. However, their quality of execution does not always satisfy the customer, not to mention the originality. If you want to stand out from the competition, it is better to find paid templates and themes design. On alternative sites, you can find more interesting, elegant, and functional solutions, and the price of one such theme will range from 20 to 60 dollars. And for 80-100 dollars you can get a professional solution with a lot of interesting additional features and functions that are not found in free packages.

For Joomla, many templates are also offered free, but they are all scattered on third-party sites, the official directory does not contain templates. There are specialized sites where premium themes are sold, their cost ranges on average from 20 to 80 dollars, and in some cases can reach $1000, but it will be partly exclusive.

In general, both for WordPress and Joomla you can find both paid and free templates. But the choice for the first CMS is much wider, and installation is much more convenient.

Cost of plugins/extensions

To date, the directory contains almost 8000 Joomla plugins, most of which are free, so you can easily adapt the engine to the specifics of your server. There are also paid extensions, their price ranges from 20 to 100 dollars, and some developers' extensions are distributed for a subscription.

With WordPress, the situation is similar in price, but there is one significant difference - the range is several times wider. The official directory alone contains almost 60,000 plugins and extensions, both paid and free. Yes, most of them are not worth your attention, but after digging around in this database for a day or two, you can easily pick up the tools for your tasks.

In both cases, you can absolutely free to assemble an engine for your site, or you can splurge to get something original and interesting. The choice is yours.

What CMS to choose for a landing page

When creating a business card site as a priority put the maximum simplicity, so you can in the shortest possible time and for a minimum budget all setup. Again, because of the wider range of ready-made templates, it will be much easier for you to find the right one for you. And then there's the cool Gutenberg editor on WordPress, which offers advanced editing and record management, interface, and design changes. And the last important advantage of WP - a site on this engine is easily integrated with all popular services and social networks, from Instagram to Facebook (Meta).

But when creating a business site on WordPress, you should be aware of some of the disadvantages of this CMS:

• The need to install extensions and plugins - without them to create a normal business card will not work, the basic functionality is very limited;
• The site will be heavier than its counterpart on Joomla - the reason again in the plugins, which are often poorly optimized;
• The presence of holes in the security.

No less good solution for creating a small website is Joomla - the engine is much less voracious, although in terms of setting up and puts a little more demands on the developers. Joomla will give you all the necessary tools for managing content and users, but in this case, it is only about the basic features - to implement some non-standard chips still have to search and install plug-ins, extensions.

In general, WordPress is a more convenient and easy-to-learn engine, but in terms of optimization is much nicer to work with Joomla. And in terms of security, the second CMS system is much preferable.

What CMS to choose for the blog

WordPress is an engine that was originally created and optimized to work on blogs. Needless to say, in terms of features and interface this CMS is much better suited for this task than Joomla. It is a flexible and well scalable system, providing authors with a handy toolkit for editing, formatting, and previewing their publications. Here you have both the feed settings and all the basic functionality for creating new entries is included by default in the "clean" version of the CMS. And working on content creation is easier on WP, because everything is arranged more conveniently, in a single window.

Joomla also offers tools for working on the blog, but to a greater extent, this content management system is optimized for corporate and information sites.

What to choose for an online store

If for the previous two tasks WP wons fair and square, then for the online store more successful solution would be Joomla. Yes, the starting functionality and tools here are very limited and definitely not enough to create a complex multi-page site, but all are solved by installing additional extensions and plugins. And here are a number of reasons why Joomla is better suited for online stores:

• A higher level of security;
• CMS Joomla + VirtueMart tandem is ideal for scalable sites, where you want to provide flexible pricing for different categories of buyers, including cumulative discounts, etc;
• Easy integration of the majority of payment services;
• Better optimization reduces server requirements, which means that you can save on hosting provider rent.

On the other hand, Joomla is often criticized for the excessively cumbersome code and difficulty in learning, because of which the engine is not always easy to work with. From this point of view, WordPress is again a favorite. The bundle WordPress + WooCommerce each year is becoming more and more attractive because of the frequent updates, while the platform VirtueMart began to refine less intensively.

Conclusion

So, the CMS systems described in this article differ quite seriously from each other both in terms of convenience and optimization, but to all these nuances you can get used to, and the missing features can be introduced by installing additional plug-ins and extensions. In terms of security, flexibility, and optimization it would be Joomla, but with it you need to spend more time on the initial setup.

WordPress, on the other hand, is much friendlier to users and has a much more user-friendly and understandable interface. And available plugins/extensions on this platform are several times more, which in theory allows you to solve absolutely any problem.

In the end, both engines have existed for a long time and have acquired a lot of interesting tools, which somehow allow adapting CMS to work with all types of sites. This concludes our material on choosing a content management system for a server. Thanks for your attention!