WordPress vs Joomla compared
No question WordPress wins hands down compared to Joomla. It is easier to learn WordPress fast as a newbie, better for SEO out of the box and more choice in designs because the community is so active with scores of WordPress evangelists and contributors. The bottom line is WP can do more things easier compared to Joomla for a beginner. If you are a total beginner it also has a paid server option which takes cares of technical things for you. Therefore, if you are a, hobbiest or a mommy blogger or simple do not want to tinkering too much this is a good option (however, I recommend if you are serious about building an online presences, buy your own domain and server and use wordpress.org download and 5 minute set up). This is how I see Joomla vs WordPress. It is not that Joomla is bad, but rather WP is so easy to use and gives so much more flexibility. Lets look at more specifics and history of these two blogging platforms.
Joomla started as a true open source content management system vs WP which found its genesis as blogging platform, really a photo blogging system. However, with time WordPress surpassed Joomla because of a more active community. This point is important. Both are PHP and mysql based., there are pluses and minuses of both, but it was really the users which brought WP to the next level. This was because it has a larger community combined with the fact it was driven by a visionary leader/geek Matt Mullenweg.
Both are good but I would choose WordPress any day of Joomla, the about image is just a few of the reasons. My main selling point is you can get WP up and running in about five to ten minutes.
WordPress Matt is a man with a vision and did not want to commercialize his open source projects, but rather always got commited volunteers. For funding he started wordpress.com, but wordpress.org is free.
Specific examples how he has taken it to the next level are by including integration of such things as a forum, via bbPress plugin and a social networking plugin via BuddyPress. That is right you can create a Facebook like wesbite with BuddyPress if you want. There are countless other tools which are useful from Afterthedeadline with help you proof your English to Akismit a rock solid anti spam tool. This is why I recommend WordPress over Joomla.
If you want a professional website that could compare to any large website out there use WordPress. Chances are many sites that you visit, professional and large sites are built with WP (I check the source code).
Although Joomla is a powerful system there is no way that Joomla can do all the things WordPress can do (for a WordPress alternative I think CMSmadesimple is better than Joomla).
But in all fairness to Joomla I am not as familiar with it. I also believe you can make anything work. I mean for a while I was creating sites in notepad and notepad ++ with html, css etc. I had created a few templates in notepad and in a sense was using my own CMS system. I just wrote my posts in notepad and uploaded pages to my server. So my point is I think with a little web skill you can make anything work.
Plugins for Joomla vs WordPress
Here is a specific reason if for no other I would choose WP. For example, I have tried to find plugins for Joomla for things like:
- Related posts – For me this is the most important plugin because it allows users to browse your site on related topics. It increases user experience and time on page. It also distributes page rank to related pages.
- Nice simple sitemaps – real html type sitemaps that can be used as navigation of last resort.
- Wiki like links – pages that link into a web automatically. I do not use these as I like to do many things manually, its more natural but many big blogs love this feature.
- Link to me – Simple plugin that will encourages people to link to your site.
- Tags – Many webmasters go crazy with this but if you use some basic plugins like simple tags you can really increase your flexibility on your blog and usefulness. You can have related posts.
- Recent posts – A very standard plugin and everyone has this as a side bar widget.
- Make the Post tile a link or h1 (can be done in Joomla but harder, in WordPress it is the default in many themes).
Etc. for Joomla.
Joomla has all these things in some form but no where near as good as WordPress and for example the tag plug in for Joomla you have to pay for. Who wants to pay for a plugin unless it really is stellar. It defeats the purpose of simplify of your platform and allowing you to focus on writing and content. Search engines reward sites with valuable content, that is SEO in a nutshell. WP frees you to spend more time developing your content. Although again I would have to say Joomla is evolving, they might even had these features by the time you read this. However, my point is they WP will even have more as they are really the blogging leader with an Alexa of 94 for WordPress and Jomoola of 255.
There is also more a a learning curve for Joomla. I am not saying Joomla is all that bad, it is good, I just find WP easier to use, more options and more selection of templates.
WordPress is free, has tags build in and even more plugins for free to make it even better. Tagging is a very important part of SEO. WordPress is intelligently designed for SEO almost right out of the box. Matt Cutts from google recommends WordPress for SEO. Basically people in the know use WordPress.
Joomla vs WordPress SEO and design
People say, Joomla can be used for sites and WordPress for blogs. But my sites WordPress sites and you can not tell them apart from a normal site (not this one this is obviously a hobby blog). They do not look like a blogs at all. So the argument that Joomla is for websites and WordPress is for blogs is wrong.
Further, if anyone can show me an effectively SEO Joomla site I will look at it and show you why WordPress SEO is better. Hands down Joomla vs WordPress SEO use WordPress rather than Joomla for SEO. I have seen very few Joomla site rank as high as WP sites. Maybe it is because WP users are a little more tech savvy or maybe they have more time to write.
If you want to explore WP go here: WordPress compared to Joomla. These are the two sites and you can contrast and look at the pros and cons of each. Again it is not that I have anything against Joomla at all. It is that I really like using WP.
Maybe I have been little fanatical about WordPress vs. Joomla but you are asking a very partial user of WP. But the reason I am partial is I have had such blogging success with WP and with such ease have been able to use it, why would I not be?
2 responses to Joomla vs WordPress
WordPress does not have ACL Manager.
Professional companies use Durpal not wordpress
Right on the button about WP
You’re totally right mate, WordPress sites don’t have to look like a blog, it’s came a long way since it was just a blog framework. It bugs me when people say that WordPress is just for blogs. I read an article that a little similar to this one that I reckon you’ll find interesting, have a look techod.com/joomla-vs-wordpress
J
Leave a reply to Joomla vs WordPress