A CMS (Content Management System) is a specific type of software. Its primary functions include the design and dynamic updating of a website. Version control, content publishing, formatting, indexing, and searching the content catalog are also part of its feature set. The development of CMSs has led to the emergence of two market leaders: Joomla and WordPress in 2022. This CMS comparison helps you choose the tool that best suits your needs for your digital project. So, Joomla or WordPress?
Target audience: experts or amateurs
Given their differing approaches, Joomla is geared toward experts, while WordPress is geared toward beginners.
Joomla
As a reminder, a CMS refers to an application used to create and manage digital content (videos, photos, social media apps, galleries, text, widgets, etc.). WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal are the undisputed leaders in digital content management today. Among this powerhouse trio, Joomla remains the only application that meets the criteria of a true CMS.
The platform took off in the 2000s before gradually ceding its top spot to WordPress. Even so, it has retained a prominent position in the market.
Joomla’s interface reveals a complex system, making it inaccessible to beginners. In fact, it is intended for a select group of experts: experienced developers, designers, and integrators. The platform is designed for large-scale digital projects that require dynamism and creativity.
WordPress
In its early days, WordPress was a simple blog management system. Today, it is one of the most popular CMS platforms. Its wide range of plugins plays a big part in this. Whether it’s a portfolio, an online store, a digital gallery, or a corporate website, any design is possible.
The platform has two versions: WordPress.com and WordPress.org. The first is a self-hosted version. It creates and publishes your content directly. Owned by the American company Automattic Inc., the second requires installation on a hosting server.
Its childlike simplicity makes WordPress accessible to the general public. Many small and medium-sized businesses, including startups and even individuals, find the software’s interface easy to use.
How easy the tool is to use
Because of its complex nature, Joomla is harder to get the hang of than WordPress.
Joomla
It takes a few months to get the hang of Joomla, depending on the user’s level of expertise. An experienced programmer or developer can grasp its essence in just a few days. However, a novice may take several months to master its interface.
Using the Joomla system follows a specific hierarchy. The project begins with purchasing a domain name and choosing a web hosting provider. Next comes installation, a step made easy by its auto-installer. You can also rely on the hosting providers’ assisted installers. Finally, you create categories before creating content.
WordPress
Getting your bearings in the WordPress admin panel seems easy. Despite the many options, the layout is easy to understand. It only takes a few days for a beginner to get the hang of the interface.
Just like Joomla, WordPress has an auto-installer. You’ll then be taken to the dashboard. It displays the various menus and options for creating and editing content, as well as general settings.
The number of hours required depends on the complexity of your project. Creating a static website or a simple blog will only take a few hours.
Support and the community surrounding the platform
All CMS platforms have an active community dedicated to mutual support and knowledge sharing. Joomla and WordPress are no exception.
Joomla
Joomla offers a large forum that, unfortunately, is shrinking every year. This gathering place for some 1,000 users is where people share issues related to using Joomla every day. The community also publishes a wealth of documentation, including:
- guides;
- tutorials;
- Q&A.
Before acting on the information, check the publication date. If necessary, open a new ticket and ask your question on the community portal.
WordPress
WordPress’s greatest strength lies in the vastness of its community. Its popularity is well established. Social media, developer sites, third-party forums, and specialized blogs are teeming with support groups. The software also has a support site available in multiple languages.
In addition, some web hosting providers offer dedicated support for discussions among WordPress users. This content is drawn from their knowledge base.
The Affordability of the CMS
The cost of a CMS can either encourage or discourage its use. Joomla and WordPress have the advantage of being available for free.
Joomla
The open-source software (free to use and share) is available in a free version. The only costs you’ll incur are for purchasing and registering a domain name, as well as hosting.
Hostinger is one of the web hosting providers recommended by experts. It offers various features designed to make the system easier to use. The provider also organizes special deals and promotions for its customers. It even allows you to scale your hosting plan as your needs change.
WordPress
The open-source CMS WordPress is also free. You are responsible for purchasing the domain name and web hosting.
Web hosting providers offer special hosting plans for WordPress. The service includes a free domain name for a limited time (after that period, you’ll need to purchase it). Hosting prices are divided into several plans:
- Per-unit hosting costs approximately 2 euros per month;
- Business hosting costs around 4 euros per month;
- Professional web hosting costs about 10 euros per month.
The services also come with plug-ins to optimize website speed, as well as extensions.
The safety measures that have been put in place
Extensibility makes CMSs vulnerable. No software is currently immune to cybercrime. Even so, Joomla and WordPress feature advanced security systems.
Joomla
Due to its plummeting popularity, Joomla is no longer a prime target for cyberattacks. Nevertheless, updating the CMS is essential to strengthen its layers of protection. The update addresses vulnerabilities in previous versions. Installed plug-ins also require updates to maintain their security and prevent overall system degradation.
The team behind Joomla works together to ensure its stability. It focuses continuously on maintaining and developing the core code.
WordPress
As the world's leading CMS, WordPress is a target for cybercriminals and hackers. However, updates to the system and plugins help mitigate these risks.
To prepare for any oversights on the part of users, the content management system has implemented an automatic update.
Furthermore, user error remains the greatest security threat—in other words, poor CMS management. Ensuring constant vigilance requires taking a few precautions: avoiding questionable themes (a website’s graphic layout) and making sure to install necessary updates.
See also: What kind of website can you create with WordPress?
The Different Types of Themes
Joomla and WordPress offer a wide variety of themes for designing your website.
Joomla
Unlike WordPress, Joomla does not provide a template directory (a pre-built website template). It leaves it up to you to browse the providers’ websites. It therefore invites you to go on a theme hunt among the roughly 1,000 free templates.
The ability to combine templates is what makes Joomla unique. It allows you to mix multiple themes within a single site. This feature is useful for creating two distinct designs within the same site—such as one design for showcasing your company and another for showcasing your products.
WordPress
WordPress has the advantage of offering a vast selection of themes. The templates are as beautiful as they are practical. You’re free to make any necessary adjustments to tailor the template to your company’s image. With a basic understanding of design and coding, you can build a website that aligns with your brand using a free theme.
For beginners, WordPress recommends free default themes.
Themes Customization Options
Which offers better theme customization: Joomla or WordPress?
Joomla
While stylish and cutting-edge themes come at a cost, classic and basic templates are free. Some users criticize Joomla for not offering enough free templates. They also take issue with the fact that interesting templates are available only from premium providers. They further criticize the lack of free open-source templates.
When it comes to customization, Joomla guides you through modifying the design and adding or removing new features.
WordPress
The exponential number of WordPress themes is truly impressive. The content management system offers thousands of catalogs featuring both free and paid themes. Customization plugins, meanwhile, are available through its active community.
A CMS gives you complete freedom to improve both functionality and design. Configuring features requires extensions, while customizing the design requires access to and knowledge of HTML, CSS, and PHP.
Existing extensions
Plugins enhance the functionality and aesthetics of themes. WordPress outperforms Joomla in this regard.
Joomla
Many free extensions have been abandoned due to a lack of updates. Currently, Joomla has approximately 8,000 extensions in its official library. Users praise the high quality of the plug-ins (extensions). Unlike WordPress, Joomla displays the price of each extension to users right from the preview stage.
Its extensions—both free and paid—are licensed under the GPL (General Public License: a license that sets forth the legal terms of distribution). The CMS warns against plug-ins not listed in the official catalog, as they are not GPL-compliant.
When making your selections, consider the availability of updates. Some extensions do not offer updates and may cause compatibility issues with the CMS in the future.
As part of its commitment to customer satisfaction, Joomla encourages you to create your own extension using its powerful framework (a software infrastructure that enables the development of the extension's core).
WordPress
WordPress’s plugin directory contains approximately 54,000 free plugins. Each plugin has been thoroughly reviewed before being made available. To ensure transparency, WordPress also indicates whether plugins are compatible with your version.
Its impressive community provides insight into existing extensions, their reliability, security, updates, and complexity.
However, WordPress plugins have one major drawback: modifying the free versions remains a complex task.
Design Typologies
Joomla and WordPress are used to build static websites, online stores, community sites, and corporate websites.
Joomla
Joomla can create blogs, but corporate websites remain its specialty. It is designed to help establish your company’s brand identity in the digital marketplace. Given its wide range of configuration options, Joomla is the best CMS for writing and publishing corporate press releases, analytical reports, statistical data, and digital portals.
By design, a CMS is unable to create and update an online store on a consistent basis. However, adding a few powerful extensions solves this problem.
Organizations looking to establish an online presence and manage memberships remotely can also rely on Joomla. It enables the creation ofdynamic and comprehensive community websites.
WordPress
Users have proclaimed WordPress the king of blogging. It excels at creating content-rich blogs.
Setting up an online store is also within its capabilities. The process relies on its famous free WooCommerce plugin. This plugin includes all the features needed to set up an e-commerce site:
- product administration;
- storage;
- publication and updates;
- payment;
- delivery.
For businesses, WordPress offers an intuitive interface that makes it easy to create and regularly update content on a corporate website. The 46,000 plugins designed for professionals will help you with search engine optimization and security.
Designing a community website is also part of its functions, even though Joomla outperforms it in this area.
Search Engine Optimization and Optimization Techniques
To ensure the success of your digital project, you must optimize your website for search engines. The choice of CMS will determine the success of this effort.
Joomla
Joomla used to lag behind its competitors (WordPress and Drupal) in terms of SEO optimization options. However, thanks to numerous improvements, it can now compete in the SEO arena.
Adding meta descriptions, keywords, and many other SEO elements helps improve the visibility of your content online. Joomla offers these features. Whenever you publish a post, it prompts you to select the“Search Engine Optimization (SEO)” option, which will customize the URL. Extensions will further help improve your site’s SEO.
WordPress
The thousands of plugins make it easy to optimize your WordPress site for search engines. It offers a wide range of SEO options, such as customizing URLs, adding keywords, and more…
WordPress plugins such as Rank Math and Yoast SEO optimize your content for search engines, including its title, readability, and URL.
There are many SEO techniques (ranging from website structure to content quality optimization) that can help optimize your articles.
Given the many SEO options available in WordPress, working with an SEO expert will save you a lot of hassle.
Joomla or WordPress: A Summary
Joomla is best suited for a handful of programming and development experts. Its settings can be difficult to grasp. Its community can be a great help if you run into problems. It’s available in a free version and offers various security levels. The templates and extensions are high-quality, but limited in number. It excels at creating community and corporate websites, but struggles to set up and manage blogs and online stores.
Easy to master, WordPress is designed for a broad audience. Its large community provides all the help you need to use it. In its free version, however, its security is insufficient. WordPress offers a range of plugins and themes for creating blogs and e-commerce sites, along with several SEO options.
A large-scale digital project requires a powerful tool like Joomla, while a standard website development project uses WordPress.
For your digital project, which of these two CMS platforms is right for you? Do you prefer Joomla’s technical capabilities or WordPress’s ease of use? Share your thoughts in the comments.
