While WordPress and Joomla are both open-source Content Management Systems, (CMS), they have a some uniqueness that is more geared towards certain types of users.
We hope this post will help you address the WordPress vs Joomla debate so you can decide which to choose from the two CMS, thereby more effectively service your web development needs.
WordPress
WordPress was released May 2003, by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. Its is released under the GPLv2 license and is a free software. It’s major features are the plugins and themes which are the building blocks of the system.
It is being used by over a quarter of the top 10 million websites in the world and is the most popular site management software as it supports well over 60 million websites.
Joomla
Joomla was released in September of 2005 and won the award for the Best Linux / Open Source Project at the Linux & Open Source Awards in London in the same year. It’s major features are templates and extensions.
As at the end of 2016, Joomla had been downloaded over 75 million times, and is the second most used platform (used by over 2.8%) only surpassed by WordPress.
| Property | Joomla | WordPress |
|---|---|---|
| Popularity | Joomla is the second most popular CMS on the web. | WordPress is the most popular CMS on the web. |
| Installation | Can be installed in about two minutes while using softaculous. | Can be installed in less than two minutes while using softaculous. |
| Post Installation | Has an understandable post installation experience that can be a little confusing especially for a beginner. | Has the easiest post installation experience for website building applications. |
| Theme/Templates | There are lots of templates that cross across varying purposes, but nowhere close the the numbers on WordPress. Installing Templates is not as easy also. | WordPress has the largest list of free and paid themes. It is relatively easy to switch between themes. |
| Plugins/Extensions | Joomla has over 6000 extensions. You can’t search and install like in wordpress, you can enable a feature that allows you to install from web. | WordPress has over 38,ooo free plugins. The premium plugins are also very good and the best part is that most plugins have a very detailed documentation. |
| Support | The best support you can get from Joomla is that which they provide on their site especially for beginners. There are also a number of active forums where you can get your issues solved. | If there’s a forum for web development out there?, There is most likely a WordPress support channel there. There are also lots of Tutorials and Videos that can help guide you to design your first WordPress site. |
| Language Support | Multilingual sites are supported. | Multilingual sites are supported. |
| Security | Mainly through updates, 2FA, and site back-up. | Mainly through site back-up, updates, and 2FA |
| Best For | Social Sites, and Forums. | Portfolio sites, Blogs, News sites, Brochure sites, and Business sites. |