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Have a guess what color-groups of sites (e.g. Entertainment Weekly) were made with WordPress?
What 5 by Drupal? And which 5 by Joomal?
It’s probably not so easy to guess.
Overall, all three are very popular CMS’. We created this list to drive this point home. The green group contains sites with massive user-bases e.g. Twitter, eBay and Pinterest. This reflects the strong customizability of Joomla.
Meanwhile, oranges are very well-known corporations like Disney and the New York Times. They trusted WordPress to handle their branding look.
By deduction, blues are all Drupal CMS designs. Still big names, just a tad smaller than the other two.
WordPress Vs. Drupal Vs. Joomla Comparison
All three CMSs are exceptionally capable. It’s really a matter of what you need the most. Customization? An all-around solution? Standout UI? Or, maybe something in-between?
Also, how much time do you have to create the website? What’s your level of expertise? Or, what are you willing to pay for expert coding?
WordPress Vs. Drupal Vs. Joomla: Pricing 
Just a note: We are looking at WordPress.org rather than WordPress.com in this review. Note that these are two different things.
That said, all three CMS tools are free - if you want to use a completely basic skeleton. In just a few clicks, you can have each CMS downloaded.
However, to get up-and-running, you need:
These don't always cost, but for businesses that have a decent amount of traffic, there really is no way around paying for a superior service. What’s more, plugins and themes can be an extra cost, too... This can range anywhere from free, to over £200 pounds a pop.
(There are free versions for everything. You don't have to pay if you don't have the budget to stretch.)
The only thing that you will certainly have to pay for is a domain name. If you grab this from one of many domain registrars out there, this can cost you no more than a few squid a year.
Alongside that, you’ll have a great selection of free themes in your CMS, to choose from, with which to customize the look of your website.
WordPress Vs. Drupal Vs. Joomla: SEO
Now, we couldn't exactly rate all three five-out-of-five stars, if not for the fact that each was exceptionally good at SEO.
Good thing too. Search engine optimization is a measure of your website's ability to attract attention online.
This can be an issue for drag-and-drop builders… (Squarespace review for an example), though they still hold their own.
WordPress
WordPress is the best for overall simplifying your SEO optimization processes from good to great.
Themes come SEO-optimized right out of the box. Google loves WP websites, so they get an immense amount of organic traffic when optimized correctly.
Still, you have to maximize the capacity of your chosen theme by manipulating your use of plugins (as will all CMS’). We recommend Yoast or All in One Pack.
Joomla
Of all three, Joomla requires the most upfront careful manipulation and cultivation, to get your SEO going. It's not the most user-friendly.
Despite that, Joomla has the ability to rank extraordinarily highly. This will get you in the top 10 of search results. It has very cool features like turning on SEF URLs.
You can even go further, by activating URL rewriting. There are countless more customization tweaks, such as activating or deactivating URL suffixes.
Drupal
Somewhere in the middle, Drupal has many competitive pre-ready capabilities. These are the best for quick, decent SEO.
Just adjust its accompanying modules… It supports RDF. And is compatible with Google Analytics.
But, to get to the highest SEO levels, it’s incredibly difficult for non-experienced web folks!
WordPress Vs. Drupal Vs. Joomla: eCommerce
Let’s cut straight to the marrow.
Our WordPress vs Joomla vs. Drupal review team recommends you go for one of the first two.
With Drupal, unless you are a very experienced website owner, it will require a TON of time investment to get the hang of.
So many ins-and-outs will require you to fiddle around with various modules, that you are better off spending the hours and hours needed, on your actual business strategy.
That leaves WordPress or Joomla...
WP vs. Joomla
eCommerce means the sale of products online.
It's straightforward to get the required software and plugins for WordPress and Joomla, that allow you to set up an online store (tweaking is another matter).
With each CMS, you can find compatible, integrative solutions for various payment means like Stripe and PayPal, as well as very advanced, interactive shopping carts.
Joomla is notable in that its eCommerce functionalities are inbuilt… But, all of the product pages - and products themselves - will need considerable management, which requires somebody with strong technological know-how.
To summarize, Joomla is, once again, for the tech savvy online salesperson.
Whereas WordPress is a neat solution for those who want something advanced but straightforward. Its WooCommerce is an extremely popular solution for online store creation.
You’ll also find many cool deals with top WordPress hosts, such as free advertising credits of up to 200 quid.
WordPress Vs. Drupal Vs. Joomla: Features
Mother always said don't compare yourself to others. Just be yourself.
All three give you all the features you could want… But, there are varying time-investments required + a few stand out tools worth mentioning.
Let's go through the most important overall dimensions and see how well each client holds up.
WordPress Vs. Drupal Vs. Joomla: Business Sites
3-Way Tie
Online business ideas need stores for conversions to take flight. Contrarily, sharing information and building brand-awareness can be vital for getting attention.
Be it an NGO, educational institution - like Princeton - or any number of big-name brands, your online identity gives you leverage.
Drupal Business Sites
We discussed Drupal’s ability to handle eCommerce, in the related section, further down this WordPress vs Joomla vs. Drupal review.
For general brand awareness and design, this platform holds its own. Particularly if you have a technologically-capable team, people who are not afraid of its complexities.
This platform really has few limits... Big names like Holiday Inn, Nintendo and Ikea all use it to share their brands with the public.
Joomla Business Sites
Joomla and its development team have taken great care to assist businesses in their brand development needs.
You will find tons and tons of business themes as well as graphics. Get up and-running very quickly. Get the specific look you want and the specific functionality you need.
For everything from analysis reports, advanced analytics and corporate press releases, Joomla packs a wallop - and is extremely capable when it comes to creating very customized user experiences.
No wonder Twitter and eBay rely on the software!
WordPress Business Sites
WordPress is a titan, the undisputed champion in terms of overall popularity of use.
Almost two-thirds of all websites, business and general, rely on it - due to the fact that running a business with this CMS is quite straightforward
Find lots of online tutorials to get yourself up and running in under an hour. While all of these website builders need some substantial initial time-investment, it’s more intuitive.
More than that, there are over 46,000 plugins to choose from. And an equally impressive catalog of themes.
WordPress Vs. Drupal Vs. Joomla: Value/Performance
Both can be completely free. Just get a free web host that offers a free domain as well.
But, really, it depends on the developmental expertise level, how well-integrated your web host is.
Manipulate third-party tools, to use boost performance metrics like speed - such as by managing your cache and streamlining source codes.
Drupal Capability
Even though Drupal is the least used of the bunch, it has the most capability of all 3 - in terms of starting potential.
The CMS comes packed with a ton of features, from the moment you download it, and has a reputation for creating extremely capable web applications, for one thing.
Care International, the Dallas Cowboys Fans: Connecting Platform, and The Economist Espresso News App all were built using the system. For very serious, tech-savvy developers, this is an incredibly powerful solution.
WordPress Capability
WordPress is a juggernaut backed by a massive community. It probably has the highest rate - and most robust amount - of updates that toggle security issues and pump up performance metrics.
You are a lot less likely to deal with fiddly technical issues, particularly if you use trusted plugins. And, among those plugins, there are many dedicated to boosting loading times, such as Varnish, and W3 Total Cache.
A ton of very capable web hosts also come officially recommended by the WordPress team - for the standout optimizing and integrative provisions with WP.
Joomla Capability
Joomla is similar to WP. Find a ton of third-party extensions. The CMS interface has lots of tools ready to enhance your website's functionalities. And they're is a plethora of tutorials for getting started.
Because both Joomla and WordPress have third-party extensions that run along a spectrum of reliability - in terms of core code quality - it is up to the website owner to take good care of maintaining their collections.
WordPress Vs. Drupal Vs. Joomla: For Designers
Each lets you grab themes and templates to quickly manage your design and to construct your website.
Alongside this, various modules, plugins and extensions offer added features and functionalities. Note: drag-and-drop builders like Wix (Wix review) are faster.
Drupal Design Assets
Once again, Drupal may surprise you, in that it has an immense amount of flexibility and functionality.
There is a large directory of modules you can install, to increase the performance and functionalities of your chosen theme.
That said, the number of themes available stand at just over 2000 on the official website, with another 450+ you can find on the ThemeForest repository…
(A fair amount less than WordPress, but still a great deal more than Joomla.)
Joomla Design Assets
Just behind Drupal, Joomla has almost 1000 templates available - via ThemeForest. Joomla really stands out in terms of the sheer number of official extensions available.
Over 7500 can be downloaded, to expand the functionality and performance of your site theme. Just searched for them in the Joomla extension directory.
Once downloaded, extensions will be available directly from the dashboard. While the framework is quite simple, Joomla stands out in the sheer customizability of the framework - via adjustments to the core code.
Not for beginners!
WordPress Design Assets
The King Kong of unrestricted design horizons… WP really stands out in its immense theme repository. Find over 4500 official free themes. And we're just starting…
There are almost 10,000 premium themes available in the ThemeForest. And a staggering 50,000+ official FREE plug-ins.
Of course, you have to note that not all of those plug-ins will be trustworthy and reliable. So make sure you do your research before jumping onto some new and exciting site functionality expansion.
WordPress Vs. Drupal Vs. Joomla: Security
Hoorah for Drupal!
To accurately measure the security of a CMS, you have to assess it along 3 dimensions:
- third-party software, which includes extensions, plugins and modules
- the main code that the CMS relies on
- the website owner (a great VPN saves lives)
third-party software, which includes extensions, plugins and modules
Cybersecurity has never been more important. In the first half of 2019, 4.1 billion confidential records were exposed.
Over a quarter of these were due to malware hacks, a third due to phishing, and over off because of hacking.
The “Red Queen's” phenomenon is in full step, with cyber security needing to constantly stay ahead of rapidly evolving cybercrime methodologies.
Everything from:
- flying flying on commercial aircrafts
- using automated vehicles & making online purchase
...a strong CMS infrastructure is crucial protecting businesses and their users.
Drupal Superior Security
Right out of box, there is no question that Drupal has the best security out of all three. This is due to its original developers.
The likes of Dries Buytaert paid incredible attention to the security infrastructure of Drupal’s codes/modules, making it incredibly robust from the moment you download it.
The code has frequent updates. You will find much less in the way of untrustworthy plugins/themes, as compared to WordPress, which has a spectrum of reliability regarding its third-party softwares.
We recommend you spend a good amount of time researching plugins/themes for WP (before downloading!).
Likewise, although Joomla has a spectacular core code development team, you need to be cautious with regards to its third-party extensions.
Is WordPress, Joomla or Drupal Easiest to Use?
The level of expertise needed for WP websites is slightly lower, due to the consumer centric infrastructures in place with the WordPress CMS.
(Not quite the simplicity of top free website builders, which tend to be “drag-and-drop”).
That said, all 3 create a working website with no previous experience needed. Grab a good host of tutorials and a user interface that can be figured out after a learning curve.
WordPress Ease
WP’s intuitive user interface design is much easier to use than the other two tools. This is aided by the fact that many top-tier web hosts now offer a service known as managed WordPress hosting.
This customized, integrative service handles many of the technical setup processes, leaving you with little to do other than to customize your theme and add in the necessary bits of content.
If you choose a particularly powerful and streamlined theme - alongside an awesome tutorial - you can have a very impressive and functional, professional site up, in a matter of one hour... Look up suitable tutorials by searching for guides in your niche.
Joomla & Drupal Ease
Both of these put much more focus on developer tools. They provide an awesome pallet for an experienced developer.
Do you have no problem working with core codes like PHP and HTML? Then, you’ll have no trouble trying to manipulate theme frameworks.
This is great if you want to create something with a very customized look to it, as well as very custom functionalities.
(No coincidence that Twitter chose Joomla for its source code framework.)
For the most part, WP relies on a much greater directory of automated, community based third-party add-ons, to expand chosen themes and customized attributes.
With Drupal or Joomla, the coder has to design this customisation for him or herself to a much greater extent.
Bottom Line - WordPress vs Joomla vs. Drupal Review 🆚
Is WordPress Better Than Drupal and Joomla?
Talk to a veteran developer, you may hear WordPress is a piece of garbage, and your best bet’s to go with Joomla or Drupal.
WordPress is consumer-focused, with advanced tools developers can use.
Some believe it is harder and more costly to build a great WP website, than to build a great site using Joomla or Drupal… Assuming you have the skills.
While WP has many more extensions than the other two, many are prone to hacking, due to poor code qualities of lower-tier plugins. (Many are outstanding though, such as . for businesses: Shopify review).
Drupal is particularly robust, security-wise.
On the flipside: WP gives people a site fast - without the need for developers… many who LOVE the tool, due to how practical it is to teach to clients.
