We are fortunate to have many options when it comes to choosing a content management system (CMS). With a CMS like WordPress, Joomla, or Drupal, you can easily organize, update, and manage all of your web content. Of course, with so many options available, it can be hard to know which system is right for you.
WordPress is the most popular CMS online, hosting over 43% of all websites on the internet. Joomla is another well-established CMS that isn’t quite as popular as WordPress, but is still a good option. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, so the question of which CMS is better ultimately comes down to which features you prefer and what kind of support you need.
Inclind works with businesses and organizations to provide website development, design, and maintenance, and support services. Whatever CMS system you choose, we can help you build, design, and maintain your website - and do everything in between. Our team can also help you select a CMS based on your organization's unique needs. If you’re interested in learning more, reach out to us to speak with a member of our team.
Why Do I Need a CMS?
A content management system (CMS) is software that allows users to build and maintain a website without coding it. While you are not required to use a CMS, it makes the process of creating and updating websites far easier.
If you have coding experience, you can build your own website by using HTML to add text, images, navigation bars, and other components to your site. You could also use JavaScript for more advanced functions and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to style your site. You would then need to upload the entire HTML file to your server. Once it’s uploaded and the site is live, you would then need to maintain the site through manual coding.
A CMS simplifies this process. With a CMS, content templates must be coded, but the content can be edited with a text editor. Building a website can be as easy as dragging and dropping elements depending on the CMS or site theme. Maintaining and updating a website built using a CMS is much simpler.
This last part is particularly important for most businesses and organizations. You can pay a website development firm to build a website from scratch - but what happens if you want to make a simple update to your site? By using a CMS, you can administer your site on your own, instead of having to ask an outside company or contractor to handle simple updates. In other words, you won’t need to hire a developer or have one on staff to maintain a great website.
Should I Use Joomla or WordPress for My Website?
WordPress and Joomla have both been around for approximately 20 years. They are both well-regarded CMS platforms, although WordPress is far more popular than Joomla. Both CMS platforms are fairly easy to use, although they have some differences that can make one system better than the other for certain users.
Advantages of Joomla
Joomla is a free, open-source CMS. It was originally designed to create websites that acted like portals with log-in forms and membership systems. Today, it is used more broadly for all types of websites.
Joomla's biggest advantage over WordPress is that it is more flexible. This means that you can create a highly personalized website using modules and components, including non-standard content. You can also use different templates for different content, whereas with WordPress, you are limited to one theme. All of this customization is great - but it may be overwhelming for beginners who aren’t familiar with Joomla.
Joomla has a much steeper learning curve, so it isn’t considered as user-friendly as WordPress. Joomla uses a combo of articles and categories for its sites, so you will need to create categories for the type of content that you want to put on your site. While this isn’t a difficult process, it is more involved than setting up a site with WordPress.
Multi-lingual support is built into Joomla, so if you want to offer a site in two or more languages, you can do so without having to use a plug-in (as you would have to do with WordPress). This is an important way to customize your site, particularly if you operate internationally or cater to customers or clients who may speak more than one language.
Joomla also offers a more advanced system for managing the site. Once your website has been created, it is pretty easy to use the access controls and manage the site.
Benefits of WordPress
WordPress is also a free, open-source CMS. It was originally designed to be a blogging platform. While it is still popular among bloggers, it is the most used CMS on the internet for all types of sites.
One of the biggest advantages of WordPress is its ease of use. Even if you don’t have much experience with website development, it is fairly simple to use this platform. Depending on the complexity of your site, it is possible to create a site within a few hours or days.
It also has a huge support community because it’s so popular, so it isn’t hard to find answers or help if you have questions or need support.
While WordPress is less flexible than Joomla, it still has thousands of plugins and themes. In this way, you can customize your site to meet your needs. Many of these plug-ins and themes are free or low-cost.
Because WordPress was built for blogging, it is a great option if you plan to have a blog on your site. Blogging is a great way to increase search engine optimization (SEO) through long-tail searches, so that is a major plus for WordPress sites.
Which CMS Is Better?
Both Joomla and WordPress have their strengths and weaknesses. Price-wise, they are probably fairly equal, with a website costing anywhere from a few hundred dollars to several thousand dollars, depending on the features that you add. Both have plenty of themes (WordPress) and templates (Joomla), along with plug-ins (WordPress) and extensions (Joomla) so that you can easily customize your site.
The question of which CMS is better depends on two major factors: the type of site you are building and the level of experience you and your team have. WordPress is probably the better choice for the vast majority of websites and users because it is more user-friendly, easier, and faster to get a site live, and a lot of help and support is available because WordPress is the most commonly used CMS.
Of course, if you have web development experience or are willing to hire a website development team, building a site with Joomla may make sense. Many fantastic sites are built on Joomla (IKEA, Holiday Inn, and Nintendo to name a few) and allow for much more customization and flexibility. Its market share is declining, however, so that is something to keep in mind if you are worried about the longevity of the platform.
If your site is currently built on Joomla and you are considering switching to another CMS like WordPress or Drupal, the website designers and developers at Inclind can help. We can help you seamlessly migrate your website from one CMS to another. In fact, a large portion of our work involves helping clients move their sites to and from CMS like WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla.
The Inclind team has over 90 years of combined experience in designing, building, and maintaining websites for our clients. If you’re considering a migration, reach out to our team. We can help you decide whether migration is right for you, provide demonstrations of various CMS, and walk you through the process.
Want to Build a Great Website? Reach Out to Inclind!
A thoughtfully and beautifully designed website can be a boon to your business, whether you run a corporation, a non-profit, a member organization, or another entity. Content management systems can make it easy to create a website, even without coding experience. If you need additional support to customize, update, and maintain your site, we can help.
Inclind works with businesses and organizations to help them create highly functional, attractive websites. Our services include website design and redesign, conversion optimization, custom integrations, accessibility audits, automation, and support and maintenance. No matter what CMS platform you choose, we will collaborate with you to ensure that your website works exactly how you want it to - and that it helps you meet your goals.
Interested in learning more? Fill out our online contact form or hit the live chat button to talk to one of our experts about your website.