Drupal Development versus Joomla Development
Drupal and Joomla are two of the most popular content management systems (CMS) that are available for free. While both the systems have a huge fan following, businesses wanting to develop their website are usually unsure which of the two would be the most appropriate one for them.
Drupal: If you have programming capabilities, then creating a CMS using Drupal development is meant for you.
Joomla: Joomla is preferred by designers and programmers. Joomla development and customization capacity is huge. New businesses are attracted to Joomla because the system can be easily used and customized.
Drupal Development or Joomla Development
If you wish to know whether you should use Drupal development or Joomla development for setting up your website, consider the following:
Community Features: Joomla’s community builder is a solid component. However, it needs an SEF extension to enable YouTube-style URLs. Meanwhile, Drupal’s community features are very impressive. Users can form groups and easily expand the registration forms.
Shopping Cart: Joomla has Virtuemart and an integration of OSCommerce, both of which beat Drupal's ecommerce add-on. You can use OSCommerce if you need multicurrency options or if your payment gateway is not supported by Virtuemart. Meanwhile, it is not recommended to build a shopping cart through Drupal, as it does not have tax and currency options.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO): While Joomla has poor out-of-the-box features and its code is not well adapted for SEO. On the other hand, Drupal’s out-of-the-box URLs work nicely and can be improved with an add-on. Drupal’s code is usually lightweight and well-optimized.
Forums: Use Joomla with Simple Machines Forum. Joomlaboard integrates with Joomla but lacks several key features. Meanwhile, Drupal has a native and excellent forum. However, the forum does not have high-end features of the modern forums.
Multimedia: Joomla has several podcast and video options. Similarly, Drupal has Drupal Video and other podcast options.
Photo Galleries: They are available in Joomla and are best created by integrating Gallery2 and the Flash gallery Expose. Drupal has a default module and Gallery2 integration.
Event Calendars: While Joomla has several native plug-ins and integrations, Drupal has very limited options.
Template/Themes: Joomla has a wide selection of free and commercial offerings, which can be assigned to different pages when installed. Drupal has only one commercial developer and there are limited off-the-shelf choices. In Drupal, developing your own theme or template should be preferred.
Blogs: While Joomla has certain out-of-the-box capabilities, those at Drupal are very good.
Document Management: This feature is good with both Joomla and Drupal.
User Permissions: Joomla is very admin-orientated. In the Joomla CMS, only a small group controls and runs the site. While members can contribute by adding content and forum posts, it is tough to increase their permissions. This is where Drupal is ahead of Joomla. However, you still need to add single members to groups as individual management continues to be an issue.
Content Management: Joomla only has the core category and does not allow cross-categorization. Drupal has unlimited categories and subcategories. It also allows for the cross-categorization of articles.
Multi-site Management: Only the commercial component is available in Joomla, but Drupal has out-of-the-box capabilities.
General Community: While Joomla lacks in communities, Drupal has an excellent community that is more non-profit than business in nature.
Learning Curve: Joomla is one of the easiest CMS systems to learn and customize. Although Drupal’s learning curve is steeper than that of Joomla, is still easier than that of other platforms.
Drupal is excellent for organizations looking for a community building CMS, whereas if you will not want to tweak your website functionality around the source code Joomla may be used. For more information, send a query request to our customer executives.