Whereas WordPress is the most user-friendly and Joomla tends to be the designer’s friend, Drupal is for the developer.
Drupal’s Web site explains, “Although Drupal is often described as a ‘content management system’ (CMS) it is also a ‘content management framework’ (CMF). In other words, unlike a typical CMS, it is geared more towards configurability and customization.”
So, if you’re wanting to try your hand at developing, Drupal provides a great atmosphere within which to learn the necessary code language.
Like I mentioned in the previous post, I was unable to find someone who uses or has used Drupal and Joomla. But, as promised, here are the pros and cons that I’ve come up with through my own research (and limited knowledge).
{Pros}
- It’s great for developers,
- Powerful system with which some beautifully designed and extremely robust sites can be built,
- It’s an open source system (it can be customized to suit your needs),
- The user customizes everything, making it as unique as they want, and
- If you want to include a blog, it can run the new Blogger Data API, MetaWeblog API, and most of the Movable Type API.
{Cons}
- This system is advanced and not the most user-friendly (Drupal’s definition is a beginner is vastly different than that of WordPress),
- If you don’t have much code knowledge, this system will be lost on you,
- The themes aren’t as well designed (Drupal could use some developers who are also designers!), and
- After all of the customization is said and done, you may well have spent more money than you would have with another system.
Tim Stiffler-Dean, a blogger at Good Web Practices, wrote a very useful account of his first-hand experiences with WordPress, Joomla and Drupal, that you can find here.
Chances are that you’ve browsed many Drupal-run sites without realizing it, including Yahoo!‘s Research site, Adobe‘s Flex site, MacWorld‘s Expo site, 20th Century Fox’s Fox Spotlight site , Warner Bros. Records site and more.
In conclusion, WordPress is your friend for push-button publishing that looks great and is easy to use, Joomla is great for designers who want to customize more than WordPress and Drupal is best for those who want to develop.
