If you are new to blogging and wish to start one, then the first thing that you need to consider is a content management system which is the best choice for you. There are a plethora of CMS platforms that are available on the web. In fact, the two most commonly used tools that you can choose from are Joomla and WordPress. Both of these CMS are free as well as open source. They are based on MySQL and PHP. However, you can only choose only one of them to build your blog, then you must be wondering which is better when it comes to blog establishment. In this article, we discuss these two blogging tool in detail along with their pros and cons. We have done an in-depth comparison of Joomla and WordPress, and you can easily choose the best one which suits your blogging requirements.
Let’s first look at Joomla and its pros and cons.
Joomla
It is a versatile content management system which can easily be used to create a simple blog along with discussion board, online store, online communities, complex corporate portals and much more. It is majorly designed as a CMS for complicated and complex websites which have multiple pages and is also developer-oriented with much more extensive capabilities than the WordPress. In fact, Joomla is a complex website building option for new bloggers. And Joomla hosting from a good host can bring all the issues and complex problems to nil, so choose wisely.
Pros
- It is easy to setup. Like WordPress, it is quite easy to install. A lot of web hosting services offer an auto installer for Joomla which means you can easily have a Joomla based blog by simply clicking few buttons.
- It offers great flexibility on the structure in comparison to WordPress and also allows you to manage various aspects of the blog such as complex content along with images, audios, videos and flashes, quite easily.
- Joomla is currently serving 7021 extensions which are more potent and functional than the plugins of WordPress. As per Joomla.org, there are 33 various kinds of categories for you to choose from to extend the website’s functionality to the largest extent.
Cons
- When it comes to SEO competency, Joomla is less SE friendly in comparison to WordPress. In general, a common HTML website will take nearly half a month in order to get listed in Google unless you use some SEO tools in order to rank higher and swiftly.
- Joomla official website fails to provide plenty of themes for the purpose of customization just like WordPress. This means you have to search for the one you prefer, outside Joomla.org. Along with this, due to the complicated layout system, when it comes to changing the look of a Joomla website, it is quite a tedious task. Beginners and even few experienced webmasters have to go through a steep learning curve in order to customize their website successfully.
- Joomla’s admin interface is quite powerful, but it is not user-friendly like WordPress’s graphical-based interface.
- In order to deal with loopholes and vulnerabilities, Joomla provides new versions on a constant basis, but when it comes to moving from the older version to the latest version, it takes substantial time.
Now, let’s discuss about WordPress and its pros and cons.
WordPress
Almost all of the webmasters all across the globe have heard about WordPress. Even the beginners must know about WordPress that it is among the most powerful as well as easy to use blog creator. As per recent statistics, it has been used by nearly 19% of the top 10 million sites, and it has been powering more than 60 million sites all over the world.
Pros
- WordPress is seen as a product which has been designed originally and primarily for blogging.
- WordPress is also well-known for its easy to install feature which takes less than five minutes to complete with a single click of WordPress installer which is offered by almost all of the website hosting services. In case you want to install WordPress all by yourself, then you only have to carry out four steps: Download and then Unzip the WordPress packages. After that, you need to create an MYSQL database. Now, you need to upload the WordPress file with an FTP program and in the last you in to complete the installation by simply accessing the URL where you have uploaded the files of WordPress in a web browser.
- WordPress is quite known for its SEO-friendliness. It has a lesser amount of code, and all of its codes are clean and simple which are preferred by the search engines in order to index. It merely takes 1 day to get your new post to be listed on the Google.
- Every beginner in blogging can easily learn how to create content, add new images, and also publish new pages with WordPress within few minutes. It is quite practical for beginners who wish to update their blog on a daily basis.
- As we speak, there are almost 2,000 themes as well as 26,000 plugins which are available on WordPress which means you can easily customize the appearance and also extend the functionality of the blog in any certain way as you like.
Cons
- WordPress provides great community support with a huge number of designers, developers, as well as professional webmasters. However, it does lack few community-driven initiatives, and it doesn’t intend to improve its community to make it more useful and attractive.
- There are few security issues which were uncovered in WordPress in 2007 and 2008. A lot of high profile blogs as well as commercial blogs got hacked and attacked during that period.
- In case you want to customize your website heavily, you may require help from a programmer or a developer.
Which one to choose? Joomla or WordPress
With the above information, and understanding the pros as well as cons of these two CMS, you can easily choose between them. However, for a better comparison, you should consider the list of major usage between Joomla and WordPress in the following:
- WordPress is the most widely adopted CMS which is being used as a blogging system. However, you won’t be limited to the blog website. It is attributed to the flexibility of WordPress which allows you to create various kinds of sites with the static pages. WordPress is best suitable for beginners.
- Joomla is certainly a more powerful CMS, and it can be used for all types of website building like blogs, schools, government, business, corporates and much more.
Both of these two are powerful CMS platforms, but WordPress is particularly designed for beginners who build a simple blog while Joomla is built for expert and professional webmasters who build highly customized websites with great flexibility as well as complex content.