Comparing Joomla and Wordpress

Today in some down time I decided to take the jump and download a copy of Joomla, the popular PHP CMS system that is comparible to Wordpress in many ways.  Just to set the scene for everyone I downloaded the newest version of Joomla, 1.5, and installed it locally running a wamp server.  The download took a little longer than wordpress to download, but that is because Joomla is packed full of features as it is downloaded.

Once Joomla was downloaded, the install was on.  Now maybe I am a little spoiled by Wordpress and their famed 5 min installation, but Joomla's installation was a little long for me.  You have to go through the usual database setting, admin name, etc, but there were extra steps that were included such as removing the installation directory completely after the installation was completed because of a security risk.  After sifting through the install, I was ready to start running the Joomla test instance I was setting up.

I logged into the Joomla setting and was immediatly over whelmed.  The back end of Joomla seems so cluttered, and partially in a good way.  The back end reminded me of a cPanel instance, with icons for everything and not much definition, definately not as simple as wordpress.  I wondered around for a little bit and noticed that the backend is like that for a reason, to TRY and simplify the fact that Joomla is not the easiest navigation in the world.  Now one thing that Joomla does in the back end that is nice is show you EVERYTHING, you have a homepage manager, a menu generator and editor, article manager, user manager, language manager, and more.

The look and feel of the back end did take some getting used to, but once I figured out more of it, the easier it became.  I do like how simple everything is laid out on the admin "dashboard", however it is not as easy as wordpress.

I started looking around for tools, extensions, and components for Joomla and noticed they are just as easy to find as wordpress, however I do not think there are as many avaliable.  The wordpress extension portal seems to be laid out nicer, and it is simple to find what you are looking for and I simply could not find that with Joomla.  One thing that I did really like about Joomla is the links in the admin section to help files, help videos, and more.  This is a great idea that I think wordpress should adopt, and put help files directly into the admin dashboard.

One thing that I noticed that I can say 100% is better for me in wordpress is the template manipulation.  In Joomla it is not as easy as it is in wordpress to manipulate a template.  In wordpress I like it that you can go in and choose all of your different sections of code and start editing, in Joomla you have to jump through some hoops first.  Also I could not figure out how to preview the template before making the change, with the current content.  In wordpress you can just select the template in the admin area and see a working demo of the site, not so much in Joomla and that is a major annoyance for me.

The cons of Joomla that I found off the bat with this installation were few and far between, other than a few personal prefrences and the template's being hard to work with, I really can not say that Joomla is bad and write it off.  The truth is, after playing with it for a while, it may be interesting to start integrating into some websites that I will build in the future.  It does seem more business friendly, more CMS professional, however it is a little harder to navigate and to control, but that could just be me being completely unrelated to it. I am going to give it a few more test instances before making up my mind on which is a truely better all around PHP CMS system, right now it is a toss up!

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