It is a powerful blogging and CMS which facilitates users to build dynamic websites. It enables customization, updating, and management of websites from its back-end components. MySQL is exclusively supported by WordPress for storing data on the website.
Joomla is a free open-source CMS that is useful in publishing web content. It helps in building dynamic and robust websites and online applications. It is written in PHP language and stores data in different databases like MySQL, MS SQL, PostgreSQL, etc.
Joomla is a powerful CMS that is used for managing company websites, individual blogs, social networking websites, and e-commerce websites. As compared to other CMS in the market, Joomla is very easy to set up and inexpensive.
Joomla vs. WordPress
The key difference between WordPress and Joomla is that Joomla was launched as a CMS to serve portal-like websites.
Whereas, when introduced WordPress was originally a platform focused on blog writing and posting. However, today both WordPress and Joomla are capable to run any type of website whether it is a single blog or a fully-fledged website. So what differentiates WordPress from Joomla?
Joomla vs. WordPress: Ease of use
Beginners who wish to develop a website or page would require a CMS which is easy to use and install. Even a professional web developer or designer would prefer if their website development tools are simple and easy to use.
WordPress is popular for its very simple and fast installation process. With WordPress, the website can be live and ready in just a few minutes. It has a very user-friendly system which can be understood by everyone.
Similarly, Joomla also has a quick installation process. Several web hosting companies offer one-click installation software for both WordPress and Joomla.
However, from the ease of use point of view, Joomla is much more complicated than WordPress.
The control panel which is used for managing the different modules is not user-friendly. Understanding the control panel and user interface of Joomla is difficult and needs patience.
Joomla vs. WordPress: Speed
One of the key determining factors for choosing a CMS is its speed performance. Both in WordPress and Joomla websites, their speed is determined by several factors.
The number of plugins or extensions used in the website can reduce the website’s speed considerably. However, there are plugins that can help in improving the loading speed of the websites.
Speed testing of the websites was conducted by ITDwebdesign Agency in 2019. As per the results, Joomla websites had a loading time of 0.6 seconds as compared to WordPress website’s loading speed of 0.8 seconds.
However, with the latest developments in technology and the introduction of newer extensions and plugins, the loading speed of WordPress is expected to improve.
Joomla vs. WordPress: Security
WordPress is very popular and highly used; its popularity makes it vulnerable to attacks. WordPress has thousands of plugins and each plugin is different from the other.
The high number of plugins available with WordPress is its biggest advantage; however, is also the biggest reason for its security concern. It is difficult to ensure that each plugin in WordPress has followed the required safety standards while developing.
WordPress also does not offer basic features like a compulsory Secure Socket Layer (SSL) connection on its dashboard.
To enable two-factor authentication the user is required to modify the core files. In short, the advanced security of WordPress is completely dependent on its plugins.
Joomla on the other hand offers both the options of force connections over SSL and also two-factor authentications.
Moreover, it also has its own set of security extensions. The Joomla developers maintain a list of the extensions which have vulnerabilities and track them. Therefore with regards to security, Joomla is a better option than WordPress.
Joomla vs. WordPress: SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
Joomla has a slight edge over WordPress when we talk about SEO capabilities as it allows users to set Meta descriptions and keywords for new articles or pages.
However, the true SEO capabilities of both platforms can be understood only when one is able to study the SEO plugins or extensions available. WordPress boasts of the most popular SEO plugin Yoast SEO plugin.
Yoast SEO is a very powerful plugin that offers several features. It is very easy to understand and use. Yoast categorizes the SEO score of the website content using a traffic light system of red, yellow, or green colors. The plugin also tells how to improve the SEO score in each area and also rates the readability of the content.
Similar to Yoast SEO, Easy Frontend SEO (EFSEO) is the go-to SEO plugin in Joomla. It helps in the editing of the Meta information directly on the front end of the website.
However, EFSEO is not a match for Yoast SEO. Hence from SEO capability, WordPress is better than Joomla.
Joomla vs. WordPress: Appearance and extensions
A good CMS needs to feature templates and plugins which can enable the user to extend or make changes to their websites without modifying the basic code.
WordPress is popular for its vast range of themes and plugins. It offers several free and premium themes that can help in creating a professional-looking website even without any coding and design knowledge.
WordPress has thousands of plugins that can help in adding features that are impossible to create otherwise. With the help of WordPress plugins and themes one can not only create websites and simple blogs, but you can also create entire eCommerce systems, customer relationship systems, etc.
Joomla also offers templates and extensions which can help achieve several things on the web. However, it is less popular than WordPress as it offers less number of templates and extensions.
Conclusion
Joomla can be considered more flexible than WordPress in some ways, it is easy to customize and can implement several small customizations without installing any extensions.
At the same time, WordPress is much better than Joomla when it comes to SEO, ease of use, appearance, and extensions. It is the best CMS platform for beginners which facilitates the easy extension of the website into a more complex project.
