

Ask HN: Drupal or Joomla? - digamber_kamat

I have won a contract to build a site. Given enough freedom I would have chosen to implement it in RoR. Because the features that will be required in there are best built with RoR.<p>But the client wants to me to use either Drupal or Joomla. 
I have worked with Joomla and I know whatever he is asking for is doable with Joomla. But with significant amount of Pain.<p>I hear that Drupal is framework rather than a CMS. Since people call it a framework I felt that it might be easier to implement my project in Drupal rather than Joomla.<p>Can a wise man quickly tell me the difference between Joomla and Drupal?
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bgnm2000
Drupal is about 1000x more extendable than joomla.

I used to solely develop sites in joomla, moved to drupal, and will be moving
to RoR.

The freedom drupal allows is like night and day over joomla.

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pedalpete
Though I agree with the statement above, it also depends on how much
customization you will need to do, or what sort of modules you will need to
add.

The Drupal architecture may be a bit of overkill for what you are looking to
do. I've done a very little bit of work on both, and Joomla is easier to
understand, and therefore simpler to work with for smaller customized code
pieces.

So, if Joomla meets your requirements with it's core install (or with only a
few add ons), I'd go Joomla. If you need more extensibility, then go Drupal.

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troels
Both systems have gone through a transition from an amateur cms/portal system,
which has matured over time. Drupal has come a lot further in this process
that Joomla has, which means that today it's closer to be a general purpose
framework. It still holds some of its heritage, so you'll probably find it
somewhere in between Joomla and RoR. That's not a bad thing, if what you're
building is some kind of cms.

Compared to other general purpose frameworks, Drupal has a lot of stuff out-
of-the-box, and it's quite easy to get in to. The community has been gaining a
lot of followers recently and in some areas it is becoming the cms of choice
for larger businesses. It's especially popular in the news paper world.

Judging from my observations, I would say that Drupal is a much more mature
system that Joomla is (although I must admit I have limited experience with
Joomla). I think they are about equal in how easy they are to learn. Both of
them are fairly low-tech, procedural systems. I would pick Drupal of the two.

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aasarava
If you'd find it helpful to read up on what features Drupal offers, so you can
compare with what you know about Joomla, I just wrote an article on this last
night: [http://returncontrol.com/what-does-drupal-provide-out-of-
the...](http://returncontrol.com/what-does-drupal-provide-out-of-the-box-82)

In the article, I actually address the same point you make about Drupal being
a "framework" (or "platform") rather than a CMS. In summary, it's probably
best to think of Drupal as a "Web construction kit" rather than a CMS because
its modular architecture allows you to plug in all sorts of features that go
well beyond typical content management.

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mikeytown2
I actively develop for Drupal (boost module). This 10 min demo should give you
an idea on how fast sites can go up with it: <http://acquia.com/what-is-
drupal>. I recommend Drupal.

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_giu
my partner set up Joomla for the Seminar Paper we wrote last year. don't know
why he did that since later in the project we had to code, but after using it
for a day or two I immediately asked him to set up Trac. it just was a pain
viewed from the usability point. so, my advice is to stay away from Joomla if
it's an option. I can't say if Drupal is better or not since I've never worked
with it, but what I can say is that it can't get worse than Joomla!
conclusion: use Drupal.

