Ask HN: Joomla or Rails?

[mattjung]

I plan to build a simple community portal that allows to review, evaluate and discuss software products - imagine it as judysbook.com for software.

Now my question: is it easier and faster to construct something like that using a CMS like Joomla (that I have never used before) or to build it from scratch and on my own in RoR (given that I have already built 2 rails-applications)? Or are they even better solutions - like lighweight open-source CMS I am not aware of? What about maintenance and later customizations?

[aarongough]

Unfortunately I cannot come close to recommending Joomla. Looking through the core code of the system is an exercise in frustration at best. While the code is not necessarily all super-bad the documentation is lacking in the extreme.

I would recommend starting from scratch in Rails. That way you'll have control over every aspect of the design and function of the system and it will be you alone that is responsible for the quality of the code and the system overall...

[flooha]

Most experienced admins who have used all of the various php based CMSs would probably recommend Drupal over Joomla. Drupal is considered better when it comes to security and customization. Joomla addons have a stigma of being generally insecure.

As others have said, you'll get up and running faster with an open-source CMS, but you can get bogged down trying to customize it. If you're not a designer, you might want to pay for one to customize a template/theme for you. I can't tell you the number of wasted hours I've spent trying to customize the look of a CMS, but working with CSS and templates just isn't my thing.

If you're really into design and it's not a big deal for you then using rails could be a better answer as long as you keep it simple, as you said. The backend should be pretty straight forward, though you can get bogged down in the details.

I'm sending you an email with some additional info. My startup could help you out, but I'm planning a formal launch next week so I don't want to publicize it here too much.

[spooneybarger]

Here is the question I have for you, are you versed in php? If you need to add functionality etc to Joomla, how long is that going to take you to ramp up? Balance that against the time savings you get from ready made components. Also, if you have never used Joomla or anything else that offers 'snap together components', try actually doing it, how easy is it to take the 2 or 3 you want to use and put together, is it really seamless? You might find, that you can do more coding yourself using something else and still save time.

[jarrodtaylor]

A CMS will probably get something up faster, but writing your own code will definitely be better for later customization. Maintenance really depends on what you build. How much do you want to fine tune and customize?

[aaroneous]

Joomla is a mess and I wouldn't recommend it for a dev.

It's much more of a CMS for designers, than any sort of framework for developers.

[mahmud]

Joomla is a toy compared to Rails.