Joomla vs Wordpress a Comparison

“Every client loves to control his contents through an admin panel. But if he doesn’t possess any knowledge on HTML and CSS etc, then that will definitely create problem for him. As a result, he has to rely on a third party software development company. Now, he will provide the content to the web developer and the web developer will put it on the website with proper formatting. But with CMS this issue get resolved because of a systematic Architecture of the software. Indeed, it provides enough scope for both the developer as well as the client in creating enterprise standard web application in less time and effort and hence their significance has increased in a magical way in current trend”.



Over time, a website used to become heavier with new pages and modules getting integrated to the application. Consequently it becomes slower or unresponsive if not designed properly. Fortunately CMS is designed in the most optimised way so that it can handle any volume of content for the application. Hence it is gaining tremendous popularity in the industry over time. Let us discuss two major CMS of the industry i.e., Joomla and WordPress.

Ease of Use: The success of any CMS software resides on its usability i.e., how it can be used by the developer or the client himself. Though, both Joomla and WordPress have systematic approach to manage different contents of the website. But if we consider about the user interface, WordPress stands out as a winner due to its extraordinary simple user interface. On the other hand, one can also manage his contents in Joomla platform in an effective manner but with little more effort. The main point is that Joomla developers need to put some effort to learn it properly and to understand its architecture before he can implement it on any web application whereas an amateur guy can use WordPress for his website within no time and without any expertise.

Customization power: This is yet another success pillar for any content management system software. The more customisation options a CMS possess, the better it is from the developer’s point of view. WordPress is highly flexible and simple in nature and hence it can be handled by anyone without much hassle, so even if one has basic technological knowledge, he/she can take up WordPress, no need to hire any WordPress programmers. On the contrary, Joomla is quite energetic with its ample number of features and modules. If we consider the customisation power, we can easily find Joomla as the winner. This is because of a high number of dedicated modules and management systems that are associated with the CMS. A Joomla web developer can certainly handle any complex web application that needs high customisation without much effort. Unfortunately WordPress doesn’t provide much scope to the developer for enterprise standard customisation options.

Extendibility: Both the CMS are capable of extending the features of a web application from within the platform or with the help of third party plug-ins. The industry is flooded with millions of third party plug-ins developed in jQuery or JavaScript to enhance the user experience of any PHP web application developed with the help of a CMS. Needless to say, that these plug-ins are often open source. Hence, a web developer can access the source code of those plug-ins or modules and modify it as per his needs. He can also integrate it with the application to extend its power and potential. While comparing the extendibility capacity, we have to consider the available source for each CMS i.e for WordPress and Joomla. Due to ease of use and popularity of WordPress, there is a bigger community to support WordPress and hence there are more plug-ins, modules and components available for WordPress developers than that of Joomla. So, in this way, WordPress stands out as a winner compared to Joomla.

Security: It can’t be denied that, the most secure language in the IT industry is none other than Java and the population of java applications is simply beyond our imagination. But, a few population of IT industry is aware of its security threats. You may be astonished to know that, the security threat for a java application is much higher than that of any other technology. This is because, due to its bigger population, hackers love to disturb them to gain the attention of a larger community and to gain popularity (of course bad popularity) in the industry. The same happens with WordPress as well. Due to its bigger population, there are more security threats for a WordPress site than that of Joomla. But if we consider security features, then we have to accept that the security level of Joomla is much better than that of WordPress due to its systematic architecture that is highly optimized and efficient to deal with any type of security holes.

SEO: Search Engine Optimization is another constraint that needs to be discussed here. In twenty first century, we cannot ignore the importance of Google in our life i.e. the Search Engine of the industry. Without Google, our website is like a blank catalogue. To promote our business website, we have to turn it as a smart site!! It should be highly optimized so that it can be well visible on the Search Engine to attract and reach at the target audience. Search Engine Optimization is the process to handle all these related stuffs and it is an integral part of every CMS now-a-days. Crafting a search engine friendly website becomes mandatory to get success in the enterprise and hence there is a tremendous demand for this feature in the industry. The SEO operation starts from the title and then the SEF URL; both the CMS provide these basic features for the developer through different plug-ins. But, SEO plug-ins for WordPress is much efficient than that of Joomla. WordPress SEO plug-ins provide some futuristic features like easy tags for a post, optimizing permalink structure and appropriate Meta data integration etc that lacks significantly with Joomla.

Final Verdict: I have repeatedly said that, no technology or language or even platform is best or worst; it’s the developer who makes it best or worst with his expertise, efficiency and smart effort. So, from Joomla and WordPress both are winners; but there is a small notch in between. Joomla is best for a large scale content driven application whereas WordPress is best for a simple yet powerful SEO friendly web application- it’s very simple.

We, at Mindfire Solutions, are equally competent in WordPress and Joomla. If you have any custom WordPress plugin development requirements, or need the help of our senior WordPress programmers: please feel free to give a shout to us any time and we will be replying back within one business day.