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Which CMS? Joomla, Drupal, WordPress?

30 Jul 2009

30 Jul, 2009  Joomla CMS Download

So I am a webdesigner… I primarily do actionscripting with flash. I do play with html too, and am now going to try and start freelancing and am looking to learn how to customize an open source CMS. I really like wordpress, but I feel it’s a bit limiting, and I really like concept of Drupal and Joomla, but feel that perhaps these are a bit overwhelming too. I don’t want to learn a whole new language (php), but I do want to use a CMS. What are your thoughts? Is it ok to customize open source themes for clients? Thanks in advance!

Hi,

It seems as though you already know the main differences, though wordpress can be customised heavily it is basically blog software, we’ve created a knowledgebase ourselves using wordpress though which works well and I’m sure there are many other good uses.

Drupal and Joomla are both great CMS and both have a roughly equal share of the market. You can achieve a lot of the same things between them, but it makes sense to choose one and focus your efforts upon it fully to gain a deep knowledge of it instead of spreading yourself and being average at both.

I would suggest you spend a day or two using both, and decide which you prefer then stick with it. You will be able to develop in either fine, and both are fully skinnable, you should read the license of open source themes but most will be fine to customise yourself even for commercial use.

Regards,

Darryl

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5 Responses

  1. Liars never lies

    2009 Jul 30 1

    WordPress is primarily designed for small personal web publishing. Drupal and Joomla are the one for serious web sites. Read the documentations, especially on installing and configuring them the first time. Once you passed the initial installation, the rest is easy.

    You don’t need to know php to use Drupal and Joomla, however they are useful when you want to design/modify templates. The advantage of using CMS is that you don’t need to know PHP or HTML to write contents; however setting them up the first time does require a bit of technical knowledge.

    > What are your thoughts? Is it ok to customize open source
    > themes for clients?

    Why do you think they are made for? Those themes are there for you to use, modify, and redistribute
    References :

  2. Colanth

    2009 Jul 30 2

    Drupal and Joomla aren’t really CMSs themselves, they allow you to build a CMS. You could also look at CakePHP and CodeIgniter, two other site building systems.

    But learning PHP would be your best path. Imagine not being able to do a simple &ltp /> in HTML – having to rely on a program to do it for you. That’s what you’re looking at by using programs that write your PHP for you. Is that the code you really want? Can you ‘tune’ it to work a lot better with a little change? You won’t know.

    As far as using open source themes in commercial work (your work, if you sell it, is commercial work) – that depends on the license. Some OS work is released for personal use only, some releases all rights. (Learning to write your own themes is trivial – just learn CSS.)
    References :
    Professional web developer.

  3. Nikit

    2009 Jul 30 3

    See all cms here: http://cmsmatrix.org/
    You will wonder.
    References :

  4. Darryl

    2009 Jul 30 4

    Hi,

    It seems as though you already know the main differences, though wordpress can be customised heavily it is basically blog software, we’ve created a knowledgebase ourselves using wordpress though which works well and I’m sure there are many other good uses.

    Drupal and Joomla are both great CMS and both have a roughly equal share of the market. You can achieve a lot of the same things between them, but it makes sense to choose one and focus your efforts upon it fully to gain a deep knowledge of it instead of spreading yourself and being average at both.

    I would suggest you spend a day or two using both, and decide which you prefer then stick with it. You will be able to develop in either fine, and both are fully skinnable, you should read the license of open source themes but most will be fine to customise yourself even for commercial use.

    Regards,

    Darryl
    References :
    NetHosted Drupal Hosting http://www.nethosted.co.uk/uk-drupal-hosting.php

  5. dorien

    2009 Jul 30 5

    Drupal is the best, it’s the most flexible ever. You don’t need to know php to be able to work with Drupal. Just get used to the interface and you can do most stuff with the 1000s of modules available.

    http://book.drupalfun.com
    References :


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