If you’re ready to design your new small business website, you’ve most likely started searching for an easy to use, free website builder that will allow you to create a custom website. That search inevitably lead you to stumble upon the two largest and most widely implemented content management systems (CMS), Joomla and Wordpress.
And, sure enough, making the decision between the two top CMS’s brought you to this article to find the answer to a widely asked question:, “What is the best website builder: Joomla or Wordpress?”
Joomla - What Is It?
Joomla’s community split from Mambo, an older CMS that fought over what exactly “free” meant to it’s developers. Joomla is written in PHP, is licensed under the free GNU General Public License (GPL), and gives users the ability to add and edit comprehensive customizations without touching code.
Joomla - Advantages
Many of the top web designers in the world choose Joomla for it’s knack to scale easily for a website of any size. Well-known for it’s ability to be deployed in many ways, Joomla is often the choice for small business websites to large eCommerce retail giants. Joomla’s developer community shares over 8,000 extensions, allowing even the newest web designer to use custom functions and features.
Joomla - The Not So Good
Such comprehensive features come at a price. That price isn’t paid with money, but rather with time, dedication, and educating yourself on using even the most simple features. The reason why most web designers choose Joomla is the same reason why the average person is unable to use it–the ability to customize everything. While just about anyone can run through the 3 step Joomla installation process and even load content, customizing your website with anything beyond the default template is beyond most users initial understanding.
Wordpress - What Is It?
The blogging tool b2, spun off Wordpress in 2003, breeding the most succesful blogging CMS to date. Wordpress.com offers free web-based functions similar to Blogger and Tumblr that allow for easy blog postings, but Wordpress.org hosts the actual blog CMS software that makes customizing and hosting your own blog website possible.
Wordpress - The Good
Installing Wordpress is as easy as 1-2-3 with it’s famous five minute installation. Searching for and adding any number of plugins from the 16,000+ listed in WP’s directory is a piece of cake, also. The Wordpress dashboard also gives you access to posting blogs, adding pages, and changing settings. If you’re a novice user and want to create an article syndication website, Wordpress is your top choice.
Wordpress - What’s Not So Good About It?
Unfortunately, that last line is the issue. While Joomla allows deployment for virtually any website function, Wordpress is built on the premise that your website will be a blog–and to customize it beyond that is not as easy as you think. There are many free themes available, but with millions of users around the world, most themes are cookie-cutter or oft-used. In addition, Wordpress implements proprietary code inside “the loop” to change and customize the blog’s functionality–meaning, that’s more code to learn.
Who’s the Winner
Wordpress and Joomla both have great advantages that allow novice users to create and edit their content. However, while most users can manage the CMS’s once they are built, the initial deployment and the customization needed to satisfy every type business is still reliant on professional help unless you are satisfied with an ugly, template-based Do it Yourself (DIY) website builder.
