Why We Use Joomla
Our preferred site building solution is Joomla!
Joomla is an award-winning content management system (CMS), which enables the development of Web sites and powerful online applications. Many aspects, including its ease-of-use and extensibility, have made Joomla one of the most popular Web site software available. Best of all, Joomla is an open source solution that is freely available to everyone.
The major alternative software is WordPress, which is quite a good CMS today (it wasn't in the past).
WordPress it is by far, the most widely user website software in the world, but that simple statistic does not mean it is the best...... it is the most widely used mainly because it was the first available to use templates, and everyone flocked to it.
Prior to Wordpress, websites had to be built entirely by 'hand', that is, page by page. Wordpress revolutionised all that, but it started, and remained for a long time, simply an excellent Blogging tool. The gap was filled by Joomla and other tools to provide sophisticated functionality (WordpPress has now caught up significantly, but it remains at its foundation, a blogging tool with CMS functionality added, whereas Joomla and others were developed as CMS tools, with blogging added..... a subtle but important difference.
One benefit which Wordpress retains over Joomla and others, is its simplicity:
- Wordpess is much simpler, from the user point of view (the website owner adding content and articles etc),
- It is also much simpler from the website developer side..... just about anyone can develop a Wordpress website (seriously, a 12 year old can do it)
- However, simple does not mean better....... Wordpress certainly has its place, but (in my view), not for every website application
- And Joomla being not quite as simple as Wordpress, DOES NOT mean that it is too complex for the average user to work with (your developer will do all the harder stuff up front, so you don't have to be concerned, and you will be able to easily come to grips with the things you need to do to keep your website maintained by adding fresh content etc
Re Joomla vs WordPress, I wont go into the whys and wherefores of which is better, because that is a discussion with no end. Both have their pros and cons, and their supporters and detractors, and while the following could (and would), be debated, my view is that:
- If you want a simple Blog website, there is no choice..... Wordpress is the king here
- If you want a simple information type website, which will not have a lot of specialised functionality, Wordpress would probably be the choice (although I personally would still use Joomla, just to give you the flexibility to enhance it in the future)
- If you want an eCommerce, or a fully functional website, although Wordpress could do this, Joomla would be the clear choice here
Suffice to say, that I am an IT professional with many years experience, and I specifically chose Joomla over Wordpress, so there is a reason for that. A full and proper explanation would take up many pages, and still wouldn't convince the Wordpress fans.
There are thousands of comparisons on Google... and for every one advocating Joomla, there is another advocating Wordpress.
While I detest adding to the pehora of articles on this, here is a well balanced one (in my opinion):
http://www.miracletutorials.com/wordpress-vs-joomla-review/
and a quick video: