Drupal vs Joomla – Differences And Similarities

Let’s examine Drupal vs. Joomla to help you choose the best content management system to make your website. Content management systems (CMS) can be very useful when a standard website builder cannot provide all you need.

Our comparison consists of two of the most popular CMS platforms, Drupal and Joomla. The information we provide allows you to make informed decisions by comparing each product’s main features, performance, support, and price.

Starting a successful website requires more than a solid game plan. A Content Management System (CMS) is the platform on which it runs. The most popular CMS options among experienced users are Joomla and Drupal.

You can choose from these CMS platforms based on the following criteria:

Drupal vs. Joomla: A Comparison

Both Joomla and Drupal are self-hosted content management systems. Thus, download them from any server since they are open-source software.

You have control over your site’s look and functionality with open-source content management systems. Due to the different setups and options, each platform offers, choosing between them is difficult.

Joomla is the most popular CMS. Using this PHP-based CMS, users can create almost any website and manage it themselves.

On the other hand, Drupal is a niche CMS platform that is still viable. Because Drupal has unique built-in features, many large websites use it, well-regarded by web developers.

While Joomla and Drupal share a lot of common functionality, they are not the same. We will discuss Drupal and Joomla in more detail in the following sections.

Drupal vs. Joomla: Performance

An effective website should satisfy visitors, and it should load quickly and feel responsive. Otherwise, users might look elsewhere.

Certain alternatives will perform better than others since no two CMSs are alike, and Joomla is one of them. You can further improve load times with this CMS by enabling caching and GZIP compression.

Drupal claims to be highly scalable and resource-light. Before experiencing a bottleneck, your website will handle more traffic. Many large, well-trafficked websites use Drupal for this reason.

Despite this, you must remember that, since these are both open-source platforms, you can do a lot on your end to improve loading times. To improve the performance of both CMSs, you can use a variety of plugins and extensions. Manual changes can also help speed things up, and both CMSs can make your site fast.

Drupal vs. Joomla: Site Management

You want a CMS that is easy to use and provides a range of management options. Essentially, it will make your job as a website owner easier. You can customize many Joomla settings. Configure SEO settings, CAPTCHAs, caching settings, and more.

In case you’re unsure what each setting does, the platform provides detailed explanations. These tooltips are accessible by hovering your mouse over a particular setting. When it comes to site management, Drupal is a step above Joomla. This CMS has built-in features like error logging and cron jobs, and a search engine query database.

Both platforms offer all the basics you need to run a professional site. In reality, Drupal has far more in-depth configuration settings, which can be an advantage if you’re not building your first website. So, Drupal wins this round of Drupal vs. Joomla.

Drupal vs. Joomla: Ease of Use

As you work on a website, you want a CMS that offers flexibility without being too difficult to learn. A CMS that requires weeks of tutorials to learn how to use it is probably not as user-friendly as it could be.

Immediately, you will notice that Joomla strikes an excellent balance between offering a variety of features and making them accessible. Once you log in, you will see this immediately.

You can play around with a lot of options here. They are all incredibly simple to understand. You’ll find your published content listed under the Articles tab.

A powerful text editor will appear when you click the option to create an article. The Joomla editor is one of the best out there, and there are plenty of SEO options.

As for Drupal, the dashboard looks a bit dated. Joomla seems to offer more options, and Drupal offers a staggering number of settings once you start playing with it.

Content editors in Drupal don’t offer as many formatting options for texts when creating new content. It assumes that you know a little HTML, and you can add any formatting you want yourself:

Drupal frequently encounters this issue. This platform assumes you have a basic understanding of web development. It’ll be hard to learn the ropes of this CMS without experience. Drupal’s design, however, has other benefits we’ll explore shortly.

Regardless, Joomla is more user-friendly. So we’re going with the latter platform for round one of Drupal vs. Joomla.

Drupal vs Joomla: Design & Functionality

Almost every platform uses themes and templates to manage the design; the same applies to plugins, modules, and extensions.

Drupal: Design and Functionality

With Drupal, you can do anything you want. The software is fast and secure, and you can add functionalities by installing modules. Each site has a theme.

Drupal offers a vast collection of free themes. Drupal’s theme repository has over 2000 themes.

Furthermore, you can also download and install 450+ Premium Themes from Theme Forest for your Drupal site.

Drupal modules allow you to add functionality and features. The Official Directory has more than 37,000 modules.

The learning curve makes Drupal a less suitable option for beginners. Drupal is highly flexible and extendible, however. If you have coding skills or plenty of time to learn, Drupal is the best platform for creating a powerful website.

Joomla: Design and Functionality

Joomla also uses templates to control its design. However, Drupal offers more options and has NO Official Template Directory as Drupal. For Joomla themes, you have to visit third-party websites, and due to this, they are few and far between.

Joomla extensions work similarly to Drupal modules to add functionality and features. While it has NO template directory, it has an extensive extension directory. The official Joomla extension directory contains more than 7500 extensions. The Joomla dashboard gives users direct access to these extensions.

Therefore, Joomla has a limited range of templates. A limited number of options is a plus if you do not want to get overwhelmed. Simple and precise.

Drupal is an ideal platform for web development that offers unlimited design possibilities, but learning it is challenging. While Joomla offers fewer design options, it is still plenty for a complete website.

For developers with higher custom design needs, Drupal is the best choice. For those who want a fast pick from a selection of templates and a simple framework, Joomla is ideal.

Drupal vs. Joomla: Customizability

The CMS you use will determine which type of website you can create. You can, however, customize your CMS to make this work in practice. Regarding customizing sites, Joomla and Drupal are great options, and we can vouch for their versatility. Each platform’s versatility is due to its theme and module systems and its open-source.

Joomla features a theme system as well. If you can find a theme you like, it’s relatively easy to change your website’s style. You are advised that there is no official Joomla theme directory, so you’ll need to find your options.

Drupal offers even more choices in terms of modules. Its official repository features over 40,000 modules. Furthermore, Drupal’s official homepage offers more than 2,600 themes:

Both CMSs are fully customizable, including plugins and themes. Customizing their functionality should not be difficult if you have web development experience. Drupal (with more out-of-the-box features) will provide excellent value if you are comfortable making manual customizations.

In this aspect, Drupal beats Joomla because it is more customizable. Due to this, Drupal won this round of Drupal vs. Joomla.

Drupal vs. Joomla: Security

Today, most websites store some user data, even if end users do not know it. Therefore, choosing a secure content management system is more critical today than ever since it prevents you from putting the information of your website visitors at risk.

The good news is that Joomla and Drupal are both extremely secure. Both platforms have suffered security breaches since CMSs are frequently targeted because of their popularity.

However, both platforms quickly identify and patch security vulnerabilities. Now, Joomla and Drupal are secure CMSs. Plus, you can access various extensions to increase your website’s security.

Both platforms are as secure as the efforts you make to protect your website, and you should be relatively safe as long as you use a strong password and keep your software up to date.

Drupal vs. Joomla: Support

Drupal and Joomla don’t offer dedicated customer support. They are all free and open-source, but none provide live chat, email, or phone support.

Despite that, all platforms have active online communities. There are plenty of tutorials, tutorials, and how-to guides to help you create your site due to this. Hostinger supports Drupal and Joomla, so you can easily build a fast website. Therefore, we’re declaring this Drupal vs. Joomla match a tie.

Drupal vs. Joomla: User Advantage

Drupal User Advantages

Many people find Drupal intimidating due to its steep learning curve. If you look past that detail, there’s a lot to like about this CMS, including:

Several built-in site management options.
You can access thousands of modules and themes and customize all aspects of your experience.
Scalable, lightweight platform.

Drupal is ultimately the best CMS solution for enterprise-level websites. In comparing Drupal and Joomla, the former has many more features. One downside is that if you don’t have any experience with web development, you might have to hire someone to construct your website for you.

Joomla User Advantages

The user statistics of Joomla demonstrate its power as a platform in itself. Consider these reasons for using it:

It has a nice balance between functionality and ease of use
Customization options are available.
Performance and SEO go hand in hand.

With this platform, you get many more features right out of the box than the previous one. You don’t require a background in web development, like the latter platform, to use it.

Joomla is a great option for almost any project. If you’re looking for a CMS, it’s worth looking at the platform.

Drupal vs. Joomla: Pricing Plans

Drupal and Joomla are 100% free. Using their open-source community platforms will never cost you a dime.

Building a simple low-traffic site for free is possible but creating a top-performing website requires some investment.

You need web hosting to host your site’s files and data. Free options are available, but they are often low quality and unreliable. Instead, we suggest going for a shared or higher plan depending on your needs.

It would help to pay for premium themes or plugins, especially if you need advanced features. Developer fees can mount up if you require custom coding, and help with Drupal or Joomla will cost more.

In this sense, Drupal and Joomla are two valuable solutions, although each has its pros. While Drupal seems better for creating large, complex sites, Joomla is a good option for creating forums and web applications.

The Right CMS: What to Look for?

These platforms are examples of which CMS to use in specific situations:

For those who want to create an eCommerce store or a social network, Joomla is the best choice. Designed for PHP programmers but is easy to use for everyone.
Drupal is most effective for experienced internet users and developers in terms of power.

Choosing between Drupal and Joomla [Final thoughts]

Using a powerful CMS, you can start your website on the right foot. CMS options often boil down to Joomla vs. Drupal. In general, Joomla is more beginner-friendly, and Drupal offers more options for more experienced developers.