By Tobru on

Hello Drupaler

What is better Joomla! or Drupal for a community site with a lot of different acces rights, a good forum (phbb), a space for projects, a e-journal and filesharing?

Thx Tobias

⋅ Categories: Drupal 4.7.x

Comments

redraven’s picture

redraven commented

IMHO drupal is a better choice for community driven websites.

But it really depends on your needs and your technical background. If you search these forums you will find lots of discussion on the merits of both systems.

You may want to check out drupal's organic groups module.

Good Luck!

clarknova’s picture

clarknova commented

Drupal if you're a developer, Joomla if you want a quick fix. If you know your way with php, fix bugs and develop your own plugins, Drupal will be awesome. If you don't know or don't want to know about developing parts of your CMS, stay with Joomla, your life will be probably easier.

genemcc’s picture

genemcc commented

Hi Tobias! I've used both. Both Joomla and Drupal will meet your basic needs. However, I've found Drupal to be far superior when it comes to customization and flexibility. Also, the Drupal community has been much more responsive when I've asked questions or hit some roadblocks. I'd take a closer look at Drupal!

--Gene

lisa’s picture

lisa commented

I've been using Drupal for over a year - since 4.4 I think. I researched into Joomla but decided to stick with Drupal. Very impressed with the changes in 4.7. I've found a number of the contributed modules and themes very useful - even for someone like me, with limited coding experience. And the feedback I've received in the forums has been really helpful.

Read here for what others have said about Joomla v. Drupal

http://drupal.org/node/59797

http://drupal.org/node/36711

http://drupal.org/node/53971

http://drupal.org/node/60759

http://drupal.org/handbook/is-drupal-right-for-you

Hope that helps!

cmsproducer’s picture

cmsproducer commented

To add on to the rest, here is my experience on the virtually endless reasons to choose Drupal over Joomla/Mambo.

I hope this helps you decide.

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iDonny - Web Content Management System Design, Development. & CRM

pathscollide’s picture

pathscollide commented

There's a long thread about this on the Joomla! forums. http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic,4364.0.html
I think they're good in different ways. I wouldn't categorically say that Drupal is better for a community site; at first glance Joomla actually makes it easier to set up a community site quickly.

The major disadvantages of Joomla are the very limited access control system and limited classification features (i.e. you can only have three levels of content). In this respect, taxonomy is a killer Drupal feature (associated with something like taxonomy_access for access control).

However, if you want a choice of forums (e.g. simpleboard/joomlaboard, phpbb, smf, etc.) Joomla is a lot better. And an easily implemented file repository: you have Docman or Remository for Joomla; for Drupal, there isn't much (filestore2, but it doesn't compare...).

wdrupal’s picture

wdrupal commented

I like Drupal a lot better than Mambo/Joomla. I even bought a couple of Mambo components, but I don't use them. I converted everything to Drupal. One limitation of Drupal is that the built-in forum module is a little weak. But there are a couple of modules to help integrate Drupal with phpbb and vb..

sslxt’s picture

sslxt commented

I tried to use a couple of popular engines and every time I missed something important for me. Now I have completely moved on Drupal and I'm happy. I like one's themes and modules.

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My Drupal sites:
Blog - Technology news, articles, etc
Watches

drupalzack’s picture

drupalzack commented

If you goto Joomla and ask for a similar advice, you will get the feeling Joomla is next to paradise! And since you are asking this in Drupal forum, it is no surprise you get a pro drupal view.

I've used Joomla and prior to that Mambo. In my opinion, Joomla isn't all that bad. Lets you create slick websites and in usability beats Drupal. For every problem people come up with in Joomla, there is a solution or atleast a custom module available.

There is a reason why Joomla has so many custom components compared to Drupal. If Drupal development was all that easy the reverse should be true isn't it?

Don't get me wrong, Drupal is good. But I think Joomla is equally good. I know the minute I say this, folks will jump saying 'taxonomy', 'acl' etc. Sure there are some strengths in each. For example, it is a pleasure to attach images, position it and write an article in Joomla. Try doing that in Drupal.

I know lot of folks will say theming is very easy in Drupal compared to Joomla. Again, if it were so, why are there so many themes in Joomla compared to Drupal?

Drupal suffers badly in usability. For example, you upload a module. You goto admin and enable it. Then you have to go to settings to configure it. When you goto admin to enable it, why not make that a hyperlink so that when you click it, you can also configure it?

I love the way how in Joomla you don't even have to unzip a module to install it. Just upload the module and everything is taken care of.

Here's my advice. Have a clear goal as to what you want. Have a mockup of your site. Reserve a couple of weeks.

Now try using Drupal and Joomla and see which best fits your needs and make an objective choice. Remember ultimately it doesn't matter how clean the code is or if installation of something is easy in Joomla or Drupal. What matters is how pleasant it is for the User to use your site. They would hardly care if it runs Joomla or Drupal.

pkej’s picture

pkej commented

I'm trying to build a community site in multiple languages for a customer of mine. I tried out a few contenders, eZ publish (I worked for eZ systems many years ago), joomla, drupal and a few others.

eZ publish wouldn't install on my widows box in one two three, joomla installed, but I didn't feel I got into producing the website fast enough, and then finally I installed Drupal (which I've known about for many years, but never tested out) and it impressed me from the installer and not least when I just had to insert the i18n module to have everything translated in one two three.

For me the choice was easy, because I felt that I could hit the ground running, no hassles at all; (except a few issues with Gallery2 installation). In just 1 day I had a demo site with 4 languages, user galleries and security working.

This week I hope I'll have a meeting with my client and show them what they can have; and then hopefully I'll spend July converting their existing content into Drupal. If I don't get the job I can only blame myself, not the toolset that Drupal has provided!

Paul K Egell-Johnsen

Paul K Egell-Johnsen

Max Bell’s picture

Max Bell commented

I asked about other CMS' rhetorically this morning, and didn't get much of a response, but I also hit on something that made me think -- the one person who did respond mentioned Joomla for integration with Simple Machine Forums. They liked Drupal and thought it was powerful, but a bit too much for the novice...

Of course by then, I was already reading the specs for SMF and puzzling together which addons would be needed to make Drupal's forums do the same thing.

Which, of course, is a tidy analogy for the differences between Drupal users and other CMS'.

None the less, after spending some time looking at Joomla today (and planning to read more about it than that), I also realize that after dumping PHPNuke for Drupal something like five years ago, I'm even more confident that I wouldn't have found another CMS better suited to what I wanted to do if I'd have gone looking.

This is nothing on anyone else's efforts towards any project, of course.

But if anyone ever starts doing CMS configuration battles... Oooh. *Grins* I am SO on the right team for that.

yaph’s picture

yaph commented

I have started using Mambo about two years ago and switched to Joomla last year. I think it is quite powerful, there are lot's of extensions, and the web based installation of extensions for example is a nice feature. But in some respects Joomla is quite limited compared to Drupal. The Drupal categorization system for example is much more sophisticated, Drupal is more flexible, you have more control over the output HTML code, and you can create meaningful URLs without installing extensions that do not work well with other extensions.

I think Drupal is the better choice for more advanced users who are not afraid of creating sql tables manually and installing extensions via ssh or FTP. Using some buzzwors, Joomla is Web 1.0 and Drupal is Web 2.0.

--
ramiro.org>

abaryudin’s picture

abaryudin commented

Their own conclusion seems pretty obvious to me.

--
http://www.baryudin.com

walterbyrd’s picture

walterbyrd commented

Just my experience. I have been using Drupal for over a year, no great expert but I usually get by. I never touched Joomla until recently.

I first tried Drupal's ecommerce module. After fighting with it for hours, I gave up in frustration. I can not get Drupal's ecommerce module to even basically work.

By contrast, with VirtureMart, I had the site up and running within a few minutes. And Joomla's solutions seems much more sophisticed, and visually appealing.

I have not done any extensive testing, so I don't want to jump to conclusions. But so far, it seems that Joomla is way ahead of Drupal when it comes to ecommerce.

cerventus’s picture

cerventus commented

If you seriously a begineer you should use joomla. how ever if you want something highly customizable try drupal although you need some kind of knowledge on the terms and what does what do.

to learn more check out www.drupalbasics.com and www.lullabot.com
to listen to the podcast.

Ideapreneur.net - Hot Business Ideas

slinky’s picture

slinky commented

I have been building web sites and online communities for over 10 years. There is no question that Joomla excels in a number of areas, especially in creating nice looking, fully featured web sites on a budget and VERY quickly. It's plug in, tweak a little, and go. There are tons of resources available for Joomla and a well developed forum that is SO easy to find support.

What I found frustrating about drupal was that it seemed to be YA CMS created by developers that never really went anywhere near creating several sites quickly with much support, good modules, etc. This forum itself is a good example of creating another proprietary forum/bbs which really isn't very good at all and lacks critical and essential features. It even rivals the G-dawful wordpress, which is actually the most dysfunctionally disorganized community of size I've witnessed. It's a mess I don't want to get into (despite all the great blogging capabilities which is its primary benefit.) Now because of all of this development-like feel I stayed far away, believing drupal to be yet another nuke clone, whether you want to call it Xoops, nuke, postcrap, etc. At least the others made it easy and quick to develop and, like nuke, almost every drupal site had this horrible boxy look and feel, irrespective of the functionality.

I'm glad to say MUCH has changed for the better with drupal. It seems that finally there is attention paid to other details, including cosmetics which are needed for your end user. It seems like drupal has moved forward in places I didn't expect and that's nice to see. In terms of architecture it seems to be much better designed than Joomla, which is surprising and disappointing. However it still does not even come close to being able to whip up functionality quickly with excellent components. There are hundreds of GREAT Joomla themes available, superb ones can be purchased for less than $50, and it's a joy to simply dress up. Drupal involves much more effort to get what you want and to do it right, you do need some good background into coding.

I've looked over some of the great sites. There is some significant development work. This means that out of the box it takes a good deal of effort to get drupal to look and act and feel really smooth and un-nuke like. I'm going to try to play more with some drupal extensions but I'm willing to pay for a premade site or will need to pay a real developer to build something with decent functionality. I'm through with screwing around with all the code to get things to work smoothly the way I want. Joomla does that very quickly with some of its extensions but unfortunately some of it takes you only so far. SEO is a challenge. No permalinks. Still limited templating (although I can deal with this since it makes other things easier.) I'd prefer better handling of depth of categorization. I can add a few other things but let's not take away the nice things that Joomla is. It's just a different tool. It can take you far. It just can't yet really take me in the direction I'm looking easily which is why I'm looking elsewhere.

sepeck’s picture

sepeck commented

The core forum module is not meant to be a final end all be all solution to forum needs. It is meant to be a starting point for you, the site admin/developer, to build something suitable for your site using available and custom modules. Your choice. The design philosophy is different and this built in forum allows you to integrate your content into your site instead of relying on external third party addtions that you then have to track separate security for.

If you want to use Joomla, by all means use Joomla. Joomla forums would be the place for that kind of assistance.

-Steven Peck
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Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain

-Steven Peck
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Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide

slinky’s picture

slinky commented

Steve - thanks for your comments. As I mentioned, I'm here for a reason and to address areas that Joomla unfortunately cannot address or will not be making efforts as primary importance in its next version. My point here was not to point out which is "better." The best answer I saw seemed diplomatic but is actually the best answer -- they are different. Each excels at a different task.

My feeling is that you can get by with Joomla for many projects. Drupal is still a challenge out of the box in many ways but if you make an investment in time, it seems like it could be the best choice for flexibility and with a budget. Joomla is a fine solution but unfortunately I wouldn't say it's flexible in a few ways: (1) SEO (2) taxonomy (3) profile building for members (4) better flexibility for templating. It is lacking in all those areas and it will take a while to make those changes, if at all. There are others. It's very good at what it does but it won't get me to where I need to go.

My point was just to say that both in the Joomla camp and here, enthusiasts will rationalize why their choice is better and point. I see them as completely different tools, as opposed to systems like the nuke collection which I would simply not consider an option. Rock on everyone and look forward to participating here more meaningfully.