Joomla and Drupal

[savantcreative]

Does anyone have experience with Joomla or Drupal? Which is easier to use and optimize for someone who know html and css only?
Thanks

[AussieWebmaster]

prefer drupal... but if you know joomla it has a lot of seo hacks

[savantcreative]

Originally Posted by AussieWebmaster

prefer drupal... but if you know joomla it has a lot of seo hacks

So is Joomla better for seo? Is Drupal easier to work with?

Thanks

[metasynman]

They're both pretty easy to work with... but both will take some effort to make them SEO friendly. WordPress is generally better out-of-the-box for SEO, but it takes even more effort to make it into an actual CMS. So you're in for some work either way.

[savantcreative]

Originally Posted by metasynman

They're both pretty easy to work with... but both will take some effort to make them SEO friendly. WordPress is generally better out-of-the-box for SEO, but it takes even more effort to make it into an actual CMS. So you're in for some work either way.

Thanks. Would you say either one of them are better? Does either one have better support?

[AussieWebmaster]

they both have forums that give help but would need to pay for support ... Joomla has that option don't know about drupal as I worked with the forums

[metasynman]

Originally Posted by savantcreative

Thanks. Would you say either one of them are better? Does either one have better support?

It really depends on your definition of "support." Like Aussie noted there's tons of forums, blogs, articles and whatnot that will help you learn what you need to learn to build an effective site in either system. But since they're both open source, there isn't like a help desk you can call to fix specific problems on your site.

If you mean support in terms of updates, both systems are pretty good about fixing glitches or security issues and providing updates to users. But I'd say a majority of problems tend to stem from plug-ins / add-ons made by other users. Some of these plugins are great tools, but don't "play well with others." In terms of support for these aspects, it's really up to the developer of that plugin to support updates and patches, unless someone else takes over development for them.

Essentially, these things are what you actually "pay for" with a professional CMS system. Not that I personally bother with them, since I've got enough programming background to work with the free ones, but a lot of people prefer the cost/benefit ratio of paying some money to a company to keep them from having unnecessary headaches when developing their web site. If programming is something that scares you, a paid alternative will generally let you focus more on the content of your site, rather than just making sure it works. But if you're like me, the programming part is half the fun, so open source keeps life more interesting. And the communities are really pretty good with answering questions on the forums... kinda like this place!

[savantcreative]

Originally Posted by metasynman

It really depends on your definition of "support." Like Aussie noted there's tons of forums, blogs, articles and whatnot that will help you learn what you need to learn to build an effective site in either system. But since they're both open source, there isn't like a help desk you can call to fix specific problems on your site.

If you mean support in terms of updates, both systems are pretty good about fixing glitches or security issues and providing updates to users. But I'd say a majority of problems tend to stem from plug-ins / add-ons made by other users. Some of these plugins are great tools, but don't "play well with others." In terms of support for these aspects, it's really up to the developer of that plugin to support updates and patches, unless someone else takes over development for them.

Essentially, these things are what you actually "pay for" with a professional CMS system. Not that I personally bother with them, since I've got enough programming background to work with the free ones, but a lot of people prefer the cost/benefit ratio of paying some money to a company to keep them from having unnecessary headaches when developing their web site. If programming is something that scares you, a paid alternative will generally let you focus more on the content of your site, rather than just making sure it works. But if you're like me, the programming part is half the fun, so open source keeps life more interesting. And the communities are really pretty good with answering questions on the forums... kinda like this place!

Thanks for your reply. What paid CMS systems are good?
Thanks again

[Bergman]

Hi,
I made some research, talking to some experienced web-designer companies, about which Open Source CMS they would recommend, and the most recommended one's were Wordpress, Joomla and Drupal.

My conclusion from the discussions I had was the following:
- Wordpress is often recommended for smaller sites where you don't intend to create a larger community or social network
- Joomla is currently the most user friendly for larger sites, and it is very easy to get something up running quickly. If you want 3rd party support there seems to be many people out there who knows how to build things in Joomla
- Drupal has a more modern basic technical design than Joomla, and if you want to build something for the future, this is what people usually recommend.

As several posts said earlier, there are many sites, communities where you can get advice, and designed themes for all of these three.

Regarding Drupal there is a SEO-firm in Austin Texas called SpryDev who has an excellent PodCast centered around Drupal and SEO:
http://www.sprydev.com/category/drupal
,

[Bergman]

Originally Posted by savantcreative

What paid CMS systems are good?
Thanks again

Paid CMS:es can cost a fortune, but an affordable one which is very popular is Expression Engine:
http://expressionengine.com/

[metasynman]

Originally Posted by savantcreative

Thanks for your reply. What paid CMS systems are good?
Thanks again

Sorry, can't help you there. Like I said, with my programming background, working with Joomla has been pretty easy for me. Even if I paid for a CMS, I hate calling helpdesk people so I'd never even use the customer service I'd be paying for.

[lyj1968]

Originally Posted by Bergman

Hi,
I made some research, talking to some experienced web-designer companies, about which Open Source CMS they would recommend, and the most recommended one's were Wordpress, Joomla and Drupal.

My conclusion from the discussions I had was the following:
- Wordpress is often recommended for smaller sites where you don't intend to create a larger community or social network
- Joomla is currently the most user friendly for larger sites, and it is very easy to get something up running quickly. If you want 3rd party support there seems to be many people out there who knows how to build things in Joomla
- Drupal has a more modern basic technical design than Joomla, and if you want to build something for the future, this is what people usually recommend.

As several posts said earlier, there are many sites, communities where you can get advice, and designed themes for all of these three.

Regarding Drupal there is a SEO-firm in Austin Texas called SpryDev who has an excellent PodCast centered around Drupal and SEO:
http://www.sprydev.com/category/drupal
,

good information. thank you for the research work!

[savantcreative]

Thanks for the great info! I am going to go with Drupal becasue it sounds like the best investment of my time.
Best regards

[metasynman]

Just as a side note since we're on the topic... anyone used Pligg before? I noticed searchengineland was using it, so I checked it out. Seems pretty clean code-wise, aside from a few inline JS's I could probably manually remove. Might give 'er a go for my next project and see how it goes.

[AussieWebmaster]

Know a couple of people that have sued it and like it

[johnjsr]

We want to convert [an oil painting reproduction site] into joomla or Drupal. Please give me an advice for making this site better attractive.


Thanks
john

[AaliyahRoma]

Joomla is good for beginners Drupal for advanced users. Drupal is more SE friendly.

[jag]

Joomla and drupal can be used according to your business needs and there is nothing as specific open source is for beginners. Joomla can be served better for content management and drupal is mainly used for user interaction sites and btw both are SEF. They both serves good in their own areas and Joomla is something which can be integrated with sugarCRM and many use these combination as their expertise level to benefit their business better