When you sign up for a new hosting account, you will quickly notice that you have access to WordPress, Drupal and Joomla. All three of these are open source content management systems. They all provide something worth talking about, even though WordPress powers 23% of the total websites found on the internet today.

All three CMS choices have quite a bit in common and have their own pros and cons. Here’s a comparison of the three to help you make the right decision.

The Things WordPress, Drupal and Joomla have in Common

These three CMS choices have plenty in common when it comes to the community, technology and philosophy. Some of the things they have in common include:

• All three are primarily written in PHP
• WordPress, Drupal and Joomla are all free and open source programs with software licensed under GPL
• All three support MySQL and use it as their database management system. WordPress only uses MySQL, while both Drupal and Joomla support other database management choices.
• WordPress, Drupal and Joomla are all community-driven projects with multiple developers.
• All three use themes or templates, along with plugins, extensions or modules for adding customization and extended functionality.

Even though WordPress, Drupal and Joomla have so much in common, they are quite different. Each system has a different set of core policies, different ways of handling templates, different ways of dealing with security and more. Here’s how they compare on a few specific levels.

User-Friendliness for the Beginner

If you’re not a beginner, it might not matter how user-friendly a system is because you may want to get right into the code, anyway. However, for a beginner, the user-friendliness may be the most important part.

WordPress is the most user-friendly of the three CMS choices. You can have it installed and ready to go within just a few minutes of purchasing WordPress hosting. Once installed, it’s easy to work within the admin area, add a theme and add all the plugins you need.

Installing Drupal is also quite easy. All you have to do is download and upload the package. They also give you distributions, which are pre-packages bundles of modules for different types of website. However, once you get it installed, the experience for the beginner becomes complicated. It’s not easy to figure out how to change things or how to add content to your new website with Drupal.

The Joomla installation isn’t as fast as WordPress, but it’s still very easy. After you install Joomla, this is when it gets difficult. The control panel isn’t as easy to work within as the WordPress admin area. There are way too many menus and it can be very scary for the beginner.

Themes, Plugins, Extensions and Other Add-ons

WordPress, Drupal and Joomla all provide different themes and plugins/modules you can use to customize your website and add more features. However, they are certainly not equal in this category.

WordPress provides far more plugins and themes than Joomla and Drupal. Not only does WordPress have a directory for both, but they also have third-party creators adding plenty of premium plugins and themes to the mix. There are more than 38,000 plugins available for WordPress within the official WordPress directory. This doesn’t include the many premium choices you can pay for, as well.

Drupal and Joomla both offer extensions and templates you can use to customize your website. However, they don’t have the quantity WordPress has or even come close. WordPress also makes it much easier to find your themes and plugins with easy ways to search the directory.

Support

All three of these CMS options are community-driven, which means they have an active community ready to provide support. The major different is the size of the communities. Since WordPress has a much larger community, it’s much easier to find answers to your questions. There are plenty of WordPress tutorials available from several sources online. You can even get professional support on elance or other freelance websites.

Joomla and Drupal both provide large and helpful communities. They both have plenty of resources available in forums and through blogs and other websites. However, neither have support options comparable to what WordPress provides.

Overall, it’s easy to see why most website owners choose WordPress. With such as user-friendly system and so many options for customization, WordPress is the right choice for most beginners and many advanced users.