Joomla vs Wordpress: Which CMS Provides Control, Speed & The Better Design?
Joomla or WordPress? Which is better?
I've been using Joomla since 2005 and WordPress almost as long.
Hands down, Joomla is the superior content management system (CMS), and in this post, I will explain why that is the case.
While I will make a strong case for Joomla, either CMS, with the right extensions, can transform either Joomla or WordPress to function the way you need it to accomplish your website building goals.
What differentiates the two systems is how they accomplish this goal. And also, how much they accomplish out of the box without additional extensions (Joomla's core-first approach means fewer dependencies, which often translates to a more secure and stable site that's easier to maintain over time).
And ultimately, the best system for you is the one that most effectively and comprehensively accomplishes your vision within your set of guidelines. For example, if you're building a simple personal blog, WordPress might be fine even if it makes you a little less cool for using it 😜. For a business website or a complex organization with multiple user roles, Joomla's architecture is simply better.
Before I dive into what makes Joomla 5 so awesome, let me first share the strengths of WordPress 6.
The Strengths of WordPress
You might already be on WordPress. Unless you have a strong strategic reason to change your CMS, I usually recommend sticking with what you have since migrating is often a big project. If it's not a big project, by all means 😂, switch to Joomla.
Second, WordPress is prominent. Its prominence means there are countless plugins to do all types of things. And this prominence also means many people (perhaps, including you) already know how to use WordPress. Many marketing and website-building agencies will recommend WordPress, not because it's best for the client, but because it's the system they know how to use.
Out of the box, the one area WordPress has an advantage is the block editor and the ability for themes to directly utilize it. This allows for easy, advanced page layouts.
And, if you're website is e-commerce, WooCommerce is also a powerful option for online sellers. If you are in e-commerce, explore the different plugins on each platform and pick one that is going to enable your online business to grow.
If any of those strengths are what you need in your website, then WordPress can do the job for you. If not, I'd recommend you consider Joomla for your next website project.
Why Joomla Rocks (From My Point of View)
Let's explore what makes Joomla so powerful and why you should seriously consider using it as your primary CMS (content management system), whether it's personal or for a company.
Many people and organizations have a list of reasons why Joomla is superior, and I've included some of those below, but I wanted to use this section to highlight what it is for me. Ultimately, it comes down to three things. Joomla gives complete control, is super fast, and has an intuitive and logical structure to how it works (by design).
As a power user of website content management systems (CMS), WordPress is so clunky and difficult to use compared to Joomla. I regularly work on both systems with my clients. If you push people to make your websites in WordPress, understand that you are most likely making that website work more difficult than it has to be.
Let me give you two examples of how Joomla, out of the box, gives control.
- If I want to copy an existing article in Joomla, I click one button and it's done. In WordPress, I can't do this task. I have to install a plugin to do this simple task.
- If I want to update my page title in Joomla, I can easily do it with an override field on the article editor. With WordPress, I can't do this. I need an additional SEO plugin to accomplish this.
Joomla provides me with complete CONTROL over my website, and it's easy to assert that control with the available and included tools to accomplish my goal. Not having control over your website is one of the most frustrating experiences.
As it relates to the taxonomy structure, Joomla has a more intuitive system with articles, plugins, and menus. They make sense and are easy to use. With WordPress, there are menus in weird places, which are also clunky to create and use. There are pages and posts that are the same type of thing, and also are not the same.
I'm a freelancer and I help build websites while also doing search engine optimization. The URL system in WordPress is a nightmare to deal with, and I have to settle for inferior URL writing. Joomla allows full control over the URL structure and makes it pretty easy to roll out and manage. I can get the URL structure and pages to be exactly what I want them to be.
Beyond those select comparisons, I find the admin interface of Joomla to be faster, because of its design, but also because the pages load quicker.
There are countless other examples from my own experiences, but these should give you a good idea of the type of power, ease, and speed I'm talking about when you use Joomla.
Official Reasons to Choose Joomla
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Speed, security, & SEO
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Joomla has a content workflow staging process (which makes the content quality assurance publishing process integrated into the website)
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Custom fields and dynamic loading of these custom fields based on a specific page or category of pages, utilizing the Yootheme builder, my preferred template building system.
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Joomla Is Multilingual out of the box!
- Built-in user access roles and customization.
Why My Developer Friend Prefers Joomla
My developer friend (Brent Laminack, Open Systems) wrote an article about why Joomla is superior. His blog post essentially comes down to the following ingredients: technically better (like the database structure), better graphically (because of the page builders, templates, and how they integrate into the CMS), the flexible layout paradigm, the sane development path of Joomla, and the lack of a corporate agenda.
For developers, Joomla provides a more organized and predictable framework, a modern code base that follows best practices, and a clear separation of concerns (e.g., separating content, templates, and extensions).
Why the Community Chooses Joomla
If you need even more reasons, I posted in the Joomla group, and here are many of the incredible answers and articles to check out.
- "I work with Core Joomla, so for me, it is the simplicity of user content updates compared to page builders such as Divi and Elementor. Most people can get their head around using a text editor, and assigning a category to create their site links and navigation is much easier for them. The downside is fewer bells and whistles in the appearance, but some people prefer not to have everything bouncing around their screen. And from my admin point of view, it can handle larger sites much better." - James Slattery-Kavanagh
- "Make a list of essential plugins which must be added in WP, and they are included for free in Joomla." - Paul PGT
- "The core features are night and day difference. I would also point out that it has a modern code base." - Mary Nevius
- "Core Joomla out of the box, very few extensions are needed. And if you need an extension, most are subscription-based for multiple sites, so if you are an implementer, that saves money. Better security features, custom fields, a ton of flexibility." - Laura Ellen
- "WordPress relies heavily on custom post types, which require a developer to build. I think that’s reason enough to never use it." - Randon Chisnell
- "I have a client, and their core client base requires accessibility. While they preferred WP, they chose to continue with Joomla (this was still in J3) because the accessibility was better. That was before the huge improvements done with the move to J4. That was their in-house analysis, not me trying to sell them anything." - Allison Meeks
- "Joomla’s completeness is its strength. It's speed, the powerful capabilities of custom fields, and the fact that you can easily switch templates if, for any reason, you want to make a change." - Μίλτος Ζέρβας
- "WordPress was built as a blogging platform, and it does a wonderful job at that. Joomla (especially current rebuilds) is intended as a fully functioning CMS. From security to accessibility and customization - if it's a corporate website, my recommendation is always Joomla!" - Gina Geick
- "I still have difficulties understanding how to use WordPress. Adding a menu item is something overcomplicated, for example, and not even in the core." - Marco Biagioni
- "Joomla is a platform that allows versatile applications because its structure is created from building blocks that allow a myriad of configurations." - Patti Hobbs
- "The simple relationship Joomla has between a menu, category, and articles makes it easy for people to understand. Whereas WordPress seems all over the place." - Adrian Diehm
- "The api, the accessibility extensions, the media manager, the plugin that changes headers and security." - Μένιος Φάκας
- "The fact that you can build a functional website using Joomla core extensions, whereas WordPress requires numerous extensions just to get started. Core WordPress SEO is terrible and doesn't even allow metadescriptions in articles and posts - you need an extension for that. Core WordPress doesn't allow SMTP for emails - you need an extension for that as well." - Rod Farrell
More Reasons to Love Joomla
These are my collection of reasons I love Joomla, that I've thought of after publishing this article and recording the video!
- Joomla makes it easy to upgrade. And, automated upgrades are coming!
Articles on Why Joomla is the Superior CMS
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Joomla is a CMS that gives developers and content creators fine-grained control out of the box.
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With built-in ACL, multilingual support, and a powerful templating system, Joomla is built for scalability and structure.
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Joomla is for teams that need flexibility and structure.
Launch Your Joomla Website For Free
The Joomla community has made it easy for you to launch a new Joomla website with just a few clicks. Head over to the free Joomla launcher to test drive this powerful CMS today.
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