It’s 2022 and everyone is gearing up to either create or solidify the digital presence of their business. But, before you start planning the web development first, you need to choose the platform or content management system, which will be the foundation of your website.

The availability of multiple and if one may add, quite advanced content management systems have simplified certain challenges inherent in the traditional web development process. The CMS allows you to build, manage, and maintain websites effortlessly.

Today, there are multiple content management systems available for web development, amongst which WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal, are the top preferences for developers. So which one should you choose for your website? Finding the answer can be more challenging than it seems. Hence, here we present you a neutral comparison between WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal keeping the 2022 trends and latest updates in mind.

1) WordPress

Stats:

• 455 million websites run on WordPress
• 59000+ Plugins
• 1.5 billion downloads
• WordPress has a market share of 65.2%

Use and Skill Level:

WordPress is ideally suited for simple corporate websites, news websites, and blogs. It requires very little designing and coding skills which makes it ideal for anyone who wants to get more online visibility but lacks technical skills. Advanced functionalities are well supported by easily available plugins on this platform. It can also be used for websites and online stores.

Latest Version:

WordPress 6.0

Features:

• Style switching enables you to switch the overall look and feel of your website instantly without changing the themes.
  
• The Multi-select option enables easy selection and editing of texts across multiple blocks.
  
• There are more options in templates for editing.
  
• You can retain styles by keeping the custom styles intact while creating new buttons or transitioning between the blocks.
  
• You can list view improvements using keyboard shortcuts (shift+click), which enables you to select multiple blocks for bulk modification.
• There are more patterns in more places, such as the Quick Inserter gives you patterns matching your present template condition.
• You have newly refined design tools to explore new color panels, group block variations, transparency options, control the size of the featured image, etc.
• You can export block themes to explore the enhanced block theme export tool. It’s a part of WordPress’ gradual transition to codeless theme creation.
• Block locking and new blocks make designing and developing easier.

Pros:

• Ease of Use – It is by far the most user-friendly content management system and doesn’t require much technical skill. The WYSIWYG tools allow users to design and publish without any coding knowledge.
  
• Responsive Sites – WordPress has been one of the pioneers of mobile responsive websites. The majority of the free themes available on the platform are mobile responsive and it allows developers to create a mobile responsive site seamlessly.
  
• SEO Friendly – WordPress is an SEO-friendly platform and comes with basic SEO tools that let you optimize your website. There are hundreds of advanced SEO plugins that help users improve online visibility.
  
• Community Support –As a community-driven platform, WordPress has the largest community of users. Any query posted or any issue raised is answered immediately in the community and as a user, you can find solutions to your problems.

Cons:

• Security Vulnerability –Given the sheer number of sites running on WordPress, it is the primary target for hackers and other cybercriminals. Its ease of use has also added to its security vulnerability compared to other CMSs.
  
• Site Speed – To make the platform user-friendly, WordPress has become heavy due to generic codes that don’t serve the purpose of the majority of users. This increases the page load time which is one of its weakest points.
  
• Updates–WordPress updates are addressed towards the larger community and thus they are somewhat good for all and excellent for none. Many updates can put your site into a fix which is undesirable!

If you want to build or upgrade your WordPress website then hire our highly skilled WordPress developers to get a customized and highly secured professional website.

2) Joomla:

Stats:

• Over 2.5 million websites run on Joomla.
• 125+ million downloads.
• More than 8000 extensions
• Joomla has a market share of 2.6%.

Use and Skill Level:

Joomla is a go-between when compared to WordPress and Drupal. It offers more flexibility and control over the content compared to WordPress and yet doesn’t sacrifice user-friendliness as compared to Drupal. In terms of skill level, it sits between WordPress and Drupal. Developers need to have basic knowledge of Content Management Systems to be able to use Joomla.

Latest Version:

Joomla 4.1.3

Features:

• Task Scheduler: More simplified and easy scheduling of tasks for the future, with the power of automation in the newest version.
  
• SEO: Enables you to rank high across all search engines thanks to built-in SEO features, which also helps in getting the right page structure without extra extensions.
  
• Design: Speed up content creation with the redesigned administration area, improved media management, and fast editor updates; all come together to give you great-looking websites.
  
• Search: Enhanced and more easily configurable search protocols that allow the users to find the content of your websites faster.
  
• Emails: New email templates can be customized as per the evolving needs of the brand, amplifying the speed of personalization and deployment.
  
• Workflows: Automated workflow optimization through advanced workflow plugins that make the creation and management of a website easy.
  
• Speed: Guaranteed increase in speed and overall performance of the website, which help you with more clicks-to-conversion rate.
  
• Accessibility: Better built-in accessibility to layout, infrastructure, and contrast benefiting the website visitors.
  
• Security: Maximized security owing to state-of-the-art coding keeps cyber threats away from your website.

Pros:

• Robustness: Joomla’s admin is perhaps the best of the three and this makes it extremely powerful. It allows developers to make fairly complex sites with ease. Creating and tweaking site structure on Joomla is the easiest of all platforms.
  
• Ecommerce Ready: It is the most preferred among the three for ecommerce It allows store managers to manage inventory and product listing with ease without any coding or technical knowledge to add new products, edit the description or alter their price.
  
• Extensions: Joomla’s extensions put it ahead of the other two content management systems. The extensions are divided into five categories – plugins, components, modules, templates, and languages which help developers overcome all challenges associated with development.
  
• Developer Community: Joomla is backed by a large developer community that shares and exchanges ideas apart from solving issues related to development. Users can actively benefit from this large community.

Cons:

• Plugins: As you may have noticed in the stats, Joomla has a lesser number of plugins. For a developer or user, it would be tough to find plugins that address the problems.
  
• Small Market Place: Joomla modules have a smaller marketplace and they are harder to find. This may pose a major challenge for you when it comes to developing an advanced site.

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3) Drupal:

Stats:

• More than 1 million websites run on Drupal.
• Drupal has a market share of 1.9%
• More than 39000 modules and 2500 themes.

Use and Skill Level:

It is ideal for complex websites that have hundreds and thousands of pages or the ones that need lots of data integration. Automation helps cut down mundane tasks associated with building and managing such sites. Naturally, it requires an advanced understanding of designing and coding to create sites on Drupal. It is often considered to be the toughest of the three CMSs.

Upcoming Version:

Drupal 10 (expected release December 2022)

Features:

• Bartik will be replaced by the Olivero default theme.
  
• Seven will be replaced by the Claro administration theme.
  
• Improved media functionality and layout builder.
  
• Enhanced site builder experiences and decoupled developer.
  
• Old jQuery components to be replaced by modern JavaScript components.
  
• Better editing and authoring experiences guaranteed by new CKEditor 5.
  
• Symfony4 is to be replaced by Symfony 6 along with PHP 8.1 for a better and more secured website.
  
• The creation of bespoke themes will be easy with Theme Starterkit tools.

Pros:

• Versatile: Drupal is extremely versatile and has answers to all kinds of challenges involved in designing a complex site. The modular architecture and easy availability of plugins allow developers to solve business problems.
  
• Scalability: It is marketed as an enterprise-ready platform and is highly extensible which allows you to create a robust online presence that stays in sync with the changing web development trends. This is the reason the most visited sites in the world run on Drupal.
  
• Multi-Site Platform: Businesses that require multiple websites, prefer Drupal as it is the best option when it comes to multi-site development. The same codes can be deployed on multiple sites with unique features and functionalities on this platform.
  
• Speed: Drupal is the best among the three when it comes to loading speed for a website. Its advanced caching features ensure that websites run faster compared to the other two platforms.

Cons:

• Learning Curve: You can’t turn into a Drupal developer overnight and have to go through a steep learning curve. It can take months and even years to master this CMS and manage a site with ease.
  
• Finding Developers: While most businesses look for seasoned developers to create and manage their Drupal site, finding one, in reality, is tough. For every Drupal developer, there are dozens of WordPress developers!

If you want to build or upgrade your website on Drupal then hire our highly skilled Drupal Developers to get a customized and highly secured professional website.

Read More:

Top 8 Ecommerce Development Platforms in 2022 to Start Business Online

Conclusion

To sum up we must say that it is difficult to declare a clear winner when we compare WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla. Each of these Content Management Systems has been developed keeping different types of users in mind. As a user, you should make your choice based on your needs and after assessing which among the three would offer you the best solutions for mitigating the challenges, ensuring growth.