Drupal Vs Joomla Whitepaper
Amit Makhija
amit.makhija@infobeans.com

InfoBeans - Drupal Vs Joomla comparison whitepaper
ABOUT THIS DOCUMENT
This document attempts to clear the air about the confusion regarding the use of Drupal
and Joomla. Both platforms are good content management platforms, but have their
own inherent pros and cons and situational behaviors. We are not attempting to
recommend one over the other. This document just tries to provide a good set of facts
that can help you decide which platform would be best in your particular situation.
InfoBeans is a content management solutions provider using Drupal and Microsoft
SharePoint as the primary platforms of delivering content management solutions. You
can get more information about InfoBeans at our website – www.infobeans.com
For more information about Drupal, our case studies and our services, please contact us
at sales@infobeans.com or call us toll free in the US on 1 888 4INFOBEANS
DRUPAL
Use Drupal when
 You want a rock solid & high quality platform for your sites
 You want or need a real multi-site-feature (only one installation for several sites)
 You need any kind of user groups & user permissions
 You need to run also membership- and community sites, not only CMS etc
 You want a Powerful templating system
 You 're ready to invest a bit of your time in order to realize all the huge
possibilities of Drupal
 You understand the meaning of clear, high quality code and API (easy to
integrate with other solutions etc)
 You want flexibility and don't like limitations
Thumbs up
 Easy deployment
 Editing tabs integrated into actual pages
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 Editing content is simple as well
 Very flexible in its configuration
 Modules are plentiful, free, and suitable for non-profits
 Versioning is available
 Many high profile sites use Drupal (e.g.: MTV UK, BBC, the Onion, Nasa,
Greenpeace UK, Kleercut )
 Multiple levels of categories allowed along with easily integrated tagging
system(Great Taxonomy).
 Human readable URLs which are search engine friendly (Url Renaming).
 Installation allows you to create and manage multiples websites (very handy
when creating campaign sites)
 Highly configurable user permissions handling
Thumbs down
 Administration area is clunky, but it's getting better with each version.
 Terminology in the administration can be cryptic.
 Adding a visual theme to Drupal can be time consuming.
 Support for the free modules can be frustrating.
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SITES ON DRUPAL
http://www.usmagazine.com
http://www.falanx.hu
http://www.daughtryofficial.com
http://www.rentalmonster.ca
http://ourmedia.org
http://www.yogaforgeeks.com
http://www.spreadfirefox.com
http://www.fresnofamous.com
http://www.goingon.com
http://www.twit.tv
http://www.terminus1525.ca
http://www.flixya.com
http://www.goodstorm.com
http://www.cialog.com
http://www.psu.com
http://www.airamerica.com
http://www.projectopus.com
http://mtv.co.uk
http://www.theonion.com
http://evolt.org/evolt_3.0
http://haiku-os.org
http://www.liquidx.net
http://www.ubuntu.com/
http://www.mylifetime.com/
http://www.theonion.com/
http://usmagazine.com/
http://www.amnesty.org/
http://musicbox.sonybmg.com/
http://www.mtv.co.uk/
http://zudacomics.com
http://www.43folders.com/
http://www.spreadfirefox.com/
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JOOMLA
Use Joomla when
 You don't know about the tech stuff at all.
 You want easy install & setup with your mouse.
 You don't want to learn the tool you're using.
 You don't need to integrate other scripts etc. to your site.
 You want a candy site and don't mind several other sites using the same
template(s).
 You don't need SEO out of the box.
 You don't care about server resources.
 You don't need one log-in to several sites.
 You don’t need user groups & permissions.
 You don’t run membership site(s).
Thumbs up
 Easy deployment
 More intuitive administration user interface
 Editing content is simple
 Lots of polished modules for things like calendars, polls, etc.
 Easy addition of modules
 Versioning is available
 Large community of developers (more than Drupal) for helping with setup and
development
 Multi-lingual
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Thumbs down
 Installation of the software gives you 1 website.
 Categories can only go two levels deep.
 Limited roles and permission allowances.
 Modules cost you money.
 URLs are not search engine friendly (there is a purchasable module).
 Out-of-the-box blogging functionality is mediocre.
Joomla sites
http://www.capturenewzealand.co.nz/
http://www.freekicktemple.com/
http://www.thefunnycartoon.com/
http://www.greenmaven.com/
http://gsas.harvard.edu/
http://www.ihop.com/
http://www.quizilla.com/
http://www.outdoorphotographer.com/
http://www.sensointeriors.co.za/
http://www.urth.tv/
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DRUPAL VS JOOMLA: POPULARITY
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Drupal vs Joomla: People Count
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DRUPAL VS JOOMLA: JOB TRENDS
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DRUPAL VS JOOMLA: PERFORMANCE
Requests per Second
When caching is disabled Joomla can serve 19 pages per second, while Drupal can serve
13 pages per second. Hence, Joomla is 44% faster than Drupal.
However, when caching is enabled Joomla can serve 21 pages per second, while Drupal
can serve 67 pages per second. Here, Drupal is 319% faster than Joomla.
In other words, Joomla's cache system improves performance by 12%, while Drupal's
cache system improves performance by 508%.
It is important to note that Drupal can only serve cached pages to anonymous visitors
(users that have not logged on). Once users have logged on, caching is disabled for them
since the pages are personalized in various ways. Hence, in practice, Drupal might not
be 319% faster than Joomla; it depends on the ratio of anonymous visitors versus
authenticated visitors, how often your site's page cache is flushed, and the hit-rate of
your Drupal page cache.
Document Length
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Drupal always attempts to send compressed pages. Joomla, on the other hand, doesn't
compress pages unless this option is explicitly turned on.
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DRUPAL & JOOMLA HEAD TO HEAD
Drupal Joomla
Database MySQL, Postgres MySQL
PHP PHP 4.3.5+ Any that supports PHP
Platform Windows, Unix, Linux, BSD Windows, Unix, Linux. BSD
Object Oriented No Yes
Architecture
Web Server Apache, Microsoft IIS Apache, Microsoft IIS
Platform
Drupal Joomla
No Yes
Shopping Cart
Yes No
SEO
Yes No
Granular level User
Permissions
Yes No
Multisite Management
Version 5.0 is 2.89 MB 1.5 is 16.7 MB
Size
Free Free
Approximate Cost
No Yes
Trash
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Yes No
Versioning
Joomla 1.5.1 is 3 million
Downloads downloads in less than a
year
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