Content management systems (CMS) have democratised completely the world of web development. Since many years ago, there are 3 main options for anyone who want to build powerful websites without having to worry about the technical aspects of it: WordPress, Drupal and Joomla. Now, choosing which system to use can be hard, but it is an important choice to make.

How can you know which CMS is best for you? Let us analyze these platforms one by one. Let's go!

We’ll start with the big one: introducing WordPress

WordPress is the world’s most popular content management system: the perfect CMS for absolute beginners in website development. An intuitive, flexible and very user friendly platform. Furthermore, WordPress has a committed community, tons of free extension and the easiest-to-use interface.

Managing your content with WordPress is super simple, you create a page, add it to the menu, post something on it and see your content on the front-end of your site.

Of course, WordPress isn’t perfect in every way. In one hand, the framework of WordPress is difficult to change, so those looking to make back-end changes to their websites may have some trouble using WordPress. On the other hand, you should consider that constant updates can slow or break plug-in in-use thus potentially impacting your entire site.

The peak of the CMS platforms: introducing Drupal

Drupal is a powerful, developer-friendly tool for building complex websites, and also the most technically advanced of the three.

It is a fully open source program, which many people prefer, especially those who are more technically minded. In fact, given its increased complexity and advanced usability options, it requires some expertise and experience to operate. Is the best option for versatile sites that require complex data organisation including community platform sites with multiple users such as forms and online stores. It has excellent capability to tag, categorize and organise complex content, a great responsive design capability and ability to execute a solid mobile strategy.

As cons we can mention that it is not the best choice if unable to commit to learning the software or hire suitable instruction.

Finally meet the perfect balance: here's Joomla

Joomla is the perfect balance between customization possibilities and user-friendliness. It is an excellent platform for building websites and powerful online applications.

It is true that Joomla is not as intuitively easy as WordPress, or developer friendly as Drupal, and that expending some time in learning the system is required -assigning plugins to modules, positioning modules on different pages, configuring layouts and other necessary manipulations can be harsh on a beginner-, but Joomla allows you to build a site with more content and structure flexibility than WordPress, but still with fairly easy, intuitive usage.

I really recommend to try it, I do not know why, but even though it takes a little effort to get used to its peculiarities, people very often fall in love with Joomla CMS.

Comparison chart

Making your choice

Identifying which CMS is the best for your business website really depends on what your business does, and how you need your website to work. In fact, each situation will require something different, and taking the time to look at all of your options is the best way to advance.