WORDPRESS

WordPress is a Content Management System (CMS) used as a free open source blogging tool. It was founded by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little, as a fork of b2/café logand was first released on May 27, 2003. It was released under the license GPLv2 from Free Software Foundation.

It is the most popular blogging system tool on the web having used for supporting over 60 million websites of the world. It has been downloaded by more than 140 million users.

Its official website is https://wordpress.org/ . Its latest version 3.9 has been launched recently with the name “Smith”. Some of the famous websites using the WordPress platform are CNN.com, Forbes.com and Reuters.com.

Moving further, we hereunder discuss some of the strengths and weaknesses of WordPress:

Strengths:

1. Ease of Use:It is very easy to install and use for creating small blogs and websites. It does not require any technical competence. Moreover, the UI it provides is too intuitive and user-friendly. It’s easy to paste the text from any Microsoft Word Document on the WordPress site.
2. Vast Range of Themes and Plugins:WordPress has an extensive library for themes and plugins. It has over 2500 themes in its library and a database of more than 30,000 plugins each of which offers custom functions and thereby provides the ability to tailor their respective sites and blogs as per their specific requirements.
3. Multiple Users:WordPress MU (WPU) allows multiple users to create their blogs and manage the multiple blogs to exist within one installation administered by a centralised maintainer.
4. Time of Installation and Updates: The time of manual installation of the WordPress software is around 5-7 minutes and the update frequency is about 42 days.
5. SEO Capabilities: WordPress SEO power comes from the array of plugins available to make your work easier. Such large number of plugins also enhances the optimization friendliness of the web content.

Weakness:
1. Security:Since it is an open blogging software it is more prone to hacking because hackers know the system. Though many plugins and security updates are available to prevent hacking. Therefore, security updates shall be installed on regular basis.
2. Limited Content Management Ability: Though WordPress was released with a view to managing large blogging data on sites but if you plan to make your site to an enterprise level, WordPress finds it difficult to handle such large volume of data.
3. Support and Community: Despite being so popular blogging system, it lacks in its support and community-built initiatives.

JOOMLA

Joomla is a Content Management Framework (CMF) used as a free open source tool for publishing web content. It was formed as a result of fork of Mambo on August 17, 2005. It was released under the license GNU from General Public License. Since it is built on a model-view controller web application framework, it can be used for publishing content independently of any Content Management System (CMS).

It is also one of the popular blogging system tools on the web having used for supporting over 40 million websites of the world. It has been downloaded by more than 30 million users.

Its official website is www.joomla.org. Its latest version 3.3 has been launched recently offering improved password hashing and micro-data. Some of the famous websites using the Joomla platform are Linux.com, Cloud.com and iHop.com.

Strengths:

1. Extension Variability: Joomla extensions are used to enhance the Joomla’s website ability. It has more than 7000 extensions. Joomla extensions are dividedinto five categories.The categories are components, plugins, templates, modules and languages. Extensions of each category differs in their function, power and capability.
2. Time of Installation and Updates: The time of manual installation of the Joomla software is around 10-12 minutes and the update frequency is about 36 days.
3. Support and Community: Joomla has a strong support and community built-up. The extensions in Joomla are large with a tons of free open source plugins.
4. Strong Content Management Capabilities: Originally Joomla was designed as an enterprise-grade CMS, unlike WordPress. This capacitates it to handle a large volume of articles than WordPress. It can thus be used for enterprise content handling too.

Weakness:

1. Technical Knowledge: Joomla software can’t be used without the technically knowledge related to web development. Though the learning curve is not so steep, but it can be enough to intimidate casual users.
2. Lacks SEO Capabilities: Joomla need a ton of work to get to the same level of search engine friendliness as WordPress. One may have to hire a SEO expert or look at an alternative solutions.

FINAL CONCLUSION:

As we can see, each CMS has its own specific strengths and weaknesses. Some users may prefer, technical configurations over raw power, or user friendliness over extensive features, or content management capabilities over optimization. It all boils down to the requirements of the user which needs to be kept in consideration for choosing one of the CMS for website management.

Although as per our discussion, we recommend to

Opt WordPress if:

• You are not technical savvy.
• Your business relies heavily on SEO capabilities.
• You want multi-user support.
• You are technical savvy.
• Your want strongest content management capabilities.
• You can afford to lose user-friendliness.

Opt Joomla if:

Though both the CMS systems are powerful and prevalent yet it depends on the convenience and choice of the user which system one prefers to use.