Comparing Wordpress, Drupal, and Joomla's Websites

Written by Jeremy Wilken 1 Feb2010

There are far too many posts comparing three of the largest PHP-coded Open Source CMSs: Drupal, Wordpress, and Joomla. They each have their own merits and place in the world. Today I felt the need to look at all three project homepages to see what the projects have to say about themselves.  I found some interesting things that might shed some light onto the different projects.  This is all based on January 11th, and 28th homepages, so by the time you read this a lot may have changed.  Rather than go into great detail, I'll provide short lists of interesting things I noticed.

I would like to say that just about all of these differences could be resolved between the systems. Just because one has something and another doesn't, doesn't mean it isn't possible.  It just shows the project's page's focus, and thats important to someone who wants to make a CMS a major part of their services.

The Markup

First things first, lets look at the code of the projects.  Code can show a lot about the coders, and these community driven websites show several different mindests on web coding.

• All three agreed on the same DOCTYPE of XHTML 1.0 Transitional
• Joomla was the only site to have meta keywords, except Content-Type was included in all
• Drupal does not have any conditional code for IE
• Wordpress has a special stylesheet for small mobile/screen readers (only two rules in it though)
• Drupal and Wordpress provide a link for rss readers in the head
• Wordpress is the only one to provide XFN support
• Javascript Framework - Joomla: Mootools 1.1, Drupal: jQuery 1.2.6, Wordpress: None
• All use Google Analytics for tracking

The Performance

These three websites get an enourmous amount of traffic each day. Speed and performance are a huge concern, and there are various ways to rate it.

• YSlow Ratings - Joomla: Grade C (73), Drupal: Grade B (84), Wordpress: Grade B (89)
• Section 508 - Joomla (1 failure), Drupal (1 failure), Wordpress (1 warning)
• Valid HTML - Joomla (valid), Drupal (65 Errors, 42 warnings), Wordpress (valid)
• Page Size (uncompressed) - Joomla: 462 KB, Drupal: 235 KB, Wordpress: 93 KB
• Ping Test (average of last 10 tests on Pingdom) - Joomla: 3.27, Drupal: 7.84, Wordpress: 1.14

The Content

Beyond the code is the true purpose for the website, the content. I try to point out easily quantifiable things, such as keyword density, to avoid subjective information. For Keywords, I ignore common words, such as dates, and only count words on the page not meta or images.

• Top 3 words on Wordpress.org: wordpress (7), blog (4), blogging (3)
• Top 3 words on Joomla.org: joomla (13), community (5), project (4)
• Top 7 words on Drupal.org: drupal (21), ease (8), project/content/search/release/site (6)
• Site Titles
  • Wordpress: Wordpress > Blog Tool and Publishing Platform
  • Joomla: Joomla!
  • Drupal: drupal.org | Community plumbing
• Wordpress's content is fairly stable, very little changes, parts of Joomla's content are regularly updated, much of Drupal's homepage is regularly updated
• Number of Links on the Page: Wordpress: 26, Joomla: 41, Drupal: 143
• Top Topics:
  • Wordpress: Mention how easy it is to download and use, focus on the value and quality of the product, and display a few big name users like CNN or Ebay to impress new visitors
  • Joomla: Project announcements take center stage, invitations to get involved are pulled together in one area, and a lot of extra information scattered mainly for people with a vested interest in Joomla
  • Drupal: The top portion deals with getting into Drupal and where to start, the posts below focus on a wide range of topics, and the links on the right focus on helping fix bugs or help others

The Conclusion

What is there to conclude exactly? I think most of the information speaks for itself, and shows a great amount of detail about the projects. Each one has their place, and while this particular website runs on Joomla, it could easily be done in Wordpress or Drupal. However, the projects themselves have branded a certain meaning into their homepages. Wordpress does a great job of giving the impression of a simple and clean platform, while it lacks displaying much information about their vibrant community. Joomla does a wide range of things with its homepage, which is a strength Joomla has as a CMS, but misses out on the opportunity to give a visitor much idea what Joomla is or does. Drupal features their community and caters well to the Drupal users, but it is a bit dated (I believe a revision is underway) and seems to have a lot of clutter that could confuse a new user (I was lost at first).

When its all said and done, the homepage of any project as large as these three gives a lot of insight into the project beyond what the site says. I think all three have at least one major flaw, but they are different issues. Drupal's website doesn't give the impression of the level of professionalism behind the platform. Joomla gives little direction to visitors on getting started without digging into the site. Wordpress doesn't invite users to become active in their community.

What are your thoughts, and what do you make of the different homepages?