Joomla Vs Drupal

Here I'll try to compare two hottest PHP based content management system Joomla and Drupal, based on some prevailing factors, and my experience while working/evaluating Joomla and Drupal.

Joomla

Excels at:

1. Eye candy themes and templates
2. Great at functionalities
3. Shopping Cart - Virtumart and OSCommerce
4. Huge library of free/commercial extensions
5. Events & Calendar - good support
6. Document Management - Promising DocMan extension
7. Excelent web admin interface
   

Under performs at:

1. Architecture is poor
2. No Multi-site management support (Separate installation for each site)
3. Poor in standard's compliance
4. SEO - You may hit your head against wall to make it working

Drupal

Excels at:

1. Multi-Site Management
2. Standard's Compliance
3. Architecture - Very good
4. SEO - Supports well (Search engine friendly pages)
5. Better Documentation
6. Internationalization (using i18n module)
7. SSL Compatible

Under performs at:

1. Themes and Templates - are very simple not eye candy
2. Shopping Cart - addon is not as good (seems good option Ubercart )
3. Event & Calendars - not great
4. Document Management - nothing like DocMan in Joomla

Conclusion

Joomla as a CMS appears to excel in elements that can be identified as functional, while Drupal succeeds in the architectural elements. Which element is more important in a CMS, architecture or function? According to Deane Barker he believes it is more important for a CMS to have better architecture.

As a developer with the capability to write code, I find myself much more concerned with architectural matters. Functionality can be programmed, but I’m at the mercy of architecture. Put another way, give me the right tools and materials, and I can build anything. But give me nothing but a pile of sand and a toothbrush, and I’m pretty much screwed.

In other words, if you agree with Barker that architecture is more important than function you're likely going to want to choose Drupal. However, if you need to make a quick sell where function, third party integration, and eye candy is important right out the box... Joomla still has the advantage.

Learnig Curve - Joomla has relatively shallow learning curve. It is one of the very easiest CMS systems to learn and customize but you may find some mess at coding level. Drupal has a little steeper than Joomla, but still relatively easy to learn.

Reference:

http://www.alledia.com/blog/general-cms-issues/joomla-and-drupal-%11-which-one-is-right-for-you
http://cmsreport.com/node/543
http://kb.siteground.com/article/CMS_application_comparison_Joomla_vs_Drupal.html