Quick answer: For most business websites, WordPress is the practical choice: it is the easiest for staff to use, has the largest choice of themes, plugins and developers, and costs less to build and maintain. Joomla sits in the middle, with built-in multilingual support and flexible user access, but a smaller community. Drupal is the most powerful for complex, high-traffic or highly structured sites with detailed permissions, but it needs experienced developers and a bigger budget.
All three are free, open source, written in PHP and run on the same kind of hosting. All three can build a professional website. The differences show up in how easy they are to use day to day, how much they can be stretched, and how much it costs to find people who know them. The current versions are WordPress 4.5, Joomla 3.5 and Drupal 8.
A quick overview
WordPress
WordPress started as a blogging tool and has grown into a general purpose CMS. It powers far more websites than any other system. Its strengths are a simple admin area, a huge directory of free and paid plugins and themes, and a very large pool of developers and agencies. Content is built around posts, pages, custom post types and taxonomies, which covers most business needs.
Joomla
Joomla has been around since 2005 and has a loyal community. It offers more built-in options than WordPress out of the box, including multilingual content and fine-grained access control levels. Its admin area is more complex, and its extension directory is smaller. Joomla 3.5, released in March, added PHP 7 support and a handful of usability improvements.
Drupal
Drupal is the most developer-oriented of the three. It is built for structured content, complex relationships between content types, detailed user roles and large sites. Drupal 8, released last November, was a major rewrite using modern PHP practices and components from the Symfony framework, with the Twig templating engine, configuration management, built-in multilingual tools and the Views module in core.
Ease of use for editors
For the people who will update the site every week, this is usually the deciding factor.
- WordPress: the most approachable. Staff can usually add posts and pages after a short walkthrough. The visual editor, media library and menus are straightforward.
- Joomla: workable, but the menu system, articles, categories and modules take longer to understand. Editors often need more training.
- Drupal: a clean editing experience is possible, especially in Drupal 8, but it depends heavily on how the site has been built. Out of the box it feels more technical.
If non-technical staff will be running the site, WordPress is the lowest-risk choice.
Flexibility and content structure
All three can handle custom content, but they approach it differently.
WordPress uses custom post types, custom fields and taxonomies. With a plugin like Advanced Custom Fields, developers can build structured content such as team members, case studies, products or locations. For most business sites, this is more than enough.
Joomla has articles, categories and fields provided by extensions. It handles larger content hierarchies reasonably well, though building highly custom structures usually means relying on third party content construction extensions.
Drupal treats structured content as a core strength. Content types, fields, taxonomies and the Views module let developers build complex listings, filters and relationships without custom code. For directories, large knowledge bases, government sites or universities with many content types and editors, Drupal is very capable.
Extensions, themes and add-ons
- WordPress: tens of thousands of free plugins in the official directory, plus a large commercial market for themes and premium plugins. Almost any common feature has several options. The downside is uneven quality, so plugin choice needs care.
- Joomla: several thousand extensions in the Joomla Extensions Directory. Good coverage of the basics, fewer choices for niche needs.
- Drupal: thousands of contributed modules, generally developer-focused. Many popular modules were still being ported to Drupal 8 at the time of writing, so check that the modules you need have stable Drupal 8 versions before committing.
Ecommerce
- WordPress: WooCommerce is the most widely used option and is now owned by Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com. It suits small and medium shops well. See our comparison of WooCommerce vs Shopify if you are weighing up hosted alternatives.
- Joomla: VirtueMart and HikaShop are the main options.
- Drupal: Drupal Commerce is flexible and suits complex catalogues, but needs a developer to set up well.
Security
No CMS is secure by default if it is badly maintained. The main risks for all three are outdated core files, vulnerable extensions, weak passwords and poor hosting.
- WordPress is the most targeted because it is the most popular. Automatic minor updates help, and good practice closes most holes. Our WordPress security guide covers the basics.
- Joomla has a regular security release cycle, and its smaller market share means fewer automated attacks aimed at it, though serious vulnerabilities have still occurred.
- Drupal has a dedicated security team and a strong reputation, which is one reason it is popular with governments. It is not immune: the 2014 “Drupalgeddon” vulnerability affected many unpatched sites.
The CMS matters less than how quickly updates are applied and how carefully extensions are chosen.
Performance
All three can be fast or slow depending on hosting, caching and how the site is built. Drupal has strong built-in caching, especially in Drupal 8. WordPress relies more on caching plugins and good hosting, but with those in place it handles large amounts of traffic comfortably. Joomla has built-in caching that suits most sites. Moving to PHP 7 where your host supports it gives a noticeable speed boost on all three.
Developer availability and cost
This is often overlooked. The more popular a system is, the easier and cheaper it is to find help.
- WordPress: the largest pool of freelancers and agencies, so rates are competitive and you are never tied to one supplier.
- Joomla: a smaller pool, which can make it harder to find experienced help quickly.
- Drupal: experienced Drupal developers are in demand and tend to charge more. Drupal 8 skills are scarcer still because the version is new.
Build costs follow the same pattern. A typical business site costs least in WordPress, more in Joomla, and most in Drupal, although the gap narrows for very complex projects. Our guide to WordPress website cost breaks down what affects a WordPress budget.
Which CMS for which project
Choose WordPress if
- Non-technical staff will update the site.
- You want a business site, blog, small or medium shop, or membership site.
- You want plenty of choice of developers and plugins.
- Budget matters.
Choose Joomla if
- You already have a Joomla site that works well and a team who knows it.
- You need multilingual content and access levels and prefer them in core rather than via plugins.
Choose Drupal if
- You have many content types with complex relationships.
- You need detailed workflows and permissions for many editors.
- The site is large, high traffic or part of a bigger system.
- You have the budget for experienced developers.
Switching from one CMS to another
Moving between systems is entirely possible. Content, users and images can be migrated with tools and scripts, though custom features need rebuilding. Protect search rankings by keeping URLs where possible and setting up 301 redirects for any that change.
FAQ
Is WordPress only for blogs?
No. It started as a blogging platform, but it now runs business sites, shops, directories and membership sites of all sizes.
Is Drupal more secure than WordPress?
Drupal has a strong security record, but a well-maintained WordPress site is also secure. Maintenance matters more than the platform.
Should I upgrade my Drupal 7 site to Drupal 8 now?
If your site depends on contributed modules, check that they are stable on Drupal 8 first. Drupal 7 is still supported, so there is no need to rush.
Pick the CMS that fits your team
The best CMS is the one your team can use confidently and your budget can maintain. For most businesses that means WordPress, built well. If you want help choosing or building on the right platform, see how we help businesses turn visitors into customers.
