WordPress vs. Joomla: What’s the Best Platform for Your Online Store

9 min read

WordPress has long dominated the online market debate. But what about other sites? Joomla, which can also be spelled as “Joomla!” with an exclamation mark, can seem like an overlooked site. But it’s currently coming in as the third most used open source system as of 2022—with WordPress coming in as the first, to the shock of absolutely no one.

Open Source Usage Distribution on the Entire Internet

Statistics for websites using Open Source technologies. Data source.

The Brief History of WordPress

WordPress market share: 45%
Websites in the world: 30.5+ mln

If you’re anything like us, you remember when WordPress started back in 2003. Back then, they were marketed as a blog website. If you remember that, you’re a dinosaur like us. However, it is no longer strictly a blog website! It is now a multi-purpose CMS that powers more than 45% of all websites, not just blogs.

WordPress Yearly Market Share 2010–2022 (Source)

The Brief History of Joomla

Joomla market share: 2%
Websites in the world: 1.45+ mln

So, when we said WordPress has been dominating the online market debate, we weren’t being fully honest. They actually were the preferred CMS website when they started in 2005. However, that win was short-lived. By 2009, WordPress took over. Compared to WordPress, Joomla powers 2.3% of all websites.

Joomla Yearly Market Share 2010–2022 (Source)

And there ya have it, a brief history of Joomla to impress all of your friends!

What do you mean, you don’t talk about this stuff at parties?

Round One: Security

Time for these two platforms to face off. In our first showdown, WordPress and Joomla are duking it out over how secure the respective websites are. Security is a major focus for many online store owners—as it should be! However, with WordPress being so large, it can be a major target for hackers and cybercriminals. While the extensive features of WordPress can be impressive, this can leave them open to cyber attacks.

Joomla offers a secure socket layer (SSL) and two-factor authentication (2FA). However, despite their potential security hiccups, WordPress offers neither. Joomla also offers a separate set of security questions, with developers maintaining the list with all known vulnerabilities.

Who do you think wins here? We’ll give you a second to mull it over.

Our winner: Joomla

Round Two: Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) is an important part of maintaining your brand. However, the SEO capabilities are not apparent for either WordPress or Joomla until you perform a deep dive.

WordPress offers a third-party plugin for a well-known SEO improvement site called Yoast. Yoast is a beginner-friendly plugin that shows the user exactly how they can improve their SEO ranking in several areas. And, it also rates a website’s readability.

Joomla has their own extension, however, which is supposed to be the equivalent to Yoast. Their version is no match for Yoast, though.

We don’t think there’s much of a battle here, but we’ll let you think about who you think wins this round.

Got it?

Our winner: WordPress

Round Three: Customization

Customization is a big thing when representing your brand, and thankfully, both Joomla and WordPress offer expansive customization options. However, WordPress’ expansive support options and numerous plugins give them a one-up on Joomla, as they’re easier to find and generally higher-end than the extensions Joomla has to offer.

Round three is wrapped up; who do you think won?

Our winner: WordPress

Round Four: Content Management

Content management is arguably the most important part of owning an online business, and both of these softwares are highly complicated CMSs. Both enable users to edit, create, and overall manage their brand’s content. However, once again, WordPress has an edge over Joomla. WordPress is much easier to use than Joomla, and therefore, much more beginner-friendly. While Joomla isn’t impossible to navigate as a beginner, it would be very difficult and there will certainly be a steep learning curve. Basically, while both CMS websites have equal customization potential, WordPress makes it a lot easier.

That’s it for round four; what’s your opinion?

Our winner: WordPress

Pros of WordPress

WordPress has a number of advantages. They’re widely regarded as the easiest-to-use platform, and non-developers run into minimal issues when using WordPress. WordPress is also the one to look at if you’re considering starting a blog—after all, that’s why they were created. It certainly doesn’t hurt that they aren’t limited to blogging. They offer the largest array of themes and plugins, and they have a massive support community. They also have a cheaper development cost due to that massive support community.

Pros of Joomla

Joomla, much like WordPress, has many advantages as well. They are very advanced. While this may not be a pro to beginners, this really does pose many advantages for more advanced users. It also offers flexibility for different content types, and it has support in multiple languages. It has multiple Joomla templates—compared to WordPress, which only has one.

FAQs

WordPress vs. Joomla: Which one is easier to use?

WordPress is generally easier to navigate, especially for a beginning business owner with little-to-no website development experience. However, if Joomla is more appealing to you and you have no web development experience, you can hire a developer for your company.

Is Joomla OK for websites?

Joomla is actually great for websites! While Joomla’s market may be declining, Joomla is still an excellent way to platform your website. If you are familiar with website development or are willing to hire a web developer for your business, Joomla offers better flexibility than WordPress does. Joomla templates might also be more to your liking. Variety is the spice of life, after all.

Overall

Both of these CMS sites are great, and they both have individual strengths. However, when compared side-by-side, we believe WordPress to be the better choice for beginners. WordPress is not only easier to use than Joomla, but is overall more user-friendly. It helps you create an attractive website for your brand with the click of a button, and it has a great network to which you can reach out for support.

Joomla, on the other hand, is an excellent choice for the business owner with security in mind and a background in website development (or is willing to hire a website developer). Although, if you’re a blossoming business owner who likes a challenge, we certainly aren’t going to stop you!

We find it necessary to remind you that Joomla’s market is steadily declining while WordPress’ market is rapidly expanding. Of course, we aren’t implying that Joomla is going to go bankrupt in the next decade. However, when choosing the best way to promote your brand, we think it’s only logical that a business owner puts their website on a growing platform.

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Jan 11, 2022

About the author

Max has been working in the ecommerce industry for the last six years helping brands to establish and level-up content marketing and SEO. Despite that, he has experience with entrepreneurship. He is a fiction writer in his free time.