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Drupal vs Joomla comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Drupal
Ranking in Web Content Management
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
Corporate Portals (Enterprise Information Portals) (4th)
Joomla
Ranking in Web Content Management
11th
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Web Content Management category, the mindshare of Drupal is 9.0%, up from 5.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Joomla is 2.3%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Content Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Drupal9.0%
Joomla2.3%
Other88.7%
Web Content Management
 

Featured Reviews

it_user982032 - PeerSpot reviewer
Owner at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
A good product that helps me to manage complex digital solutions
My advice to others would be that Drupal is not only a CMS, you need to learn the Drupal fundamentals before to start the project. Drupal is a handy tool whenever you work on a digital infrastructure broad project and not only a simple website. So if you have a big project, you can use Drupal. But if you have a small website, like a blog or simple website, my advice would be not to use Drupal, because Drupal is too complex and the cost to maintain the platform can be too high, related to the value of your website, for example. If you have a website with a big product catalog, for example, in many languages and in many countries in the world, then Drupal is good. But if you have a simple website, like a portfolio or five page-website, you can use many other technologies that'd be simple to maintain and implement. On a scale from one to 10, I will rate Drupal an eight. In the next release, I would like to see basic page buttons and better integration with the analytics platform. A drag and drop function to create simple pages will also be handy. For example, if a customer wants to create a landing page, it should be easy for him or her to do so. I would also like to see better translation management.
JS
Techvangelist & CEO at IT Guru Solutions, Inc.
One of the most robust, stable, secure, feature-rich CMSs on the market
I would like to see more back-end admin power pulled into the front-end, therefore the admins will not have to use the back-end as much, especially for the menu manager, user manager, etc. versus using third-party extensions to achieve this. As it is today, it often ends up introducing some potentially serious security concerns. When I turn over a Joomla site, editing content is easy for most folks (i.e., changing the Contact Us or About Us pages). However, when it comes time for them to edit menus and navigation to add a new page or article into the menu somewhere, it starts to get a little complex for many users to build these menu items, especially when there are multiple menus being used in different positions. I also would like to see the same sorting and attributes available through the web browser on the JED (sorting by free or commercial license, sort by rating, popularity, etc.) within the back-end Joomla Web Installer when browsing extensions. I would also like to see the Joomla security bulletins pulled into the admin back-end with better publishing of known extension issues, especially for ones we have installed. Therefore, if we do not have them installed, we never see those bulletins. If we do, then pertinent messages showing up like "there are X number of extension updates available" can pushed upfront and center like updates and security notice usually are.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"We now have more time to focus on crucial features that our client needs, like custom mail notifications, statistics, or other features that can give our clients business value."
"You can build websites on it very quickly."
"Drupal could be chosen not only for its adaptability and ability to tackle big website projects, but for its core functionalities, which are unmatched in the free software CMS world."
"The velocity of its extensibility and prototyping is a valuable feature."
"Being a community based product, the relationship with the product itself is providing back to the community."
"It has a huge community and support from all over the web."
"Drupal is an open source content management system which provides an easy installation process, a good range of modules for features' expansion, as well as a supportive community that will help resolve issues that you face with Drupal."
"We have built a production ready, heavy content website using this product within two to three months."
"The speed in which you can take a CMS and make it a full-blown shopping cart with analytics tracking, SEO, user accounts, security, and ease of use through a robust framework of modules and plugins to enhance and promote-related content is about as turnkey as it gets with Joomla."
"Simplicity and security are basic elements to build a website quickly and safely, and with JoomShaper it was for me even easier."
"Joomla is one of the most popular CMSs today."
"No useful review content was provided."
"Do your project in Joomla; you will see that it is a better solution for website development."
"This CMS lets you create an own website within minutes, no matter if the user has knowledge in coding."
"With a fairly small learning curve for the end user who wants the basics, Joomla is one of the most robust, stable, secure, feature-rich CMSs on the market."
"Joomla is a complete and easy-to-use content manager system; it's possible to create a website, manage its structure and contents, and add features using hundreds of extensions, and the most valuable thing for us is the easy way you update content, add articles, modify structure, and apply SEO tags and info."
 

Cons

"The initial setup was very complex, due to the lack of proper documentation."
"There is need for better organization of the documentation on the drupal.org site."
"However, when you want to add a permission to a user role, something as simple as that checkbox, forces a config push, which annoys me."
"Drupal 8 is only 1.5 years old. It has stability issues, but not major ones."
"Unfortunately, with Drupal, there is a number of learning paradigms that you have to discover, which can make it difficult to understand as a newcomer."
"If you have a high traffic site and speed is important, to optimize Drupal you will probably need an expert."
"I think Drupal has to improve the UX for some administrative pages, such as the modules list page."
"My advice would be not to use Drupal, because Drupal is too complex and the cost to maintain the platform can be too high, related to the value of your website, for example."
"With even basic Joomla, it requires a course."
"Customizing components is not so easy."
"Joomla itself seems to be secure, but many add-ons are badly written and allow LFI, RFI, SQL injection and XSS attacks."
"Web applications created in Joomla eat up a lot of server resources."
"I would like to see the same sorting and attributes available through the web browser on the JED (sorting by free or commercial license, sort by rating, popularity, etc.) within the back-end Joomla Web Installer when browsing extensions."
"When it comes time for them to edit menus and navigation to add a new page or article into the menu somewhere, it starts to get a little complex for many users to build these menu items, especially when there are multiple menus being used in different positions."
"I would like to see more back-end admin power pulled into the front-end, therefore the admins will not have to use the back-end as much, especially for the menu manager, user manager, etc. versus using third-party extensions to achieve this."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would like to see better pricing."
"Joomla is open source, therefore free. Only hosting, the time to build it along with the training time is your startup cost."
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Comparison Review

it_user8925 - PeerSpot reviewer
Developer with 51-200 employees
Aug 23, 2013
Jive vs Sharepoint vs Drupal Commons
At Mediacurrent we often get requests to compare Drupal to other platforms used for intranet sites and social business platforms (like https://dev.twitter.com/ for example). This is often referred to as “Social Business Software”, which has grown in popularity in recent years. I decided to do a…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Government
7%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise11
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

BMJ, The Economist, New Republic, SpaceX, Lush, Danone, Tesla Motors, Peugeot, Stanford Law, Harvard, Oxford University, MIT Media Lab, The Beatles, MTV UK, The Weather Channel, NBC, BBC, grammy.com, Mus_e du Louvre, Whitehouse.gov, London.gov.uk, Gouvernment.fr, New Zealand Government, The Prince of Wales, British Council, NYC Metropolitan Transport Authority, Gatwick Obviously
Artisan Web and Print, HLVC Design, Media A-Team Inc, Holdingbay - Tristan Bailey, Molehill Web Works, Sysgen Media, Pappy Productions, Inc., Turn To The ProsPB Web Development, LC Publishing - LambCottage Foundation
Find out what your peers are saying about Drupal vs. Joomla and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
914,394 professionals have used our research since 2012.