CMS web design: Mambo, Joomla, or Drupal?

When it comes to web-based CMS, there are a variety of open source solutions; while each one doesn’t offer everything, there are 3 that clearly stand above the rest: Mambo, Joomla, and Drupal.

A content management system(CMS) is a method used to provide nearly complete control over content on the Web; everything from managing users, documents, various media, and a host of other things (depending on which CMS you use) is completely automated with an entire web structure including the page itself.

Aside from installing a CMS on your website’s server, they are generally easy to use and can save a webmaster weeks worth of development time or just be used by individuals who know completely nothing about web development.

There is, however, a bit of a learning curve when it comes to using a CMS; understanding the data structure (ie. sections, categories, content) is usually the largest obstacle to overcome. Fortunately, each CMS holds its own forums with a friendly community that’s always willing to help.

I choose these three not necessarily because of their ease of use, but rather their functionality. If used properly, these systems can provide a wealth of abilities.

Keep in mind they are by far not simple; you get what you work for. If you’re looking for something simple, it’s likely that these are not for you. A simple CMS, in the end, will offer a simple result.

Joomla is very similar to Mambo, as it was rebuilt from the Mambo structure back in 2005; many bugs were fixed at the time, and a few security issues were addressed as well.

When it comes down to it, you’ll be deciding between Joomla and Drupal; Mambo is an earlier development that was abandoned in 2005 and has many bugs. If you choose Mambo, I can promise that you’ll be spending much time searching message boards and modifying PHP scripts.

In terms of installation, Joomla is clearly the winner; Drupal is significantly harder to install, and requires the user to have certain high-level privileges to the server’s database.

Drupal’s appearance is a far cry from that of Mambo or Joomla; although, looks should take no authority over usability. Drupal is, however, easier to customize; often times a simple change in Mambo or Joomla would lead to other elements not displaying correctly.

As you’re sure to find bugs in all open source CMS, in my experiences, I’ve had better performance overall with Drupal; it is tightly coded, which means fewer bugs and a lot less headaches. I’ve never had the pleasure of wasting an entire day looking for a bug fix on Drupal as I had with both Mambo and Joomla.

While both Drupal and Joomla can be search engine friendly, I’ve found that Drupal offers SEO without sacrificing security as Joomla has been known to do; in addition, Drupal has a more logical URL structure that we would call ’reader friendly.’

In terms of community support, Joomla clearly has a larger following; with this, advantages include overall better support and more add-ons (ie. modules, themes).

One major advantage Drupal has is its category structure known as taxonomy; this is by far Drupal’s strongest feature. With Mambo or Joomla, content is added into a SECTION/CATEGORY/CONTENT structure; this limited method of sorting content has numerous disadvantages when users are navigating your site.

Taxonomy allows you to cross-categorize all content across your site globally, and will classify content automatically in virtually an unlimited amount of ways; as an example of taxonomy, you could set up keywords (known as a vocabulary) to cross- reference pages that contain those keywords to greatly aid in category management and information distribution.

In order to make the decision between Joomla and Drupal, I suggest first trying both out at opensourcecms.com. Ultimately, the decision should come down to how you’re going to use the CMS.

For a site that mostly offers static content with very little updating, such as tutorials, static information, and directories, I would certainly suggest Joomla.

If you’re looking to have ‘real-time’ content on a day-to-day basis, such as a blog, news, or review sites, it may be in your best interest to use Drupal; it is slightly more difficult to learn than Mambo or Joomla, but will surely prove more satisfying in the end.