Your experience in web programming, your aims as well as time and money you are going to spend. These are the basic things to consider choosing the best Content Management System for your website project. Today most PHP hosting plans include WordPress, Joomla and Drupal CMS to appreciate. All of them claim to be free CMS with helpful community and tutorials. However, sometimes some extra fee required to improve your site and even the most helpful tips won’t work with some of these CMS if you don’t know the basics of web programming. Let’s try to find out what things are the best for you to make your life easier and your web site work properly.
Best PHP Web Hosting for Business and Blogging
Some people suppose that different CMS are created for different types of websites. For example, to create a blog you need to choose WordPress. It is simple and provides you with all the necessary features to manage your blog. However, if you want something more sophisticated you need to use Joomla or Drupal. However, such statement can’t be true for all the users. Today, WordPress is used not for blogging only, but also for creating a small static websites. Everything depends on your skills and knowledge in web programming.
WordPress PHP Hosting
Usually WordPress is called the best platform for blogging as well as the best solution for beginners who have no vast experience in web development. Anyway, these statements don’t provide you with the whole truth about WordPress. Choosing PHP hosting with this CMS you will appreciate a wide range of plugins that allow you to create a web site with static as well as episodic content.
Note that WordPress is quite flexible and allows you to create a simple content management site. However, it doesn’t mean that you can create only a static website. WordPress PHP hosting also allows you to create a web magazine, gallery or product review sites.
Apart from the availability of various themes and plugins, WordPress is well-known for its simplicity. It is easy to install and allows you to upgrade the whole system. Thus, the best things about WordPress are simplicity, flexibility and enough resources to create a website without advanced knowledge in web programming.
PHP Hosting Joomla
Joomla as well as WordPress uses MySQL as its database. With this CMS you break the content into modules such as polls, calendars, blogs, etc. Every module is developed differently. Some of them are more sophisticated while others are rather simple. If compare with WordPress, Joomla has less blogging capabilities.
This CMS can be perfect for personal small websites or non-community sites. The interacting features are limited in Joomla. So, it will be the best choice for eCommerce website or informational site.
Joomla with its excellent plugins and theme systems will be appreciated by programmers. Such plugins or module systems allow programmers to change core code and add new features easily. They just need to write PHP code to implement it as a plugin into Joomla. With over 4,600 plugins presented in Joomla Plugin derictory you have a lot of options to choose. Navigation and administration, access and security. These and many more other tools help you to manage your website.
Joomla also offers you theme system that allows you to separate design from code. In other words, designers can create templates to implement them into Joomla. You also can look for plenty of professional templates on Internet. Usually, they are free.
Talking about the disadvantages of Joomla PHP hosting we should say that many of the most useful and cool extensions should be bought. Otherwise, the functionality of Joomla is rather limited and requires some learning and experience before you can apply Joomla to the utmost. In other words, it is a powerful platform, but to take advantage of it you need to practice for a while and time to learn to develop great web sites.
PHP Hosting Drupal
Drupal is considered to be one of the most advanced CMS if we are talking about technical basis. It is well-known for its speed and effectiveness. Drupal as Joomla also has a great variety of extensions. On the whole, Drupal can be called the CMS for professional webmasters who have vast experience in programming.
Drupal is not easy to use, but it provides you with more power. It has a sophisticated navigation system that allows you to create the URL structure more easier. On the whole, this system is very customizable. The only thing is to have strong skills and know how to do it.
With Drupal you can run plenty of sites from a single installation. That makes Drupal the best solution if you want to create a group of related web sites. If compare with WordPress, Drupal can be the best choice if we are talking about running multiple sites.
With a strong community features, Drupal is considered to be one of the best choices to build communities around your websites. You also can create eCommerce site with a lot of modules and extensions. However, such features are free only for non-profit use. Otherwise, extra money should be invested.
Among the other drawbacks of Drupal we can mention the worse interface if compare with other CMS discussed in this article. The forums where you can find all the necessary information and tips how to work with Drupal extensions and modules are also not so great if compare with WordPress or Joomla forums. In other words, if you are inexperienced user who know not much about technical aspects of web design, Drupal is not your choice.
What Should You Choose?
As you can see there is no favourite that definitely win when we are talking about which open source CMS to choose. All of them have their pros and cons. Everything depends on the type of web site you want to create as well as your skills in technical issues. Whether you want to create a small website or strong community, eCommerce site or interactive portal with sophisticated design, your task it to define your aims properly. Only then you can start choosing the CMS for your project.
In short, those who prefer simplicity or create their first site ever should choose WordPress without hesitations. It is easy to use and quite powerful platform for creating your blog or simple website. It would be enough to build community around your website with all the necessary tools provided by WordPress PHP hosting. You can use this platform as your first step in web site creating or continue using it for your next projects. Anyway, this CMS is the most popular one for small business entrepreneurs.
If you want to try something new and create something bigger than just a blog or a static website, you can use Joomla. The first thing everyone mention talking about this CMS is great-looking interface that allows you to manage your website easily. This content management system can be the best solution for eCommerce websites. However, Joomla is not so easy to customize if compare with WordPress. So you will need time for practice to improve your technical skills and do your best with this CMS. You also can find or buy various modules created by webmasters specially for Joomla. There are plenty of add on programs that help you to create the website in accordance with your needs.
Drupal can be called the most sophisticated CMS among these three. You need at least some little knowledge in PHP to customize it. You can write your own modules and extensions or find all the necessary things in the Web as you can do with Joomla. You need to have some experience to make great websites with Drupal. Of course, there are more possibilities with this CMS, but if you don’t know how to use them, they will be useless.
Decide how much time and effort you want to devote to your site developing and management. Then choose CMS according to your aims and preferences. The key point is to find CMS that is comfortable for you. There should be no big problems and hours of research before you can create something extra new for your website. Everything should be easy and understandable. And of course, you always need to have other people to help you. With forums and special databases created for every of the above mentioned CMS it can be a simple task.
