A very common question from Beginners is whether I should choose Drupal or Joomla or other CMS?

I had to make this tough decision 2 years back and I thank myself everyday for choosing Drupal over other CMS. I am glad I did not quit when I found some things difficult.

Drupal has a superior architecture and very SEO friendly. It can cater to your needs, it can be used for a simple FAQ site or a very large million visitor site.

Here are some Key pros and cons of the two systems.

Drupal

• Rock solid & high quality platform
• Real multi-site-feature (only one installation for several sites)
• Any Kind of user groups & user permissions, OpenId compliant in Version 6
• Can run membership and community sites, not only CMS etc
• Powerful templating system. Any XHTML or CSS template can be easily converted to Drupal.
• Drupal needs a little time investment to realize all the huge possibilities of Drupal
• Clear, high quality code and API (easy to integrate with other solutions etc)
• Flexibility and no known limitations
• Many high profile sites use Drupal (e.g.: MTV UK, BBC, the Onion, Nasa, Greenpeace UK, New york observer. )

Joomla

• If you are not techy its good to start
• Easy install & setup with your mouse
• Easy learning curve
• Cannot integrate other scripts etc. to your site
• Generally you cannot create high-end sites, without investing huge amount
• No SEO out of the box, URLs are not search engine friendly.
• Server resources utilization is more compared to drupal
• Only one site per installation
• No Single Log-in to several sites
• No User groups & permissions
• More intuitive administration user interface
• Some polished modules for things like calendars, polls, etc.
• Modules cost you money

System Requirements:

Drupal can work with MySQL and Postgres while Joomla is known to support only MySQL
Drupal can work with Apache or IIS while Joomla is known to support only Apache
Joomla support SSL logins and SSL pages. Drupal not known to support it.
Site Management

Drupal has free add on for Workflow management. Joomla not known to have one.
Drupal has inbuilt Translation manager. Joomla has a Free ad on for the same
Drupal has more granular priviledge managment
Interoperability:

Drupal has iCal support [Add on] , Joomla not known to have one.
Drupal is XHTML Complaint. Joomla not known to be one.
Drupal has excellent versioning and Audit trail which Joomla lacks
If you are still not satisfied, I suggest you read the following