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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
10th
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Web Content Management category, the mindshare of Drupal is 9.1%, up from 5.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Joomla is 2.6%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Content Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Drupal9.1%
Joomla2.6%
Other88.3%
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

"The most valuable are the security features and a wide array of available modules, or extensions, that can be used to add functionality to a Drupal website."
"The best things about Drupal are its extensibility and plug-ability."
"Previously, I have used a variety of solutions, including the custom ones, and I switched solutions because Drupal provides all the features that I need."
"Its scalability, content management practices, security and the community are valuable features."
"Drupal CMS helped in the realization of content-rich web sites that combine article presentation with sophisticated, back-end admin functionality."
"If you need an open-source, scalable and secure CMS, then go for Drupal."
"It is good for big projects."
"You can build websites on it very quickly."
"Joomla is one of the most popular CMSs today."
"Do your project in Joomla; you will see that it is a better solution for website development."
"No useful review content was provided."
"Despite some limitations, Joomla stands out from the crowd and manages to retain its position in the market."
"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."
"This CMS lets you create an own website within minutes, no matter if the user has knowledge in coding."
"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."
"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

"Overall business friendliness of the product: Digital experience features like target segmentation and campaign management have a long way to go."
"Migration from one major version to the next major version requires significant effort."
"The initial setup was very complex, due to the lack of proper documentation."
"Sometimes, you just have to read the code to understand how it works or how to use an API, which is not the best way to learn for everyone."
"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."
"There are not enough Drupal developers to satisfy demand."
"The main complaints of the clients or newcomers to Drupal are about the UX of the admin interface."
"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."
"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."
"Customizing components is not so easy."
"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."
"With even basic Joomla, it requires a course."
"Joomla itself seems to be secure, but many add-ons are badly written and allow LFI, RFI, SQL injection and XSS attacks."
 

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
12%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Government
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: November 2026.
920,574 professionals have used our research since 2012.