site made with Drupal

I build Drupal sites almost exclusively, and I know what you all mean about it being a bit more tricky to figure out. From a developers point of view, though, there is no comparison... the code base and the community are worlds better than any other CMS out there.Joomla is great (and better suited to a membership site than WP) - powerful, pretty flexible and there are some great commercial add-ons for it. It can make things easier as its just not designed to be as flexible as Drupal.

While Drupal seems to have more complexity, its actually just that its not as restrictive... there are usually more options and once you understand the basics you can go a loooong way. Plus - you will not find more FREE code out there, or as much support if you need it... and this is high quality code. Thats why Drupal is used by fortune 500 companies and Joomla really isn't.

If you are planning on whipping up a site as quickly as possible with the shortest learning curve go for Joomla. You will have to pay for commercial modules and probably a theme to get you there, but thats fine.

If you are more interested in building a site that could grow to be world class OR will be building many sites, then go for Drupal. Its rock solid, designed by geniuses and has some built in features for multiple sites on the same server/codebase, etc.

FYI - there is a great module for Drupal called "LM Paypal" that will let you create a Paypal subscription for a "user role" on the site. Users have to have an account existing, so this is the process I use:

1) User creates a free account in the regular way. I use the "Login Tobbogin" module to allow them to sign in with their email address, set their password and login immediately. This also makes it easy to direct them to the paid subscription page as soon as they register.

2) On the subscription page, you can list out the options and the code for the subscription buttons. The "LM Paypal" module is cool because you can do subscriptions of any length, for any length of time AND you can offer a free trial if you like. Sweet.

3) Once they choose the option and set up the Paypal subscription, it sends them back to the site and uses Paypal's IPN (automatic with the module) to verify their subscription and assign them the user role they need. It will also automatically remove their role if they cancel the subscription. Amazing.

4) If you use the "Terms of Use" module, then the user will have had to agree to the site terms of use before getting access.

5) If you care to use the "SimpleNews" newsletter module, not only do you have a free newsletter system built-in, but you can get an option to add an automatic checkbox on registration. There is also a module to integrate Aweber.

BONUS: With this setup, the user has already created an account on the site (with their email and any other contact info you require) AND possibly signed up for your mailing list BEFORE they even hit the payment button. Then, if they leave, you already have their contact info and can try to get in touch with them.

Of course, thats just the beginning. If you use the "FeedAPI" module, you can have RSS feeds automatically create new pages on your site, you can allow all the users to have their own blog, add/create a wiki, create some slick profiles, add images/videos, create galleries, etc... Sky is the limit.

One final note:

- WP is like wooden blocks - simple & easy. You CAN do some advanced stuff, but usually it takes alot more work because thats not what its designed to do.

- Joomla is like Legos - more complex than blocks, more stable and really fun. They give you alot of solid pieces and you can put them together to creat your own thing.

- Drupal is like an Erector Set - more complex than Legos, ends up with a really solid model that can be professional quality. Still easy to do, but does require a smidge more effort.

I know that this sounds very "elitist", but the truth is the truth. Drupal is a professional grade system. In my opinion, its core code, design and underlying structure are superior to Joomla or anything else I have seen. Of course, its not as user friendly "out of the box" as Joomla (though Drupal 7 is going to change that).

BOTTOM LINE: Think about what you really want to accomplish, spend an afternoon researching the solutions with both, and decide which one is right for you. Ultimately, the only thing that matters is that you have a solid website that does the job and works!

regards,

Ron

PS another thing to consider is security... because Drupal core and modules are all coded to a higher standard and vetted by the community, security fixes are released as soon as they are found (and your site will tell you when!). Joomla seems to be more scattered without a central coding standard and are weak on the security updates.

PPS Artisteer software is great for making Drupal AND Joomla templates...

site made with Drupal