Joomla vs WordPress: Which CMS Is Best for Your Website in 2025?

Market Share and Popularity

As we navigate through 2025, WordPress continues to dominate the CMS landscape with:

• A staggering 62.7% market share.
• Powering an impressive 43.3% of all websites on the internet, highlighting its widespread acceptance and reliability.
• Growth is fueled by its community-driven development.
• An extensive ecosystem of plugins makes it a go-to choice for many.

On the other hand, Joomla’s market share has dwindled to 2.4%, a significant decline from its earlier prominence. Over the past decade, Joomla has struggled to maintain its foothold, facing stiff competition from more user-friendly platforms. Despite this, Joomla still holds a dedicated user base, particularly among those who appreciate its robust structure and flexibility in the context of Joomla vs other platforms.

These trends underscore a shifting preference towards a WordPress site among users seeking reliable content management solutions.

Setup and Installation Process

Setting up a wordpress website efficiently is crucial. WordPress stands out with its straightforward installation process. Many hosting providers offer one-click installations, enabling users to launch their WordPress websites within hours. This simplicity is a significant advantage for beginners lacking technical expertise. A website builder can further enhance this experience. Choosing the right web host can also play a vital role in this process.

Joomla, on the other hand, has a more complex and time-consuming installation process. Although it offers a guided installation wizard, it demands a higher level of technical expertise and generally takes longer to complete. This complexity can be a hurdle for beginners, making WordPress a more accessible option for those looking to launch a website quickly.

User Interface and Ease of Use

A user-friendly interface is crucial for any CMS, affecting how easily users manage their websites. WordPress is often considered better for beginners due to its clean, simple admin dashboard. The side menu provides easy access to various functionalities, allowing users to navigate their sites with ease. This user-friendly layout allows individuals with little to no technical background to efficiently manage and update their website content without difficulty.

Conversely, Joomla’s interface is more structured and complex. Its powerful control panel can be overwhelming for new users due to the extensive number of admin pages and settings, resulting in a steeper learning curve than WordPress. However, advanced users who value detailed control over their site may find Joomla’s customisation options appealing.

WordPress’s navigation is generally intuitive, typically requiring no more than two clicks to reach the desired action. In contrast, Joomla’s more complex navigation can be a barrier for users who are less technically inclined. Despite these challenges, Joomla’s advanced features and customisation options make it a powerful tool for those who invest time in mastering its intricacies.

Content Management Capabilities

Content management is crucial for any content management system, and both WordPress and Joomla have their strengths. WordPress offers an intuitive and straightforward interface for quickly setting up a blogging platform, making it popular among bloggers. The platform’s predefined user roles, along with the option to add more with plugins, offer flexibility in managing user permissions. Additionally, many users explore various CMS platforms to enhance their content management experience.

Joomla is renowned for its ability to handle complex user management and content structures, making it an ideal choice for websites that require detailed control over user groups and advanced user management for content types, particularly when utilising a Joomla editor. Joomla users benefit from these features.

However, Joomla requires creating categories for content types before creating new articles, which adds complexity that WordPress users may not encounter. This flexibility can be both a strength and a challenge, depending on the user’s needs and technical skills.

Themes and Design Customisation

Regarding themes and design customisation, WordPress excels with:

• A vast library of over 13,000 wordpress themes.
• The built-in Theme Customizer streamlines theme adjustments, making them accessible to users without technical skills.
• An extensive selection that enables users to find a theme that fits their vision, enhancing the overall web design experience in the wordpress theme directory, including responsive themes.

Joomla also offers powerful, advanced customisation capabilities, often requiring more technical knowledge. The ability to assign different templates to various sections of a site provides a high level of design personalisation. However, poor management can result in a disjointed appearance across different pages. While Joomla’s templates offer comprehensive options, the customisation process is less intuitive compared to WordPress.

Extensions and Plugins

Extensions and plugins are crucial for enhancing CMS functionality. WordPress leads with over 59,000 plugins available, catering to a wide range of needs from eCommerce and educational platforms to SEO optimisation. The adaptability of WordPress plugins enables users to create a wide range of websites effortlessly.

Joomla offers approximately 5,000 official extensions, lagging in both quality and quantity due to its smaller user base. Joomla’s extensions, including page builder extensions and software components, are categorised into:

• Components
• Modules
• Plugins each serve different functions. This categorisation can benefit users needing specific functionalities, but may also add complexity to the setup process.

Both platforms offer various add-ons for site design and customisation, but WordPress’s larger extension marketplace provides more flexibility and options. This extensive collection of plugins makes WordPress a more adaptable choice for users seeking to enhance their website’s functionality without extensive custom coding.

SEO Features and Optimisation

SEO is critical for search engine visibility. Both Joomla and WordPress offer built-in SEO tools by default. WordPress includes:

• Features for optimising permalinks
• Setting metadata for pages and posts, making it user-friendly for search engine optimization beginners
• The Yoast SEO plugin is particularly popular among WordPress users due to its comprehensive SEO capabilities and numerous SEO features.

Joomla also offers robust SEO features, such as search engine-friendly URLs, metadata, meta descriptions, and title tags. The platform enables URL rewriting, which can improve SEO. However, effective SEO optimisation on Joomla may require more technical knowledge, posing a challenge for beginners. Despite this, both platforms can achieve excellent SEO performance with the right approach.

Security Measures

Security is a top priority for any website owner. Joomla’s built-in security features, such as Force SSL and two-factor authentication, help mitigate risks without relying solely on third-party security extensions. The dedicated Joomla! Security Strike Team (JSST) continuously works on identifying and resolving security issues, contributing to the platform’s overall security.

As the most popular CMS, WordPress is a frequent target for hackers. However, its rich ecosystem of security plugins, such as Wordfence and Sucuri, significantly enhances WordPress security capabilities. Regular automatic updates help fix vulnerabilities and improve security.

Both Joomla and WordPress require regular updates to plugins and themes to maintain security. Despite the higher number of hacks on Joomla sites, the platform’s security measures and regular updates make it a reliable choice for those prioritising security.

eCommerce Capabilities

For setting up an online store, both Joomla and WordPress offer robust eCommerce capabilities. WordPress excels with WooCommerce, the leading eCommerce plugin that:

• Integrates over 100 payment methods, including PayPal, Stripe, and Amazon Pay
• Offers ease of integration
• Provides flexibility for payment processors. These features make WooCommerce a preferred choice for many eCommerce businesses.

Joomla, while also offering thousands of extensions for eCommerce, tends to be more suitable for complex eCommerce sites requiring extensive customisation and detailed user management. Joomla’s eCommerce extensions are categorised into components, modules, and plugins, which can be time-intensive to configure and potentially increase development costs.

Both platforms provide excellent eCommerce functionality, but WordPress’s adaptability and ease of use make it a more popular option for quick setups.

Multilingual Support

In a globalised world, multilingual support is vital for reaching a broader audience. Joomla excels with its built-in capabilities, allowing users to create multilingual websites without additional tools. The platform’s core support for multiple languages makes managing multilingual content more streamlined and user-friendly.

WordPress, while capable of supporting multiple languages, often requires third-party plugins like WPML to handle multilingual content effectively. This can complicate management and increase maintenance overhead. Joomla’s ability to manage multilingual content at the menu level facilitates user navigation in their preferred language, making it a more straightforward option for multilingual websites.

Help and Support Resources

Support resources are essential for users who might encounter challenges while managing their websites. WordPress boasts an extensive community offering a wealth of resources, including forums, tutorials, and professional support services related to web development. Freelance job portals like Upwork and Toptal also help users find web developers for assistance.

Joomla’s primary support options include:

• An active community forum, which, while smaller than WordPress, is dedicated and knowledgeable.
• Official documentation, beginner guides, and detailed user documentation.
• Professional support through dedicated support companies and freelance developers, although it may require more expert assistance compared to WordPress.

Cost Considerations

Cost is a significant factor when choosing a CMS. Initial setup costs for both Joomla and WordPress include domain registration, web hosting fees, and, in some cases, theme selection. WordPress typically has a wider selection of free themes and plugins, which may lead to lower baseline costs.

Ongoing costs for Joomla are generally higher due to its more complex structure and maintenance needs. Both platforms can have hidden costs related to paid extensions or unexpected maintenance.

For ecommerce business solutions, costs can escalate due to web hosting, security certifications, and the choice of plugins for both platforms.

Performance and Speed

Performance and speed are crucial for delivering an exceptional user experience. Joomla offers extensive settings for caching, GZIP compression, and Content Delivery Network (CDN) usage to enhance performance. Enabling GZIP compression and optimising images can significantly improve page loading speeds.

WordPress also provides various performance optimisation plugins, including options for image optimisation and caching. Themes and plugins in WordPress often come equipped with optimisations designed to enhance speed and performance. Both platforms wordpress offers tools for optimising performance, but their effectiveness can vary based on implementation and hosting environment.

Community and Updates

A strong community and regular updates are vital for the longevity of any CMS. WordPress benefits from a larger and more active community compared to Joomla. This active community contributes to a wealth of resources, including forums, blogs, and social media groups.

Joomla’s user base, while smaller, is highly dedicated. The platform’s updates prioritise stability over frequency, contrasting with WordPress’s consistent update schedule. Regular updates are essential for maintaining security and functionality, making both platforms reliable choices, albeit with different approaches.

Summary

In summary, both Joomla and WordPress offer unique strengths and cater to different user needs. WordPress’s user-friendly design, extensive plugin library, and strong community support make it a top choice for beginners and those seeking quick setups. Joomla, with its robust structure, advanced customisation options, and built-in multilingual support, is ideal for users who need detailed control and are willing to invest more time in learning.

Ultimately, the best CMS for your website in 2025 depends on your specific needs and technical expertise. By understanding the key differences and strengths of each platform, you can make an informed decision that aligns with your goals. Happy website building!