Joomla to WordPress

[mnyc09]

I’ve done a decent amount of research about the advantages of using WordPress. Obviously the biggest one being the usability from an administrative perspective. We currently do all of our client websites in Joomla but am looking into converting over to WordPress because the UX of Joomla is pretty crappy and outdated. The only thing I am concerned about in WP is the lack of large scale components that Joomla offers. In fact it’s why we use Joomla in the first place. I’ve dug around a little bit but haven’t seen anything conclusive so I’d thought I’d ask here.

These are the major components that I’ve used for clients in Joomla:
– Social Networking (JomSocial – http://www.jomsocial.com/)
– Content Construction Kit or Directory (SOBI2 – http://www.sigsiu.net/sobi2.html )
– E-Commerce (VirtueMart http://virtuemart.net/ )
– Media Sharing (HwD MediaShare http://hwdmediashare.co.uk/ )

Also, do WordPress plug-ins and extensions follow MVC for design?

Also, I’ve heard good things about Drupal as well, but nothing specific to the things I’m looking for.

Thanks!

[mnyc09]

JoshWhiteDesign,

Thanks for the feedback.

CCK – This is extremely powerful for creating highly customized directories. This is a good demo of the type of functionality a CCK can give you (although its really showcasing the reviews/comments functionality):
http://demo.reviewsforjoomla.com/
As you can see you have a listing of items divided into categories and you can slice down into the information. What makes a CCK (and SOBI2 for that matter) great is that you can create fields for all of the items in your directory and import mass data into the database. Think of it as an easy way to create a database structure without have to completely create new code and database associated with it. An example customer would be a widget manufacturer who wants a complete listing of their product line online.

Media Sharing- I’m talking more about a YouTube-esque type of system. Also the idea is to able to hook this into a CMS (i.e. user framework, etc)

E-Commerce If the customer is just an E-Commerce shop we actually will use Magento but don’t have experience trying to hook a Magento system into other CMS functions/abilities.

Social-Networking – I haven’t seen much that can touch the functionality of JomSocial or CommunityBuilder in any other CMS. Although admittedly I haven’t done much research for WP. (aside from http://buddypress.org/) Basically you can do a nearly fully functional Facebook website with JomSocial.

At the end of the day one of the biggest things is the extendability of the CMS. I don’t see WordPress with enough plugins to surpass the scale of that of Joomla or say Drupal, unless someone can prove me wrong. My general assumption with WP is that its a very basic and user friendly CMS at the barebones which a lot of good web dev’s have decided to extend with their own custom needs. I’m in no way trying to knock WP just trying to see if anyone can add to my experience and thoughts.

[exactlyy]

i know this is too late … but comparing WP to Joomla is like comparing the process of teaching a kid how to eat and teaching him how to read.
Joomla is harder.. but once you master it , you shouldnt look back .

[Author]

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