Evaluating open source CMS

I've used Mambo, then I've changed to Joomla! and, more recently, I've evaluated Drupal, after discussing open source CMSs with a friend, and I've concluded that it suits me better.

When one has used other CMSs before, the comparison is inevitable.
But this time I had the change to perform the comparison with non-technical people beside me.

Here's an overview of the conclusions.

Overall, Drupal is less user friendly when it comes to system management and it's event less attractive, as I've seen non-technical people saying they liked Joomla! better because it looks nicer. And they are right. Drupal is by far the less attractive and the hardest to manage of the three.

While a module installation in Drupal requires manual intervention like unziping and moving the files to the correct location, which is not always straight forward and is much less error-free, Joomla! and Mambo haver a nice management GUI where one can upload, or specify the URL, of the component to install and everything is easy and straight forward. Some Joomla! add-ons, like internationalization, are usually manually installed, but that seems a non-issue by non-technical people.

When it comes to content management I find Drupal more goal oriented, while in Joomla! to publish something one has to make a lot of mouse clicks. But even though, non-technical people prefer the looks over the functionality, and even here Joomla! wins for most people.

Regarding other functionality, like menu creation, component configuration and placeholder content definition, I find Drupal easier and, again, more goal oriented.

After some reasoning about what would be the best CMS for me, I've decided to move to Drupal, even if I have to live with manual intervention and use a less attractive management look.

./M6