Will Drupal be more popular than Joomla?

Joomla is almost perenially more popular than Drupal in terms of attracting more traffic to its landing page. This is a bit odd considering that Drupal regularly wins CMS of the year as voted for by the public.

While both CMS platforms have pros and cons, I personally believe that Drupal is far more full-featured and powerful. With power comes increased complexity, and this is where Joomla starts to win. That and the fact that Joomla has a far slicker, more inclusive kind of vibe.

While I don't think it's fair to say that Drupal is a community of developers who would rather tell newcomers to RTFM, I can't escape this assessment because that is what other people tell me they have heard about it. Whether it is true or not, it is a prevailing perception that has to be actively combated.

Ok, so Drupal has some brand issues to deal with, but the superior product. And, in the last few months the latest incarnation, Drupal 7, has been released. Drupal 7, while it does have a lot of improvements in performance and security and more, is by far and away the release that does most for its useability. It really is a lot easier to use and newcomers should find the task of building a new website far less daunting than previous versions (trust me, I wrote the book on both of them).

With the advent of services like Drupal Gardens, Drupal is also starting to compete in the same arena as WordPress, although there's definitely a long way to go.

Back to the point of this article... Can Drupal beat out Joomla in the popularity stakes? I say Yes, it can!