WHICH CMSPlone or Joomla?

OVERVIEW

• Cost and Hosting• Ease of Installation • Ease of Use • Need for Technical Support • Multiple Content Creators and Security• Training, Instruction, and Assessment • User Feedback• Consistency

COST AND HOSTING• Both Plone and Joomla are free open source

systems.o Accessing, downloading, and registering

• Other costso Hosting (cost varies) o Can host either system on own servero Staff training o Consultants

EASE OF INSTALLATION • Plone Installer

o Available for a variety of operating systemso Follow its prompts to complete the installation

• Browser installation to install Joomlao Need to know

Host Name MySQL user name Password Table prefix

o Download a zip file to your system and then upload them following on-screen prompts

EASE OF USE• Plone

o Difficult system to learn o Easy for content administrators to use

• Joomla o Joomla’s terminologyo Straight forward to create websiteso Structure and navigation isn’t extremely intuitive

• Between the two, Plone has a steeper learning curve (idealware.org, 2009).

TECHNICAL SUPPORT• Plone and Joomla

o Robust developer and user communities o Free support available from community-centered and

third party sources o Local library or bookstore

MULTIPLE CONTENT CREATORS AND SECURITY• Plone

o Supports multiple content creatorso Levels of permission to access informationo Personal workspace folder under their nameo Create groupso Essentially functions as a single member

• Joomlao Supports multiple content creatorso Levels of permission to access information

TRAINING, INSTRUCTION, AND ASSESSMENT• Plone

o Used effectively for instructiono Utah State University developed eduCommonso Tools to manage eLearning  

• Joomla o Not used as widely o allows assessment tools to be added to your site

USER FEEDBACK• Plone

o Comments on a page o Email o RSS subscriptionso Pollso Contact forms

• Joomla o Categories o Ratingso Listing submissionso Custom fields o Editor reviews

CONSISTENCY• Plone

o Maintain a consistent look throughout the siteo Templates adjust to new layout automaticallyo Updates on one page are automatically updated on

other pages

• Joomla o Application Programming Interfaceo Three basic templates to organize a siteo Templates adjust to new layout automaticallyo Updates on one page are automatically updated on

other pages

DIRECT COMPARISON

CostFree to download and use, may require external consulting

Free to download and use, may require external consulting

Features and Flexibility Allows for a large number of add-ons 

Allows for a large number of add-ons

Multiple Content Creators Supports multiple content creators

Supports multiple content creators

Training, Instruction and Assessment

Effective for instruction, allows assessment tools

Effective for instruction, allows assessment tools

Consistency Templates ensure consistency on each page

Templates ensure consistency on each page

Installation Easy to install without technical expertise

Easy to install without technical expertise

AND THE WINNER IS…

PLONE• Offers many more important features

o Drag-and-dropo Undoo Spell checko Problem notification

• Features come pre-installed