Content Management is a highly important aspect of website design, and having a Content Management System (CMS) is a great way to handle the entire process, so that you can make the website more usable and ensure that is updated without a lot of hassle. If you're looking for a website that is scalable, powerful and you can manage yourself, then a CMS is definitely the way to go. In addition, most CMSs out there now even have the capability to help you with SEO, which, as we all know, is key to getting traffic to your site. Website designers often have a preference as to which CMS they use, Drupal and Joomla probably being the most popular. So, here's a brief comparison of the two, in order to help you choose, or rethink, your CMS choice.

Which is more effective at Content Management? I think that Drupal definitely wins this round. It's system allows for unlimited category levels, categorization, tagging, and gives you the ability to create different content that has a variety of different features while being able to manage pages from the front end. Joomla; however, forces one to edit content in a backend that may cause the end user to get a bit lost and not all extensions are open source. Drupal also has more flexibility in the power of its potential as enterprise solutions. Almost everything can be done in Drupal. Website design is all about CM, so this is a big sticking point.

Who has best templates and themes? Okay, so we'll give this one to Joomla. They have a great selection of templates and themes that are free, as well as commercial designs, while a majority of Drupal's designs have to be custom made. Drupal is more geared to  the developer to extend and take advantage of its scalability whereas Joomla is more user friendly to get a site up quick and without much effort.

Which CMS is best when it comes to user permissions? Drupal's on top again! And yet again it's due to the fact that, with Joomla, you have to install an extension to have more than three user levels, while Drupal offers unlimited user levels (and even allows you to customize them).

When it comes to a variety of other aspects, such as Community Features, Blogs, and the General Community of the CMS, Joomla and Drupal are dead even. Though there are many things that Drupal exceeds at and Joomla lacks, there are also a number of features which Joomla does shine. However, based upon overall usability and effectiveness, Drupal would probably the one that comes out on top, especially for the more advanced website designers. Sites such as Yahoo Research, The White House, and Greenpeace UK evidently feel the same way, because they all utilize Drupal for their CMS needs.