Joomla/Wordpress vs doing it myself

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Nicko

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Hey guys,

I have made a couple of websites for myself, and each time I just programmed it using HTML/PHP/CSS/Javascript. Now I got a friend who wants me to do one for his company, so I want to ensure that I approach it the right way. The website he wants is relatively simple with minimal pages, and the most complicated task would be changing pictures every 5 seconds. However, in the future he does plan on implementing a login system for clients and staff, but that shouldn't be a problem as I have done something like that before.

I'm wondering what you guys recommend seeing as many of you have been working on websites for a lot longer than me. Should I use a CMS like Joomla or do the whole thing myself? Also, are there any limitations when you do make a website using Joomla.

Thanks :)
 
The problem with doing a website for a friend/company is that they don't go away and want you to support it.

I am a big fan of reinventing the wheel myself, but in this case I would stick with Wordpress or Joomla (the new Wordpress is amazing). It is just so much easier to maintain and use plugins made by others than having to code the stuff yourself and you know this stuff will work where as yours haven't been tested properly. Also, deploying a wordpress/joomla site to a webserver will potentially be much easier than deploying your own.

You also say that you just started playing around with programming - security is a bitch.

Conclusion: code your own stuff when you have a chance but use 3rd party CMS to keep clients happy.
 
Hamster said:
The problem with doing a website for a friend/company is that they don't go away and want you to support it.

I am a big fan of reinventing the wheel myself, but in this case I would stick with Wordpress or Joomla (the new Wordpress is amazing). It is just so much easier to maintain and use plugins made by others than having to code the stuff yourself and you know this stuff will work where as yours haven't been tested properly. Also, deploying a wordpress/joomla site to a webserver will potentially be much easier than deploying your own.

You also say that you just started playing around with programming - security is a bitch.

Conclusion: code your own stuff when you have a chance but use 3rd party CMS to keep clients happy.
Click to expand...

Well put.

Security is critical using any CMS system.

I host quite a few corporate email clients and when managing spam I notice most of the phishing attempts I block seem to be originating from CMS sites (quite a few are WordPress) that are not updated regularly or have not been hardened against infection.

I have started development of Wordpress sites now for clients and found couple of plugins that keep these sites safe and backed up regularly. Please factor this in when doing stuff for friends because you could end up having the maintain the site.
 
Hamster said:
The problem with doing a website for a friend/company is that they don't go away and want you to support it.

I am a big fan of reinventing the wheel myself, but in this case I would stick with Wordpress or Joomla (the new Wordpress is amazing). It is just so much easier to maintain and use plugins made by others than having to code the stuff yourself and you know this stuff will work where as yours haven't been tested properly. Also, deploying a wordpress/joomla site to a webserver will potentially be much easier than deploying your own.

You also say that you just started playing around with programming - security is a bitch.

Conclusion: code your own stuff when you have a chance but use 3rd party CMS to keep clients happy.
Click to expand...


ITCynic said:
Well put.

Security is critical using any CMS system.

I host quite a few corporate email clients and when managing spam I notice most of the phishing attempts I block seem to be originating from CMS sites (quite a few are WordPress) that are not updated regularly or have not been hardened against infection.

I have started development of Wordpress sites now for clients and found couple of plugins that keep these sites safe and backed up regularly. Please factor this in when doing stuff for friends because you could end up having the maintain the site.
Click to expand...

Thanks guys for the swift response, so it looks like I will use a CMS system. Now just the questions of which to use Wordpress vs Joomla. My origin impression from the articles I read was that Wordpress was great for blogs but Joomla offered more flexibility so was preferred by developers, which is why I was leaning towards Joomla. But from what I can gather from what you guys have written, Wordpress is what you recommend.
 
Really depends what you want to do. I work on a custom built cms for large corporates and it's a bitch to work with but very powerful. Wordpress is a helluva lot easier to work with but troublesome as soon as you want to create custom page areas, indexing and other highly customisable things.. but I imagine that it's become a lot more powerful these days (I'm a bit out of the loop)

I would personally stay away from Joomla and stick with Wordpress.
 
Nicko said:
Thanks guys for the swift response, so it looks like I will use a CMS system. Now just the questions of which to use Wordpress vs Joomla. My origin impression from the articles I read was that Wordpress was great for blogs but Joomla offered more flexibility so was preferred by developers, which is why I was leaning towards Joomla. But from what I can gather from what you guys have written, Wordpress is what you recommend.
Click to expand...

You can have a look here at what I am busy with in Wordpress at the moment, still in the early development phase but you can get an idea what is possible.

I have built a options panel for the client and each display block is configurable. Features can be switched on & off and he has total control of what he wants to display. Also, I have linked his "LinkedIn" public profile to the "About" page on the site.

And, MBB seems to be built in WordPress as well :)
 
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I haven't worked with the new WordPress but buddies of mine that do swear by it. Joomla is VERY powerful but might be overkill for a small business site.
 
I've built quite a few websites with Joomla and Wordpress and have found that Wordpress is a lot easier for clients to grasp.

It also seems that Joomla is moving more in a direction aimed at developers than users.
 
Thanks guys for all the input, seeing as the site is relatively basic I will go with Wordpress then.
 
Nicko said:
Hey guys,

I have made a couple of websites for myself, and each time I just programmed it using HTML/PHP/CSS/Javascript. Now I got a friend who wants me to do one for his company, so I want to ensure that I approach it the right way. The website he wants is relatively simple with minimal pages, and the most complicated task would be changing pictures every 5 seconds. However, in the future he does plan on implementing a login system for clients and staff, but that shouldn't be a problem as I have done something like that before.

I'm wondering what you guys recommend seeing as many of you have been working on websites for a lot longer than me. Should I use a CMS like Joomla or do the whole thing myself? Also, are there any limitations when you do make a website using Joomla.

Thanks :)
Click to expand...
Either one is fine, if you keep it updated. I always recommend Wordpress to clients. Wordpress is more frequently updated by clients, and Joomla is often left without updates applied. The reason Wordpress is more often kept updated is that the updates are very easy ... you click a link in the Admin panel to update the core files, themes and plugins. Joomla and Drupal require you to download a new archive, unzip it locally, then upload it to overwrite the old files on your server. That's a little bit harder to do, and some clients never do it. A comparison chart of WordPress, Joomla and Drupal is available on
http://www.threehosts.com/ratings/wordpress-vs-joomla-vs-drupal.html. It helps you make your decision. You can also use demo account of WordPress, Joomla and Drupal via their official websites to see one of them is proper for you. My favorite program is Joomla. Joomla allows you to build a site with more content and structure flexibility than Wordpress offers, but still with fairly easy, intuitive usage.
 
emaderam said:
Either one is fine, if you keep it updated. I always recommend Wordpress to clients. Wordpress is more frequently updated by clients, and Joomla is often left without updates applied. The reason Wordpress is more often kept updated is that the updates are very easy ... you click a link in the Admin panel to update the core files, themes and plugins. Joomla and Drupal require you to download a new archive, unzip it locally, then upload it to overwrite the old files on your server. That's a little bit harder to do, and some clients never do it. A comparison chart of WordPress, Joomla and Drupal is available on
http://www.threehosts.com/ratings/wordpress-vs-joomla-vs-drupal.html. It helps you make your decision. You can also use demo account of WordPress, Joomla and Drupal via their official websites to see one of them is proper for you. My favorite program is Joomla. Joomla allows you to build a site with more content and structure flexibility than Wordpress offers, but still with fairly easy, intuitive usage.
Click to expand...

That is not true for Joomla.
 
ITCynic said:
I have started development of Wordpress sites now for clients and found couple of plugins that keep these sites safe and backed up regularly.
Click to expand...

Which plugins do you use for security/backup?
 
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