1. WHICH CMS
Plone or Joomla?

2. 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

3. COST AND HOSTING
• Both Plone and Joomla are free open source
systems.
o Accessing, downloading, and registering
• Other costs
o Hosting (cost varies)
o Can host either system on own server
o Staff training
o Consultants

4. EASE OF INSTALLATION
• Plone Installer
o Available for a variety of operating systems
o Follow its prompts to complete the installation
• Browser installation to install Joomla
o 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

5. EASE OF USE
• Plone
o Difficult system to learn
o Easy for content administrators to use
• Joomla
o Joomla’s terminology
o Straight forward to create websites
o Structure and navigation isn’t extremely intuitive
• Between the two, Plone has a steeper learning
curve (idealware.org, 2009).

6. 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

7. MULTIPLE CONTENT CREATORS AND
SECURITY
• Plone
o Supports multiple content creators
o Levels of permission to access information
o Personal workspace folder under their name
o Create groups
o Essentially functions as a single member
• Joomla
o Supports multiple content creators
o Levels of permission to access information

8. TRAINING, INSTRUCTION, AND
ASSESSMENT
• Plone
o Used effectively for instruction
o Utah State University developed eduCommons
o Tools to manage eLearning
• Joomla
o Not used as widely
o allows assessment tools to be added to your site

9. USER FEEDBACK
• Plone
o Comments on a page
o Email
o RSS subscriptions
o Polls
o Contact forms
• Joomla
o Categories
o Ratings
o Listing submissions
o Custom fields
o Editor reviews

10. CONSISTENCY
• Plone
o Maintain a consistent look throughout the site
o Templates adjust to new layout automatically
o Updates on one page are automatically updated on
other pages
• Joomla
o Application Programming Interface
o Three basic templates to organize a site
o Templates adjust to new layout automatically
o Updates on one page are automatically updated on
other pages

11. DIRECT COMPARISON
Cost
Free 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

12. AND THE WINNER IS…
PLONE
• Offers many more important features
o Drag-and-drop
o Undo
o Spell check
o Problem notification
• Features come pre-installed