Ok, so this is a Drupal site. Drupal has some nice features, and some nice modules. It appeals to my inner geek. I know that there are basically two major CMS camps out there at the moment: Drupal and Joomla. I have now had the opportunity to use both. I recently had a project that I wanted to use a CMS for, and I tried implementing the same site in both systems.

Joomla is nice too. There's a lot of development going on in that camp as well. Although I like the fact that Drupal lets me choose between mysql and postgres (I prefer postgres for my own development), I also found that a number of Drupal modules are not built to work with both. This is a great idea, but I think there should be some kind of abstraction layer around the creation of new database tables for new modules. This way, I could use whichever DB I prefer, and not worry if the particular module supports my DB. I'm sure this has been discussed, and perhaps will be available in a later version. So, semi-kudos to Joomla for forcing the use of a single DB, even though it's mysql.

Drupal seems to win in the "free templates" category as well, and I like the fact that I can switch template engines. I'm a fan of Smarty, though I haven't tried the Smarty templates in Drupal yet. I just think it's cool that I have options here. Joomla's templates are ok. I haven't dug into them much yet, but I have been able to modify them to my needs.

One big thing I thought that Joomla was lacking that Drupal has is the ability to define fairly granular groups of permissions. Joomla has a fixed set, which seemed fairly limited to me. Drupal seems to allow one to create a wide variety of permission sets, which I think is hugely useful. I think that Joomla 1.5 may have greater abilities in this area, but I have not yet played with the 1.5 version.

Overall, I think that both of these systems allow one to generate a full-featured site quickly. Joomla's backend administration seems more geared toward the end-user than Drupal. Drupal is definitely geared more toward the technoid. I am going to try to build more Drupal-based sites, and do some more advanced things with it.

I'd like to see which of the two will allow me to put together a well-featured social network the quickest. It should also be on par with other social network sites that are currently available. Anyhow, I suppose I will link to such a site from here once it's built...