Joomla! vs. Moodle

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Joomla
Score 7.4 out of 10
N/A
Joomla! is a free and open source content management system used to publish web content. Included features are page caching, RSS feeds, printable versions of pages, news flashes, blogs, polls, a search function, and support for language internationalization.N/A
Moodle
Score 7.4 out of 10
N/A
Moodle is an open source learning management system with hundreds of millions of users around the globe and translated into over 100 languages, used by organizations to support their education and training needs.N/A
Pricing
Joomla!Moodle
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
JoomlaMoodle
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Joomla!Moodle
Considered Both Products
Joomla
Chose Joomla!

Before I settled in on using Joomla for the City of Pomona, I experimented with WordPress and Drupal, as being the right fit for the new website. Each time I went through the analysis, research and development, both WordPress and Drupal, came up short for quickly delivering a …

Moodle

No answer on this topic

Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Joomla!Moodle
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Joomla!
7.1
44 Ratings
12% below category average
Moodle
-
Ratings
Role-based user permissions7.144 Ratings00 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Joomla!
6.6
41 Ratings
15% below category average
Moodle
-
Ratings
API7.039 Ratings00 Ratings
Internationalization / multi-language6.140 Ratings00 Ratings
Web Content Creation
Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Product A and Product B
Joomla!
7.2
47 Ratings
5% below category average
Moodle
-
Ratings
WYSIWYG editor6.046 Ratings00 Ratings
Code quality / cleanliness8.044 Ratings00 Ratings
Admin section8.443 Ratings00 Ratings
Page templates7.045 Ratings00 Ratings
Library of website themes8.943 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile optimization / responsive design7.043 Ratings00 Ratings
Publishing workflow6.143 Ratings00 Ratings
Form generator6.039 Ratings00 Ratings
Web Content Management
Comparison of Web Content Management features of Product A and Product B
Joomla!
6.6
45 Ratings
10% below category average
Moodle
-
Ratings
Content taxonomy8.044 Ratings00 Ratings
SEO support7.044 Ratings00 Ratings
Bulk management4.142 Ratings00 Ratings
Availability / breadth of extensions8.045 Ratings00 Ratings
Community / comment management6.143 Ratings00 Ratings
Learning Management
Comparison of Learning Management features of Product A and Product B
Joomla!
-
Ratings
Moodle
9.4
26 Ratings
14% above category average
Course authoring00 Ratings9.422 Ratings
Course catalog or library00 Ratings9.523 Ratings
Player/Portal00 Ratings9.223 Ratings
Learning content00 Ratings10.021 Ratings
Mobile friendly00 Ratings9.423 Ratings
Progress tracking & certifications00 Ratings10.025 Ratings
Assignments00 Ratings9.826 Ratings
Compliance management00 Ratings9.220 Ratings
Learning administration00 Ratings9.824 Ratings
Learning reporting & analytics00 Ratings7.822 Ratings
Social learning00 Ratings9.423 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Joomla!Moodle
Small Businesses
Divi
Divi
Score 9.8 out of 10
Tovuti LMS
Tovuti LMS
Score 9.5 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Image Relay
Image Relay
Score 9.5 out of 10
Sakai
Sakai
Score 8.7 out of 10
Enterprises
Tridion
Tridion
Score 9.0 out of 10
Schoology Learning
Schoology Learning
Score 9.1 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Joomla!Moodle
Likelihood to Recommend
6.1
(68 ratings)
9.3
(62 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(28 ratings)
10.0
(22 ratings)
Usability
9.9
(7 ratings)
8.0
(8 ratings)
Availability
9.9
(2 ratings)
9.0
(4 ratings)
Performance
7.8
(2 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(4 ratings)
7.4
(15 ratings)
Online Training
8.0
(2 ratings)
6.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.7
(3 ratings)
9.8
(2 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.9
(3 ratings)
9.0
(3 ratings)
User Testimonials
Joomla!Moodle
Likelihood to Recommend
The Joomla Project
It seems with the release of Joomla! 4 that the weak areas have all been covered. Its always been good for the mid-level small to large business, the blogging was WP, and the large-scale enterprise was probably bespoke. But the new interface is so simple it seems pointless using WP when Joomla! is as easy and can then grow as big as you like. The Workflows feature which allows you to set up work pipelines easily is going to be a boom to any larger enterprise sites. Couples with the new API which I got to see at one of their user groups, is amazing. They were creating articles on one site then another site was taking the feed directly for just certain categories. Really blows your mind what you could do with that and the new workflows.
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Moodle
Moodle is great for any environment where a class or other learning activity needs to be completed in an asynchronous manner. It can be used to post information, create interactive threads for discussion, issue quiz and exam work with grading, track and grade progress, and keep track of attendance. It is an overall wonderful solution for managing asynchronous learning.
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Pros
The Joomla Project
  • We use Joomla to build our websites and web applications because of its incredible intuitiveness and tools to make everything more manageable.
  • Its working environment is quite comfortable for my development team, and its web design resources significantly speed up our work when carrying out web development projects.
  • It allows you to use blocks to create and visually manage websites and divide them into different categories without programming knowledge.
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Moodle
  • Moodle's grade book works well. Assignments are integrated so the grades are recorded automatically.
  • Moodle is customizable by administrators, so our version only gives us the options we need. NO Clutter.
  • The discussion board offers several options for instructors that help with grading. I use "sum of points", but there are other options as well.
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Cons
The Joomla Project
  • Because Joomla's user community is smaller than WP, it lacks as many choices from 3rd party developers, meaning it can be a little more difficult to find the right extension for what you need to accomplish
  • Along the same vein, most of the best 3rd-party software for Joomla! is paid
  • Simple features such as Add to Menu and Cache cleaners should be adopted as part of the Joomla! core, though they are available as extensions
  • Joomla! could use a simpler and easier URL rewriting process
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Moodle
  • The interface is not very intuitive. You must know what you are looking for in order to navigate effectively.
  • Although installation of Moodle is easy, it is a little more difficult to configure it with your other Learning tools. As an example, LDAP synchronization is a little difficult.
  • The interface is a little dated, even though new releases keep coming out (which is great!) none of them really add value to the appearance of the platform.
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Likelihood to Renew
The Joomla Project
I gave it a rating of 10 because I just love how Joomla! works, how it is set up and how it handles many users. Also it is very fast, and there is no overload on the MySQL database or servers ever.
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Moodle
We use it because it is what have committed to back in 2011. Perhaps Moodle will evolve and advance in a positive way that will alleviate most of our user-based gripes? Perhaps it will not appear to be as cost effective given the need for a certain level of engineering and support staff to maintain it at a future level of sustainability? It's hard to say. As an enterprise scale critical application, we like it, but don't love it. Our instructors don't particularly like it at all.
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Usability
The Joomla Project
Joomla! 3.x is easily installed either manually or via a script provided by your host. It contains most of the tools needed to begin creating websites right from the start. Those features that it doesn't have are easily installed via links and buttons from the thousands of extensions available in the community
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Moodle
Moodle can be used on a tablet, on a mobile phone, and on a PC. It is easy to navigate for learners and figure out for administrators. The learners can easily complete tasks and the administrators can easily track completion. The last thing about Moodle that one may not realize is that it somewhat resembles Facebook in its layout. This means that users are already familiar with the interface and therefore they are more comfortable using it.
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Reliability and Availability
The Joomla Project
No answers on this topic
Moodle
Yes, Moodle is always available. We are self-hosted and Moodle is always up and available. The only time that it is not available is when we are upgrading it each semester. It is then down for just a few planned hours. That is in-between semesters and we let the faculty and students know. We do it on a Friday evening and it is back up within a few hours.
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Performance
The Joomla Project
Today's Modern Joomla performs very well and is robust and durable. The pages load faster than they ever did in the past and Modern Joomla's integration into other software or systems has become seamless. Modern Joomla sites will last long and will stay running forever.
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Moodle
Moodle is an excellent LMS in relationship to any other one that I have seen or used. The pages load quickly and the reports complete in a reasonable time frame. Moodle has taken on Respondus, StudyMate, BigBlueButton, Turning Tech, Turnitin2, Certificates, Attendance, Tegrity, Questionnaire, Virtual Programming Lab, and Badges. All of these programs work right in with Moodle and do not cause any issues. Instructors may also use Camtasia and Snagit software as well as using webcams, downloading videos from the Internet, adding into books, or any of the many other areas within Moodle. Our instructors use the grade books without many problems and really don't ask questions much anymore. We upgrade Moodle every semester and are currently on 2.9+. Our instructors have basically learned to use most of the resources and activities.
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Support Rating
The Joomla Project
Between the core Joomla developers who are excellent at answering questions and providing support, you have a whole community of developers who work with Joomla and are happy to help fellow developers out answering questions and supporting the Joomla project. Out of the many communities I am involved in for open-source software, Joomla's community is by far the best.
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Moodle
Moodle is open source, and must be evaluated in that context, but one also has to provide a fair comparison to competing products with commercial backing. Support varies depending on the component of Moodle. Bug reports in Moodle Core that affect security or stability are dealt with promptly. Functionality requests or features not working smoothly may or may not be addressed, depending on whether the functionality desired matches the "vision" of Moodle HQ. The user community provides excellent support for initial installation and configuration, but more complex questions may go unanswered, unless they are noticed by someone who happens to know the answer. The support forum feature at the Moodle site (the same feature used within Moodle itself) does not provide granular subscription to topic discussions, apparently by design, and Moodle HQ seems resistant to changing this feature.
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Online Training
The Joomla Project
It is good if you know Joomla! if not it can get a bit confusing
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Moodle
I have used a few sites and they were adequate but my best learning experience was face to face and hands on.
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Implementation Rating
The Joomla Project
Joomla has gone through tremendous growing pains. It is now better than ever. But before, when it was going from 1.5-2.5, the templates and plugins would break over and over again. If you don't understand what Joomla was trying to do back then, you might have a bad attitude toward it. Today, those pains are over and things don't break like they used to during that time period.
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Moodle
Find a partner who will work with you during the implementation process. Be sure to provide ample training for veteran users on the changes and for newbies on the overall product.
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Alternatives Considered
The Joomla Project
We tested other platforms like WordPress, Magento and some local CMS. 
But Joomla offered us better resources for generating content.
Joomla is a CMS suitable for many types of projects, especially if you have several people editing content at the same time.
It allows you to maintain visual standardization and offers many options for working with images.
With its ability to control access to different articles, categories or even different components, it is a great tool, even if they are managed by different people.
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Moodle
Blackboard has clear advantages in rubric management, and offers a content management system of its own. The largest barrier is cost for smaller or financially-disadvantaged organizations. However, as in any IT project, adequate resources must be made for even "free" software.
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Scalability
The Joomla Project
No answers on this topic
Moodle
Well, I administer Moodle for a dozen of our divisions and there is a wide range of flexibility between offerings. I have course instructors who use every module i their course, chock full of videos, pictures, links to web tools for synchronous sessions within the asynchronous course. I also have others who are content with a syllabus, a few pdfs, links to podcast lectures and a few simple assignments. No matter if your organization is big or small, or if your requirements are strict for credentialing or non-existent (for internal know-how), Moodle can accommodate you.
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Return on Investment
The Joomla Project
  • Joomla has reduced our costs of rolling out a new website because it uses less developer time and can be rolled out by individual users as needed.
  • Joomla has a lot of extensions and add-ons that make it easy to create and implement advanced solutions quickly.
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Moodle
  • While it certainly takes more time to develop an online training vs a face-to-face we can offer the same content over and over again and meet a larger audience. There's no way we could have offered these trainings face-to-face to the same size audience. Economically it's just not feasible. Moodle allows us to share multiple trainings on a variety of topics over extended periods of time in a cost effective way.
  • The impact on early interventionists is still being evaluated, but we do know that early interventionist now have more ways to access professional development than in the past. The ability to customize the registration page has allowed us to track which agencies in Virginia are having their staff participate and we can see which topics are favored above others.
  • Other LMS's were far too costly. Aside from the monthly hosting fees (less than $200 a year), and the time it took to do the initial install and setup, Moodle is free. Once it's setup the only elearning costs are related to the development and creation of each training and then the setup of training on Moodle. This allows us to devote more time and money to the development and creation of more courses vs. the management of the system.
  • Minimal tech support for the users is required and most requests are limited to lost/userid passwords. The course designer is able to manage tech support needs for the users because so few requests are received.
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ScreenShots

Moodle Screenshots

Screenshot of Moodle offers activities and resources to create courses.Screenshot of The course dashboard shows the courses which an student is enrolled in.Screenshot of Inside a course view shows the course complete index of activities and resources.
The course view can be customised to be cleaner allowing the student to focus on learning.Screenshot of Moodle Workplace includes all features in Moodle LMS and other exclusive features like multi-tenancy, dynamic rules, and report builder.Screenshot of Programs help users stay up-to-date with compliance, and help with designing learning paths for a teams so that they can develop the right competencies. Certificates can also be issued to validate learning and compliance.Screenshot of Dynamic Rules help to avoid the tedious tasks and create and manage automated rules for several groups of users. Learning experiences based on location, department, position, roles and other criteria are available.