Joomla or WordPress...which is better?

I've been working freelance for a while and as the workload increases I remember the words of my former supervisor, Roland Booth, "Work smart, not hard" (paraphrased). That has been my motto for a while. So when I'm about to develop a website I think Joomla or WordPress?

For me both are in two different categories. Joomla is built to be a CMS, which can be used like a blog and Wordpress is a Blog, which can be used like a CMS. I remember having a discussion about Joomla with a web programmer, from the Gleaner Online, who exclaimed "Joomla is an overkill..." for some projects. I agreed, but somehow found myself, always, using Joomla (and sometimes CuteNews) on my projects, promising myself that one day I'd use WordPress. Well that day has come!

I recently bought 2 excellent books, WordPress 2.7 Complete & RockStar WordPress Designer, which helped me to better understand how to use WordPress as a CMS. I also read some tutorials on Theme Forest's Blog - In the Woods. And I'm now more educated, my eyes have been opened! I'm now using WordPress on my latest project and for my company portfolio - The Gist (coming soon).


Is Joomla better than WordPress or is WordPress better than Joomla? I know this has been an ongoing debate across the internet. What's my resolve is? None is better than the other, as I said before they are in 2 different categories, you can't compare apples with oranges. When developing a website you have to consider the scope of the project carefully as well as the budget and choose the web application most suitable.

The truth is that WordPress has more readily available documentation but Joomla is a little more robust. I love both applications and now feel comfortable to use either of them on any project.