Mambo vs Joomla

As you know, I recently switched to Mambo as my content management system for my Website Workshop. I was having a bit of trouble making Mambo do what I want it to do, so I was often at the Mambo forum trying to get some help. More than a couple of times, I was sent to the Joomla forum for more help.

At the time, I had no idea what Joomla was and how it had anything to do with Mambo. After a bit of research, I realized that somewhere along the lines, the Mambo team had split into two. And apparently, the core development teams decided to branch away as Joomla.

I really don’t fully understand the cause of the split, but if you’re interested in learning more, just hop over to the OpenSourceMatters web site.

Now, back to more important things. The question now is should I switch to Joomla or remain with Mambo. On the one hand, I’ve already installed Mambo. I don’t really want to go through the hassle of switching over to Joomla. On the other hand, I’m experiencing problems with Mambo that are beginning to get on my nerves.

What is the difference between Mambo and Joomla? Well, presently, not much. It’s reallly about where they are headed that makes a difference.

After much thought, and visiting both Mambo and Joomla for more feedback, and after testing the Joomla online demo, I decided, what the heck …. let’s just do a switch.

And I’m glad I did. Many things that weren’t working are now running smoothly. The admin control panel doesn’t take as long to load as with Mambo, making it less painless for me to add updates to the Workshop.

I was a bit worried that my add-on scripts wouldn’t work with Joomla but those too are running without a hitch. I guess only time will tell now, if I made the right choice.