What Is The Best CMS For A Multilingual Site?

There are many situations in which a business may find itself in need of a multilingual content management system (CMS). Fortunately, many content management platforms offer built-in multilingual support, which translates website content into the language of choice. Is there one that offers better multilingual support than the rest, however?

WordPress vs. Joomla or Drupal often comes to the forefront of this debate. The truth of this matter, though, is that there isn’t a content management system that handles multilingual support significantly worse than any of the others. What will determine which provides the best language support for your website comes down to what aspects of multilingual support your business needs the most.

WordPress: A CMS For Everyone

WordPress is the undisputed champion in terms of popularity. Part of this is due to its ease of use and extensive third party support. It dominates 60% of the CMS market! So, it makes sense that WordPress would be known for offering broad language support as part of its platform. This thorough multilingual support option in WordPress comes from the plugin WPML. WPML enables web administrators to add multilingual support to their websites without any coding needed. If your translation partners offer WPML integration, you will be able to implement, manage, and get translations from within WordPress.

Joomla: The Underdog With Built-In Language Support

Unlike WordPress, Joomla includes translation support built right into its core – no plugins necessary. Joomla also features advanced user controls and management. Flexible modules allow different types of content, and a template system replaces themes.

Joomla could arguably be called the underdog among the most popular CMS platforms. According to this survey by W3Techs, Joomla powers 4.3% of the internet. While this may seem like a small and insignificant number, it is essential to note that Joomla serves a niche market. Joomla is ideal for web developers who need more flexibility in what they’re allowed to do with code than WordPress offers, but still, need a comprehensive and functional UI for other users on the system.

Drupal: Developer Friendly For Large Scale Websites

Drupal is best known for its advanced management of large scale websites. It includes a robust translation management tool called TMGMT, which enables users to streamline their language translation workflows. Drupal also has a large pool of third party support via direct integration with language service providers.

Because Drupal carries a steep learning curve, it is only advisable for use by advanced web developers and designers. For these users, Drupal offers a dynamic, flexible environment to build on. Content developers will be especially impressed by Drupal’s highly SEO-friendly coding.

Selecting The Perfect Content Management Platform

With so many highly competitive content management systems on the market, the question is not which one is best. The problem is, which fits in with your website development plan the best. While WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal are the most popular platforms, there are many other specialized players in the content management world. Some focus on e-commerce websites, while others focus on managing multiple sites. If you are creating a niche website, it doesn’t hurt to research whether or not there is a platform tailored to your needs.

Overall, the holy trinity of WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal will fit the needs of any web development project. If you are working with a web designer or developer, it is highly likely that they will be utilizing one of these three platforms. If you plan on creating your content, find out which platform your web developer or designer plans on using. You can then look up the accommodating documentation to familiarize yourself with the control panel.

Content management systems have come a long way in the past 15 years. From being the tinker toys of amateur web designers and developers, they have grown to encompass every imaginable web development project with enhanced ease, reliability, speed, and precision. With care and attention to platform features and project maturity, picking the right CMS need not be as confusing as it may initially seem.