Joomla or Better?

I need to decide if Joomla is the right application for a dog sledding site

[naitsirhc26]

Hello,

I am the owner of one of the largest dog sledding web sites on the internet, and I am currently trying to decide whether or not Joomla or a CMS would be a good idea for my site.

Site Synopsis: Without giving out the link of my web site, it is basically a community/resource web site for dog sledders around the world. We have musher interviews, race results, photo gallery, message board, monthly newsletter, articles, encyclopedia, weather, product reviews, classifieds, sled dog news, etc...basically just a hub of information for mushers.

Right now I am in a predicament because the site has grown to be so large that it is hard to manage all the content, and each of my users have to create a seperate account for the message forum, classifieds, newsletter, etc...I think at this time it is time to upgrade to a CMS.

At this point from my research it looks like Joomla would be a good option for this web site. It seems to be able to integrate into forums, be able to upload articles, photos, create links, etc...do you believe Joomla! is a good choice for this web site, or would another CMS be better?

Also, I have been meaning to change to Joomla! but another bad thing is that one of my competing web sites just is starting to use Joomla! I want to switch to Joomla! not because of the site, but because I have already researched it for a long time. And I don't want to make it look like I copied them. If I changed the look of the template, images, etc..and hide the fact I am using Joomla! do you think it would really look like I am copying them?

I have basic PHP knowledge and I currently use it in conjunction with my site. I think I would be able to handle Joomla! and its functions.

And help would be greatly appreciated, and I sincerely thank all those who contribute to help out my problem.

Sincerely,

naitsirhc26

[jtara]

This is exactly the type of site that CMSs are made for.

I'd urge you to take a good look at Drupal as well, though. I think Joomla is showing it's age.

[naitsirhc26]

Okay, thank you very much. So does Drupal have a wide following that contributes to it? I mean, does it have a good developer following?

What do you think is better about Drupal than Joomla? I am just trying to learn more here about different CMS systems. It would also be nice to use drupal as well because then I wouldn't be using the same CMS as the other web site is using.

Thank you for the reply,

naitsirhc26

[naitsirhc26]

Is it hard to develope static content on Drupal or Joomla? Like an encyclopedia, with a seperate page for each letter in the encyclopedia? Or Product Reviews, etc..do you just categorize it all?

[naitsirhc26]

Well, I tried Drupal for a bit, but I am having a hard time getting the navigation and template theme to look like my current web site. It may just be too advanced for me right now. What are your thoughts?

It is also hard to change an entire site that gets a lot of visitors each day. I don't want the site to be down for too long.

Drupal did come out with Version 5.0 today so it is probably a lot better now!

Thanks,

Christian