All of the web site building programs are 3rd party programs which are supported by their company or communities.

The template web site builder programs are easy to use and are best for true beginners who need a basic brochure web site up as quickly as possible. The template web site builders are restricted to the template format and they are not easily customizable and will not allow you to have multiple features.

The open source web site builders are far more advanced and will allow for far more customization and features. The open source programs are more sophisticated and will require you to learn how they work but they do not require you to know HTML and there is a tremendous amount of documentation for you to learn how they work. If you believe that you have moderate or above skills in reading documentation and following directions then these programs will allow you to build more feature rich and customized web sites.

If we were to compare the template builders to the open source web site builders we could use the analogy that the template site builders is like taking a picture with a polaroid as compared to taking a picture with a digital camera (ie the open source builders). With the polaroid what you see is what you get but with the digital camera you can edit, crop, take out the red eye and much more.

In addition to this many users prefer using the open source builder programs because their programs are supported through communities of users, with tons of documentation, help centers & forum groups. The Template site builders are supported only by the company which built the programs and support for a particular issue is not as easily found as it is with the open source builders.

In terms of the support documentation and expected help you can receive from the community, all of these programs have robust help centers, forums and documentation.

Wordpress is best known as a blogging software but it can be used as a web site builder as well. Millions if not tens of millions of users have built their blogs or their web sites with Wordpress. Wordpress is probably the easiest of the three open source web site builders. Compared (as a car) to the other 2 open source builders Wordpress would be the Honda, very reliable and will get you to where you want to go.

Joomla is a Content Management System (CMS) which over the last several years has gained a significant amount of users, perhaps in the millions. They have great documentation and Joomla allows for a great amount of customization, far more than Wordpress. As related to the other two programs Joomla would be the sports car, far more under the hood than Wordpress.

Drupal, which is also a CMS, is a more recent comer to the scene and has created a ton of buzz due to the radical customization capability that the program allows. Drupal's community is already very large and growing. Drupal as compared to the other 2 programs has been likened to a Kit Car, allowing users the ability to create all sorts of customizations and features.