I'm looking for any advice from seasoned designers on a site I'm about to develop. It's simple concept where schools (about 200) can register their contact details and upload content and a description, photo. The details are uploaded and a webpage with those details are displayed. I'm not sure whether it best to use wordpress, joomla or just develop from scratch... Any comments welcome
If I am understanding your need correctly, you want to create some kind of directory site. You could achieve this using Wordpress. There are a number of WP directory plugins, eg: Free Plugin: Business Directory, WP Contacts Directory, or WP Easy Business Directory Commercial Plugins: DirectoryPress, WPDirectory Pro Unless you have a very special requirements for your site, it's better to use "ready to use" platform such as Wordpress. Developing your website from scratch would demand a lot of time, efforts, and money (especially if you plan to hire someone to do it for you). Between Wordpress and Joomla, I would say Wordpress. I used to use Joomla to develop some of my sites in the past but later on switched to Wordpress. This is not because Wordpress is superior than Joomla. In some cases Joomla is in fact has better features than Wordpress. It's just that in the last few years there are more 3rd party supports for Wordpress than Joomla. I hope that helps. All the best with your project.
Thanks Adjie - I'd agree with you that WP has better support that joomla and I think is a bit easier to use. DirectoryPress looks like it is exactly what I'm after...