Friday, 20 August 2010 12:52

Joomla Extension Comparison: K2 vs Docman

Written by Nate Covington

2 comments

Background: While researching some Joomla extensions for a client project, I decided to create a comparison table to help the client decide which Joomla extensions to use for a particular application. In this case, we needed to build some sort of a download manager. After narrowing the choices down to 2, K2: a CCK (Content Construction Kit) and DocMan: an actual Download Manager.

While Docman is built primarily for downloads and file management, a CCK presented a viable option as it offers better control over the style and presentation of the content.

Feature	K2 CCK	DocMan
Home Page	www.getk2.org	www.joomlatools.eu
Auto-generate Thumbnail	Yes	Yes
Lightbox (click to enlarge thumbnail)	Yes	No
Authentication (Login Required)	Hack Required	Yes
Simple Logging (Count)	Yes	Yes
Detailed Logging (User, IP, OS)	No	Yes
User Groups	Yes	Yes
Categories & Sub-categories	Yes	Yes
Item : File Relationship	1 : Many	1 : 1
Tagging	Yes	No
Licensing (agree to terms before each download)	No	Yes
Granular Access Control (1 file:1 user / usergroup)	No	Yes
Front-end Uploading (non-admins can add files)	Yes	Yes
Email Notifications (on upload/download/edit)	No	With Productivity Pack
Upload via FTP	No	Yes
Remote Files (ability to link to external server)	No	Yes
RSS Feeds	Yes	3rd Party Ext.
Search	Yes	Yes