CMS code base comparison

Drupal

Code history drupal
Source: Drupal statistics at Ohloh.

Joomla!

Code history joomla
Source: Joomla! statistics at Ohloh.

Wordpress

Code history wordpress
Source: Wordpress statistics at Ohloh.

Plone

Code history plone
Source: Plone statistics at Ohloh.

(These graphs depict statistics for the core of each project, and do not include contributed modules, extensions or third-party plugins.)

Conclusions

  • All projects have been growing in size. No exceptions.
  • Drupal has, by far, the smallest code base. It's lean and mean. Joomla!'s code base is about 8 times bigger than Drupal's. Even Wordpress's code base is larger than Drupal's.
  • Of all tools, the WordPress code has the fewest code comments. Drupal and Joomla!, on the other hand, have the best documented code.