While Mambo is a great CMS for a homepage, providing all the blocks of a nuke with more style, it is nothing on Moodle when it comes to a course homepage.
Moodle is a completely different thing. Perhaps the most important differences is that Moodle provides an integrated grading system such that all user activities feed into the Moodle gradebook, many using coursewide user definable scales. Even if Mambo does have quizes, and there are quiz blocks for nukes/xoops then I suspect that such data would be stored in the block itself and not integrate with other activitites in the same system. Moodle was designed for teachers by teachers. Mambo was designed for website builders by website builders.
Some people (E.g. Brian Williams) use the both. Mambo as the pretty, front end information prodivision website, and Moodle as the education back end. I use Movable Type instead of Mambo, but I wish I had Mambo in this role myself. Xoops is okay. But Mambo seems to be the prettiest.
Tim
Before I discovered Moodle I spent a couple of years playing with every Content Management System I could find. I came close to deciding to use GeekLog and or MamboServer. However as the previous posters have indicated these tools serve a different purpose to Moodle. Moodle was designed from the ground up for educational purposes. The core products integrates assessment and delivery tools and the software eco-system that has built up around it is based on then needs of education.
Mambo vs Moodle
Chalk vs Cheese
Marcus
I think that you made it quite clear guys, thanks!
I´ve read on Mambo Forum, that some people used that system to teach, and when I entered to cmsmatrix I compared both of them, and they seemed quite similar... so... what could be better than to ask here? 
Thank you guys for your answer, it is very clear to me now.
By the way... is Mambo the cheese? 
Victoria
I know this is old but I thought I'd chime in.
I've been using Mambo for over 2 years now and it is my CMS of choice for my small business clients and any site I create.
I've been "aware" of Moodle for about the same time and have started a few LMS sites for testing purposes but have not completed them. My background is corporate training and I am pushing Moodle for the latest project I am doing, which just started this week. It is a very large training initiative for a state agency.
All that said, I'd never think of using Moodle for a corporate or informational website and I'd never think of using Mambo for an interactive learning website.
I think the default color scheme and the names are about the only similarities the two have
Jeff
Dear Christy Conte
You seem to be asking two different questions.
1) What makes Moodle unsuitable for coporate use?
My answer to that is that it is entirely suitable for coporate use, and there are many coporations that are using it as a Learning Management Sytem (LMS or LCMS).
2) You are also comparing Moodle to Mambo. So the question might be rephrased as what factors make Moodle unsuitable for Website content management system (CMS)?
This is a good question. I have often wondered why I bother using Xoops and the like.
I think that I would want a bit more control over the front page especially and display of content in general.
The moodle equivalent of the Xoops' WFsections or some ability to have a heirarchical navigation menu to content displayed in the middle column. If Moodle had that then I would never look at a nuke again.
Some more themes, or a GUI or perhaps just suggestions on how to customise the look of Moodle. I hear that greater control (perhaps course by course, screen by screen) over css templates are coming to Moodle 2.0 which should be available sometime this year.
Also the blog module for Moodle may be deployable on the front page. That might mean that I use moodle for my blogs and Moodle would be almighty.
What LMS /CMS are you using?
Tim
Hi Christy Conte,
In that case I guess a move to Moodle is not likely.
On a very long shot then, I note that Saba uses SCORM. There is a possibility that it might be possible to port the Saba LMS content developed by your US branch to Moodle.
Having a look at the American firm's press release at Saba's web site, it is not clear what Saba can do that Moodle can not. If you find out I would be interested to know.
Tim
I think my best shot is to play with it for myself and uncover the possibilities. Flying under the radar has it's advantages: much better to present a system that can be shown to be a firm solution, as opposed to some strange bit of code someone grabbed off the web.
Thanks for the info.
Moodle is not based on Mambo.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moodle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mambo_%28CMS%29
They both run on PHP and use a database, but one isn't based on or cloned from another.
Someday the evolutionary tree of PHP based content/course/learning management systems would be a nice project.
I agree. To explain my mention of not using Moodle for a corporate site above... what I meant was for a corporate web page. Mambo is for web sites. Moodle is for e-learning sites. Besides the fact that they both start with M, both use PHP/MySQL and have similar default colors, there is no relation between the two.
Incidentally - I am starting a new Moodle project for a new job right now (which is why I am here). My company requires an e-learning site for external customers and internal users. They looked at learn.com which was.... oh about $30,000 a year!
