Joomla

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What is Joomla?

Joomla is free and open-source content management system (CMS), which enables its users to build websites and online applications.

Joomla! is open source content management system (CMS) designed to assist users in building websites, blogs, Intranets and mobile applications.
It is considered to be a popular choice for many types of websites, including corporate sites, news or blogs, government applications, small business sites and sites with secure logins.
Joomla is written in PHP for managing content on the web and uses a MySQL database to store content. It is released under the GNU General Public License.



Joomla currently scores 86/100 in the CMS category. This is based on user satisfaction (80/100), press buzz (75/100), recent user trends (rising), and other relevant information on Joomla gathered from around the web.

The score for this software has improved over the past month. What is this?
www.joomla.org
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Joomla Review

Editors' Review by the CMS Software Review Team

Joomla is a free, user-friendly content management system (CMS) solution that helps web developers create and manage websites. It is a flexible platform that streamlines collaboration and digital publishing by utilizing Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) processes that are ideal for small businesses to large enterprises and even government and non-profit organizations.

The software’s first version was released in 2005 as a rebrand of Mambo 4.5.2.3 and is a five-time Best Free CMS awardee by the CMS Critic People’s Choice Awards from 2015 to 2019. It is useful for online magazines and publications, e-commerce and online registrations, corporate and small business websites and personal or family homepages.

Joomla is an SEO-friendly application that has robust features like menu creation, keywords and metadata and mod-rewrite support for SEF URLs. The platform offers free and paid templates plus a user interface that allows customization without the need for codes.

The software has about 9,400 available extensions so developers can extend Joomla’s capabilities for organizations with more requirements than what is offered in the core package. They can create add-ons that will customize the software into a framework that meets the clients’ demands.

Developers can easily build inventory control systems, application bridges, integrated e-commerce and reservation systems and even communication tools. The software is based on PHP providing structure to the website and on MySQL, which enables the instant display of searchable information to the user.

Joomla Features

The CMS solution has a privacy tool suite called Joomla 3.9 that collects and manages users’ consent to privacy policies and terms and conditions. It also automatically handles user data removal requests and allows users to easily see action logs for administrative activities performed on the site. Joomla has essential features as well as for design, content editing and publishing and CMS management.

Essential

Users can install new languages and language plugins to create a multilingual website without requiring for an extension. The websites are extendable and search engine-friendly and can handle simple to complex website creation.

Design

Template override allows users to customize the web design and JLayouts, a simple system that provides codes for rendering HTML from objects and data. Apart from the capability to customize the design, users can also modify the templates and access external frameworks or template clubs.

Content editing and publishing

The publication or release of the articles can be scheduled using the publishing tools. There are default WYSIWYG content editors like TinyMCE for text formatting, inserting images, embedding media and adding emoticons. Another one, CodeMirror, is not a WYSYWYG editor. It requires users to have basic HTML knowledge for submitting and creating content.

The editor buttons allow users to add a function to the content such as adding a link to a module, menu or contact on the site. There are eight edit buttons that can be added: Module, Menu, Contact, Fields, Article, Image, Page Break and Read More.

A Media Manager menu can be found in the Control Panel. This is used for uploading and deleting files from the directory on the webserver. Other functions are for creating new folders, a button to proceed to the Help screen and to the Options window where users can find the settings.

Content management

The system will send a notification for an update of the software and the extensions together with a reminder that the site needs to be backed up before updating. The extensions can be easily downloaded from the website.

Global and professional support

Joomla has a wiki page that provides comprehensive information about Joomla, and can be accessed in different languages. There are also links to the different versions of Joomla CMS, the site for reporting bugs or issues and the password recovery page.

Integrations

Some of the software’s integrations are jCommerce, MarvikShop, Amazon Link Globalizer and Alipay for e-commerce; Smart Slider, Ignite gallery, Creative Slider and Droppics for photos and images; Google Structured Data, Asynchronous Google Analytics, SEO-Generator and JoomBall Cookies for site management; JFBConnect, Article-Generator, YouTubeR and Facebook Feed Pro for social web; Advanced Module Manager, EngageBox, MetaMod and Phoca Favicon for style and design; and RAXO All-mode PRO, Mini FrontPage, Tooltips and Zentools for news display.

KeyCAPTCHA, Antispam by CleanTalk, Instant Facebook Login and Email Protector are some of the access and security extensions; and hosting and servers are done through phpMyJoomla, Collation and Engine – Changer, Server Cache and SiteClone, among others.

Joomla review

Joomla Benefits

One of the key advantages of Joomla is the availability of the software in 70 languages. It offers multilingual content management and language associations allowing users or developers to easily build a multilingual website. Developers, bloggers and all users can enjoy the following benefits from building a website with Joomla:

Ease of use

The software offers customizable paid and free templates, most of which provide a flexible graphical user interface. This allows users code-free access to changing layouts, features, colors and fonts. First-time users or those with little or no technical knowledge will be able to create a website independently.

The library of free documentations and training videos provide users with information and instructions on how to effectively and efficiently install and use Joomla. Comprehensive knowledge can come from the system’s official wiki docs.joomla.org, the video tutorials on training.joomla.org and the official Joomla community forum on forum.joomla.org.

Out-of-the-box SEO

The software has a robust SEO system such as metadata, keywords and mod_rewrite support for SEF URLs.

Links to specific pages are user-friendly as well as search engine-friendly because of the automatic creation of an alias for the default PHP sequence whenever an article or menu item is made. At the same time, SEO settings can be customized as each menu item is provided with its own keywords, robot settings and meta description. This makes sure the content is searchable and ready for optimal availability.

Free open source software

Joomla was created and is maintained and supported by a volunteer community of extension developers, copywriters, integrators, designers and a hostof other IT personnel who keep the software a forever-free open source solution.

Security Strike Team

The Security Strike team is composed of users and developers from different countries who have volunteered to tackle and fix system security issues. The software is also equipped with two-factor authentication and comprehensive access control levels.

Joomla provides security patches by constantly updating its CMS. This also keeps viruses from attacking the system.

Joomla Pricing

The software can be downloaded for free, without the need to provide credit card details. Users have an option to use domains.Joomla.org. Proceeds of the sale will help fund the project. Requesting for a special domain name has is charged a minimal fee. The price depends on the typeof domain is desired.

A .com costs $13.99 a year, a .net is at $15.99 a year, a .at is at $16.99 a year, while .club costs only $0.99 a year.

Joomla survives on a community sponsorship campaign where each amount corresponds to a level of exposure or promotion on the website:

A donation of up to $1,000 provides the donor with the opportunity to be listed as a sponsor on the site’s sponsor page. At up to $2,000, both the donor’s and the company name will be listed on the sponsor page.

A hyperlink will be added to the benefits list for a donation of up to $3,000. The donor that gives over $3,000 will be provided the same benefits plus an opportunity to also showcase the company logo and the hyperlink listed on the sponsor page’s featured section.

Corporate sponsorships range from $5,000 to $25,000 a year, with perks such as display of logo, press releases, social media posts and leaderboard banners on two of the Joomla sites.

Conclusion

Joomla is a powerful content management system software solution that can be accessed for free. It has a comprehensive set of templates, features list and a host of knowledge resources that can help web developers and designers, small to large-scale enterprises and even families to easily create, build and manage a website.

Joomla Product Overview

  • Nested categorization: Joomla enables users to create categories with nesting, with no limits on depth. This is very helpful especially in managing large websites.

  • Powerful Extensibility: There are more than 8.000 extensions users can customize Joomla with.

  • User Management: Joomla has a registration system that allows users to configure personal options. There are nine user groups with various types of permissions on what users are allowed to access, edit, publish and administer.

  • Template Management: Templates are a powerful tool suite for making the site look exactly the way users want. You have complete control over the entire presentation.

  • Tagging: Very effective way to structure the content, for a flat organisation structure.Tagging in Joomla also supports nesting.

  • Content Management: After creating content, user finds a lot of possibilities to show it on the frontend. He is also able to use several pre-installed modules to show the most popular articles, latest items, related articles and more.


Languages Supported: English

CMS Software Buyer Guide 2024

Product recommendations, vendor rankings, market overview and tips on how to select CMS software for business. Published in March 2024.

CMS software makes creating and managing digital content easier for businesses. You can use products in this category for both enterprise content management and web content management. These products also make site maintenance easier. Anyone from your team ...

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Joomla Features

  • A/B Testing
  • API
  • Batch Permissions & Access
  • Dashboard
  • Data Export
  • Data Import
  • Data Visualization
  • External Integrations
  • File Sharing
  • File Transfer
  • Multi-User
  • Notifications
  • Third-Party Plugins/Add-Ons
  • Landing Pages

Joomla Pricing Plans


Other pricing information:

Joomla is a free and open-source content management system.

Credit card required: No

Joomla FAQs

What are some applications Joomla is commonly used in tandem with?

It is often used in tandem with Kunena.

Does Joomla offer an API?

The Joomla Platform supports a legacy tree for API.

Does Joomla offer guides, tutorials and or customer support?

It provides guides, support and documentation.

Who are the main user groups of Joomla?

Most users of Joomla are smaller companies, organizations and individuals who build websites, but it is also being discovered by well known brands across the globe, who want more website power, flexibility, and greater security.

What is Joomla generally used for?

It is generally used for publishing web content. It is estimated to be the second most used content management system on the Internet after Wordpress.

What platforms does Joomla support?

It is a content management system (CMS) which connects a user's site to a MySQL, or PostgreSQL database.

Does Joomla integrate with any other apps?

It integrates with the NuSOAP library, Mailchimp and other applications.

Joomla Alternatives

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Joomla User Reviews

Average User Rating:
4.02/5 based on 387 user ratings.
Your Rating:
User profile picture

"Robust and easy to set up"

// Web Developer at Teleperformance

What do you like about Joomla?

everything is visual. You don't need to be a tremendous programmer / web developer to get along with this product. With the amount of available free and paid plugins, sky is honestly your restriction on your internet website customization.
it has extra out-of-the-box capabilities however is a touch less user-friendly in terms of getting up and going.

What do you dislike about Joomla?

Requires the admin to be more-or-less tech savvy, to have worked previously with other cms (and no longer just a novice).

What have you been using it for and what problems did Joomla solve?

I have built a simple website in a couple of hours with great functionality and looks.

5/5
Usefulness
5/5
Ease of use
5/5
Value for money
5/5
Customer service
User profile picture

"Effective, but not user-friendly"

// Network & Server Engineer at Rubico IT Pvt Ltd

What do you like about Joomla?

Joomla can really do anything you want. If you have someone who can code and customize a website from soup to nuts, Joomla can host it with almost infinite possibilities. Its also an open-source CMS which means you can switch coders or hosts at any time - as long as they know their way around Joomla, they can get around your site.

What do you dislike about Joomla?

Even once customized to your particular website, the backend of Joomla is not at all intuitive or user-friendly. You absolutely have to be specifically trained to navigate it in order to update or add content. If you do not have a web team on staff, you can quickly get in over your head. I'm a PR manager and so my background is not in the tech side of websites - just the content management. I can use most of the basic features of Joomla and I can keep our website more or less up-to-date, but I cannot make any design changes or extensive updates without outsourcing to a web developer.

What have you been using it for and what problems did Joomla solve?

Joomla was an excellent fix for our organization because it got our website off of a proprietary CMS system and onto an open source one, meaning that it was much easier for us to hire outside contractors to work on it and maintain the site. It also has limitless features - we needed a responsive calendar integrated as well as some other custom coding and our developer was able to put in everything that we needed.

4/5
Usefulness
5/5
Ease of use
5/5
Value for money
5/5
Customer service
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