If you’re considering using Joomla but are feeling a little lost, don’t worry— we’re here to get you on the right track. Whether you’re looking for a critical Joomla review of its services or a crash course on how to get the most out of their platform (or both!), you’ve come to the right place. In this article we’ll cover all of the ins and outs of Joomla as well as answer many of the questions people frequently have about the service. 

Joomla Review 2022 – What Is Joomla? 

Joomla is online open source CMS (aka content management system, if you’re new to the lingo). Joomla is a lot like WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, and many others in the sense that their service helps you build dynamic websites. 

In the past decade Joomla has skyrocketed to huge success, helping people around the world make stunning and professional looking websites and apps. The company began in 2005 and has over 99+ million downloads at this time. 

As a content management site, Joomla connects your website to a database— either MySQLi, MySQL, or PostgreSQL— which makes content management and content delivery a lot easier for the creator and the consumer.

One of the things that makes Joomla so great is the fact that it’s totally free to use, allowing anyone and everyone to build the website of their dreams. The site itself is intuitive to navigate and has a lot of prompts and guides if you feel lost or uninspired. Joomla is capable of helping you create incredibly diverse websites, whether you want to make an e-commerce platform, a corporate landing page, a personal blog, or even a social network. 

Users are able to access thousands of extensions and templates, in large par thanks to the massive community of developers that contribute to Joomla’s resources. Unlike competitor sites, Joomla feels a lot more like an incredibly powerful toolbox with which you can create almost anything, rather than a rigid step-by-step site building platform. 

joomla-img

Why Should You Use Joomla?

When stacked against its competitors, Joomla repeatedly comes out on top in almost every regard. Not only does the service offer a lot more than many competitors, but it’s also won a lot of awards throughout the years for its fantastic design and capabilities. 

Additionally, unlike its competitors, Joomla is totally free. No matter how you use it or how many elements you incorporate, Joomla is 100% free. You might be wondering how a site of such magnitude and that offers so much to its users is able to do so for free, and you’re not alone. Many people have this question, but the answer is quite simple. Much like sites like Wikipedia operate with the support of volunteers, Joomla is kept afloat by the passionate devotion of their volunteers and contributors. 

Another benefit to using Joomla is the fact that it is an open source platform, which means that you can use and modify every element on your website with no exceptions. The volunteer developers we mentioned above have contributed thousands and thousands of unique plugins that are, of course, free to use. These plugins range in function from ecommerce payment processing to site animations to simple buttons. 

The best part about the extensive library of plugins and such is that you have the ability to create an incredibly complex and professional looking website without any development experience. Yep, that’s right— even if you’ve never heard the word “coding” before in your life you’ll be able to design and publish a stunning website using Joomla. 

Why Do So Many People Contribute To Joomla?

To many, the concept of a volunteer powered platform is a little confusing. Why are they willing to devote their time and resources to something that doesn’t give back? Why will the website give me the tools to make a site for free when competitors charge hundreds of dollars?

These are all great and normal questions to ask, and the answer is one of the many things that makes Joomla so special. The core foundation of their business model has always been based upon the belief that for-profit companies are not the only places where you can and should be able to access the resources you need to make your business (or your creative passion) thrive. Much like Wikipedia, Joomla believes that you deserve access to these tools regardless of whether you pay for them or ever give anything back. In essence, they tear down the pay-to-enter-gate that often keeps people from exploring new territories. 

Without the paywall, future UX/UI designers are able to get their first taste of site building. Small businesses are able to launch their online marketplace without having to pay to do so. 

The setup that Joomla has created has even created a lot of other jobs in neighboring sectors. Passionate developers have founded entire companies dedicated to creating software and plugins compatible with Joomla. Pretty neat, right?

Who Uses Joomla?

When it comes to these “create your own site” platforms, there can be a bit of a stigma around who uses them. A lot of people hold the belief that only small businesses and companies hurting for cash use these cheap (or free) platforms to build their landing pages. 

We can’t claim one way or another whether this is based in any fact or not, but even if it were once true, it certainly isn’t now. People of all skill levels and companies of all revenue streams use Joomla to create their websites. This is because not only is the site free (although this doesn’t matter much to multi-million dollar companies), but Joomla just offers so much more than its competitors. The platform is a virtual playground to make any kind of website you want, and the only limits are the confines of your own creativity. 

Tons of super successful companies use Joomla for their sites, including a lot of government branches. Businesses like La Weekly, Linux, Harvard University, The Hill, and many more all use Joomla for their sites. 

Is Joomla Good For Beginners?

This is a super common thing that people ask when considering Joomla for their site building needs. For some reason, the belief that Joomla is not beginner-friendly has long been circulating cyberspace. The argument is that compared with similar CMSs, Joomla is more complicated and confusing than competitors. In some sense it is a bit more in depth than its competitors, but it is incredibly easy to figure out if you’re willing to fiddle around for a little while. The competing sites also tend to have incredibly rigid design frameworks and offer users limited control over aesthetic and functional elements, which is not the case for Joomla. Joomla gives users total control over the appearance and function of their websites, which cannot be said for other services in the same space. Additionally, there are a ton of forums and guides online instructing people of all skill levels on the various ins and outs of Joomla’s design capabilities. Lastly, if all of the available resources aren’t enough, the extensive developer community on which Joomla is built is a great place to source help or even hire a developer to assist you in the creation of your vision. The benefit of doing this is that there are so many developers in the community that the rates tend to be pretty affordable. 

Related FAQs

When it comes to sites and services like Joomla, it’s natural to have a lot of questions. We took the time to answer some of the most frequently asked and googled questions about Joomla. We hope this helps!

Is Joomla any good?

Yes, Joomla is a great CMS and is especially wonderful for businesses looking to create unique and interactive landing pages for their business operations. The main benefits of this platform are that it is totally free to use and has essentially no limits (aside from your own creativity). The platform is open source, which gives designers total control over every single element on their page. 

Joomla is powered and supported by an extensive network of developers that volunteer both their time and their coding for Joomla users to access for free. The platform has a massive library of plugins that let you add nearly any site function you can think of to your website, even without any prior coding experience. 

Unlike many competitors, Joomla doesn’t confine its users to a certain template or design constraint, which is attractive to many businesses that want a unique website that isn’t immediately identifiable as coming from a site-building platform. 

Is Joomla still relevant in 2020?

Yep! Joomla is not only still relevant and widely used around the world, but it’s also constantly getting better and more stable as the years go on. The site was originally founded in 2005, which naturally has caused many to wonder if the service is now obsolete. Unlike many sites that burned brightly in the mid 2000s, Joomla has managed to change with the times and constantly improve its services. 

The platforms is certainly different in appearance and offerings today vs. 2005, but no one can deny that the changes are much better than where the site first started (even though that was groundbreaking at the time). 

Those who are interested in building their own websites have a lot of platforms to choose from, of which Joomla is the second most popular after WordPress. 

Is Joomla better than WordPress?

Joomla and WordPress are both content management systems that you can use to create your own website. Despite essentially performing the same function, both are quite different. In terms of numbers, WordPress is the leading CMS out there and has been around since 2003. Joomla is right behind it in second place, though, and each has its own strengths. 

On one hand, WordPress is a great choice for a few reasons. These include the fact that it’s very easy to use and is one of the easiest platforms for non-developers to use. It’s also one of the most (if not the most) popular hosting sites for personal blogs. Since so many people use and love WordPress, it’s also super easy to find the answer to almost any query you may have about the CMS, given that so many people post in blogs and forums (and have likely faced the same issues you are currently tackling). 

On the other hand, Joomla has its own strengths. These include the user management system that is far more advanced than WordPress’s. Joomla is also a far more flexible platform and lets you create far more diverse websites than WordPress does. Additionally Joomla offers site support in many languages as a built-in feature to its framework, making troubleshooting very simple. Lastly, there are multiple themes that you can choose from for your Joomla site, while WordPress users are limited to a single theme. 

The answer to which of these is “better” is also dependent on what you’re looking to gain from the platform. If you want a plug and chug blog site that can be up and running in 5 minutes, then you should opt for WordPress. If you want to play around and get creative with your site, then Joomla is likely going to be more your speed. 

Is Joomla still used?

You bet! Despite having been around for almost two decades, Joomla is still the second most popular content management system out there (right behind WordPress). In fact, Jooma powers over 3% of all websites on the internet. For some context, there are nearly 1.7 billion websites on the internet at the moment, and 51 million of them are powered by Joomla! 

In Conclusion

Joomla is one of the most powerful and expansive CMS’s on the internet today. Users can create any type of website with any number of design elements— all for free. Although it requires a bit more time and the learning curve is slightly steeper, the results speak for themselves. We hope you found this article helpful!