Great Product for the Easy User
We used Joomla to edit our content and maintain our website. All of our page edits were done via Joomla, as well as building new pages. …
Overview
What is Joomla?
Joomla! is a free and open source content management system used to publish web content. Included features are page caching, RSS feeds, printable versions of pages, news flashes, blogs, polls, a search function, and support for language internationalization.
Recent Reviews
Awards
Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards
Popular Features
- Availability / breadth of extensions (45)8.080%
- Role-based user permissions (44)7.070%
- Page templates (45)7.070%
- WYSIWYG editor (46)6.060%
Reviewer Pros & Cons
Pricing
N/A
Unavailable
What is Joomla?
Joomla! is a free and open source content management system used to publish web content. Included features are page caching, RSS feeds, printable versions of pages, news flashes, blogs, polls, a search function, and support for language internationalization.
Entry-level set up fee?
- No setup fee
Offerings
- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Would you like us to let the vendor know that you want pricing?
18 people also want pricing
Alternatives Pricing
What is Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued)?
Adobe Business Catalyst was a cloud-hosted system for building and managing web content and online stores with a built-in CRM framework in addition to sales, service, and marketing features including eCommerce and Email Marketing tools. It has been end of life (EOL) since 2020.
What is UENI?
Small business owners don’t have much time to build their online presence, don’t have much money to spend on digital advertising, and don’t want to navigate the complexity of what it means to be online today. So UENI presents a solution built specifically for them. Unlike DIY website builders or…
Product Demos
Joomla! 3 Quickstart Installation Step by Step Guide
YouTube
JA Elastica - Free Responsive Design Template for Joomla 2.5!
YouTube
Template Creator CK 3 - Overview, simple demo, create your Joomla template in 7minutes
YouTube
Template Creator CK 3 - Overview, simple demo, create your Joomla template in 8 minutes
YouTube
Features
Return to navigation
Product Details
- About
- Integrations
- Competitors
- Tech Details
- FAQs
What is Joomla?
Joomla! is a free, open source content management system used to publish web content. Joomla is written in PHP, uses object-oriented programming (OOP) techniques and stores data in a MySQL, MS SQL, or PostgreSQL database. Included features are page caching, RSS
feeds, printable versions of pages, news flashes, blogs, polls, a search
function, and support for language internationalization. Its dashboard organizing administrator tasks into context
menus, from which content is edited, permissions set and changed, contacts
managed, and messages sent to users. Extensions modify functionality in widely
varying ways and provide flexibility.
Joomla Video
What is Joomla!
Joomla Integrations
Joomla Competitors
- Drupal
- Kentico Xperience
- Plone
- Magnolia (V5 and later versions)
Joomla Technical Details
| Operating Systems | Unspecified |
|---|---|
| Mobile Application | No |
Frequently Asked Questions
Joomla! is a free and open source content management system used to publish web content. Included features are page caching, RSS feeds, printable versions of pages, news flashes, blogs, polls, a search function, and support for language internationalization.
Reviewers rate Library of website themes highest, with a score of 9.
The most common users of Joomla are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).
Comparisons
Compare with
Reviews and Ratings
(287)
Community Insights
TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!
- Business Problems Solved
- Pros
- Cons
- Recommendations
Joomla is a versatile content management system used by various businesses and organizations to run and manage their websites. It is popular among marketing departments as it allows them to update web content without the need for a developer, saving time and resources. Web development teams also benefit from Joomla's user-friendly interface, using it to design websites for clients and teach them to make small changes independently. Additionally, Joomla serves as a content management system for a wide range of projects, both internally and for clients. Its flexibility and extendability make it a preferred choice for both non-technical users and developers.
Joomla is widely used across organizations to manage content on public-facing websites, including non-profit organizations and startup companies. It is also utilized by web hosting platforms for its user-friendly interface and automatic installation. Companies rely on Joomla to manage their company intranets, providing a centralized information clearinghouse. This CMS is also commonly used by website design and development departments to create and maintain websites for various industries. Furthermore, Joomla finds applications in educational institutions to manage department pages and provide control to individual representatives. Its ability to handle different features like e-commerce and blog sites makes it an attractive choice for businesses with diverse needs. Developers appreciate Joomla's customization options, allowing them to create templates and extensions tailored to specific requirements.
The City of Pomona's website is managed using Joomla, enabling web administrators to easily edit and disseminate important information to the public. The built-in Access Control List features of Joomla allow the creation of users and groups with specific rights, granting access only to authorized individuals. These specific users can sign in to the website from the front-end to edit or update content as needed. Additionally, Joomla's Social Network AutoPoster feature automatically posts new articles from the City's website onto its Facebook Page. The CMS also includes a contact manager that lists the contact information of city departments, council members, and the mayor. The user-friendly interface provided by the Joomla Content Editor Component, known as JCE, makes it easy for standard users to edit and update content, similar to using Microsoft Word. Overall, Joomla offers a range of features and functionality that make it a valuable tool for managing websites across various industries and organizations.
Versatility and Customizability: Users have found Joomla to be highly versatile and customizable, allowing them to create websites that meet their specific needs. Several reviewers have mentioned how they were able to tailor the CMS to their unique requirements, making it a popular choice for businesses and organizations.
User-Friendly Interface: Many users appreciate the user-friendly interface of Joomla. They find it easy to navigate and perform various tasks without much hassle. The logical and intuitive admin interface has been praised by several reviewers, highlighting its contribution to a smooth user experience.
Availability of Third-Party Components and Extensions: Reviewers have expressed their satisfaction with the availability of third-party components and extensions in Joomla's marketplace. This wide range of options allows users to enhance the functionality of their websites by adding features like e-commerce capabilities, social media integration, and more. Some users have even mentioned specific third-party components that have greatly benefited their website development process.
Confusing User Interface: Users have found Joomla's user interface to be confusing and not user-friendly, making it difficult to perform tasks quickly. Several reviewers have mentioned this issue.
Security Concerns: There were concerns about Joomla's security, with users mentioning that it was not the most secure platform in the past and needed regular updates and secure file permissions to combat vulnerabilities. Some reviewers have expressed worry about the security of their websites.
Menu Items Rearranging Themselves: Users reported frustration with menu items rearranging themselves after adding new ones. This inconsistency in menu organization has been mentioned by several reviewers as a source of annoyance when managing their websites.
Based on user reviews, users commonly recommend the following for Joomla:
-
Consider other CMS alternatives: Explore other CMS platforms, especially if you are not tech-savvy or lack previous web programming experience. Compare different CMS options before committing to Joomla.
-
Invest in learning Joomla: Highly recommend dedicating time and effort to learning Joomla. It is particularly beneficial for small business owners who publish their own web content but have limited experience. Having someone at your business who knows code, including HTML and CSS, is recommended.
-
Use Joomla for specific purposes: Joomla is suitable for developing web applications and websites, especially for small businesses without the resources for a website agency or in-house management team. It is also recommended for associations and small to medium-sized businesses with the help of a Joomla expert. Additionally, it is seen as a good option for beginners and creating multilingual websites due to its ease of use and flexibility.
It's important to note that while Joomla offers powerful features, it may not be suitable for all users or scenarios. Users advise considering other platforms if SEO is a major part of your company's future or if advanced or e-commerce features are required. Checking out WordPress as an alternative before deciding on Joomla is suggested.
Attribute Ratings
Reviews
(1-8 of 8)Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
April 25, 2019
Perfect for content management beginners!
I've utilized Joomla to manage site content for a university, a startup company, and a nonprofit organization. The product was used mainly in one department at each company -- marketing. It addresses the fact that we needed to update our web content without having a developer on staff. It also helps that Joomla is free, especially when being utilized for non-profits and startup companies.
- Joomla's top strength is its simplicity. Even if everyone on your team is a beginner, they will be able to easily adapt to using Joomla. It mimics WordPress, but it's easier to use.
- Joomla is also great with helping beginners optimize their site for search engines. If your content does not already include keywords that your audience typically searches for, Joomla has a section where 'tags' can be added to a page so that potential visitors are more likely to find your site.
- Joomla is great at organizing content for a large website. Everything you publish can be listed by title in alphabetical order so you can search for different pieces of content easily.
- Joomla needs improvement when it comes to SEO features in comparison to other CMS's like WordPress. The features it currently has are great for beginners, but over time, users will realize that they need a more advanced system to continue to grow their site. I wouldn't choose Joomla if your team is already accustomed to using a CMS. It's only best for beginners or interns.
- The most difficult part of using Joomla, for me, is that there aren't many good web developers who specialize in Joomla. If you want to make big changes to your site that require a developer, it's much easier to find someone who's great at building WordPress sites.
- There are not as many plug-ins for Joomla as there are for WordPress so, if you need to add any special features to your site using Joomla, you will be limited.
August 28, 2018
Missing the Mark - Joomla!'s SEO and Mobile Optimization Capabilities Need An Upgrade
Joomla is used by half of our small team, so roughly 4 people, all with varying levels of CMS experience and Joomla-specific knowledge. This was a legacy platform used by the firm and we have continued to use it as our primary website CMS.
- Speedy publishing (ability to push content live)
- Joomla extensions providing flexibility
- Various permission levels for content access
- Not necessarily SEO-friendly
- Various extensions are not always compatible with one another
- Overall UI and UX of the CMS itself is confusing and often takes way too much time to ramp; it's not very "user-friendly" to borrow a buzzword, and it often takes new team members longer than anticipated to ramp up and feel comfortable using the platform
- Lack of safety and security features to protect site content and user/member information collected through the platform
September 30, 2015
Joomla!, An Open Source CMS For The Rest of Us
I am a freelance web designer and content strategist who uses Joomla! as my platform of choice to implement websites for small businesses and non-profits. These websites run the gamut from brochures, landing pages, e-commerce storefronts, to major information portals. Joomla! and its extensions handles all aspects of each of these types of sites.
- Joomla! is a content management system based on a database so it creates web pages dynamically based on a single editor and keywords. This allows users to update the site themselves and let Joomla create the pages from their input in a familiar environment.
- Joomla! is Open Source software managed by a non-profit organization called Open Source Matters. Because it's free under the GNU GPL license, there are millions of programmers worldwide working on the platform honing it and maintaining it. Open Source also means that there is a strong community of approximately 8 million users who cooperatively share this free software platform.
- Joomla! is modular. You only use what you need for your particular project. Joomla! has an extremely strong value-added software community providing add-ons for security, editing, forms, newsletters, storefronts, payment gateways, SEO, and so forth.
- Joomla! is currently split into a framework and kernel and because it is Open Source, programmers are using Joomla!'s framework to build enterprise-level content management systems and cloud-based systems such as Nooku. Joomla! complies with most standard modern software protocols and runs on LINUX/Apache/MySQL/PHP so it is highly secure and easy to set up.
- Joomla!'s organization consists of a front-end and a backend (called the Administrator). The Administrator area is meant to be intuitive but falls short because of the complexity of its structure -- areas where you perform work. There is a strong learning curve to get used to modules, plug-ins, and components plus articles and categories and how they work together.
- Joomla! has a rigid structure that allows only certain types of pages, namely blogs and lists of articles based on how you classify subjects. Everything in Joomla! is an article. You have to know content strategy to add appropriate keywords to ensure that your articles show up on the appropriate pages either with others tagged similarly, or by themselves. Navigation is based upon these keywords as well. You need to design the site before you jump in and add articles.
- Joomla! is built using PHP and runs on an Apache server. As such, it is not totally secure from malicious attacks at the server level. Extra care has to be taken to set up passwords, roles, and permissions to ensure that spammers and hackers cannot touch the database or Administrator.
- Joomla! is not meant to handle more than a medium- to small-sized website with up to one million concurrent users. It can be placed on the Cloud, such as Amazon Web Services, where instances of the platform can take more users, but it is not enterprise-level software.
July 08, 2015
Why We Went With Joomla Most of The Time
We implemented various CMS platforms for various size non-profit enterprises (small 1-10 employees to 100-1000 employee ranges). Some of them would select Joomla (others Drupal, WordPress, etc.) based on their specific needs/intentions for their web presence needs and requirements and expected use cases. Ultimately the decision was on the client as to which CMS they would choose/go with, but we'd make strong recommendations according to their needs.
- No CMS is perfect for 100% of a clients needs. Usually the base CMS get's 70-80% of the requirements out of the way with just a base install. Then there is another 10-15% that is covered by a standard set of extensions/modules that you would typically install for almost every client (SEO optimization, ACL/permission levels, etc.). The remaining 5-20% is usually custom module work (either building out a custom version of existing modules/extensions/components, or building a new one from scratch). The extensibility and ease of developing components/modules for Joomla is one thing it does very well.
- We used Joomla for a majority of our clients solutions because of their preference in the administrative interface for Joomla. Obviously administrative interfaces are something that can be customized/skinned/themed in most CMS's, but the native back-end interface was always more intuitive than Drupal (where a non-technical end-user always had a hard time telling if they were logged-in or not, and where the WordPress admin area was always very blog/post centric). Joomla was almost always the top choice for non-blog specific web platforms.
- The Joomla community was always the most helpful and responsive (WordPress maybe slightly greater, but most of the WordPress community at the time was focusing on themes/skins and less on the development of feature/functionality heavy plug-ins). Much of our work on Joomla went into making the modules/components available look good/consistent with our site designs, which was an easier feat then building out actual functionality/features that were missing from the communities of other CMS's.
- Updating was never as seamless/easy as it seems to be with Wordpress. Obviously we accounted for this with our own workflow/methods, but I remember whenever we did WordPress updates it always seemed a breeze compared to the time/energy involved with a Joomla update/upgrade.
- For a while (I think this has changed some) Joomla left itself open to attacks when administrators were not as well versed as they should be. There were developer additions that did security checks/audits for you, but the CMS was the subject of a lot of attacks when left in the hands of our clients for a long time (who had changed permissions to make editing easier/convenient). Ideally the CMS would have been more restrictive on some of these things to prevent easy abuse. Obviously this is more the fault of the misinformed/human then the CMS, but it could have been more dummy-proof.
- No native versioning. There are some community extensions that add this functionality, but they pale in comparison to the versioning plugins of other CMS's (WordPress specifically). Again this was some time ago and in our experience, it could have changed by now.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
As a webdesign agency, we had implemented in different organizations with multiple users and responsibilities. One of the best features of this CMS (Content Management system) is the versatility to create users and assign them different access to components and/or modules. Beside the editorial profile you can give to each user to write, review or edit content. You can assign to each user or group of users access to specific areas (components, category of articles, specific articles, etc.) inside your administrative portal with the chance to just read and or write on the assigned sections.
- Basic SEO, with very limited knowledge you are able to manage titles, meta tag descriptions and keywords, create sitemaps. And provide the initial elements every search engine require for indexing your webpage.
- Responsive templates, you have a broad list of templates and components which are responsive and help your site adapt to desktop, tablets and phone without any problem. Also the opportunity to create specif modules just for any combination of devices (desktop, tablets or phones).
- Broad list of components and modules, are you looking for an specific requirement for your website. You will find an application (component), Module or plugin already created that will avoid you development time. And the awareness that all software are supported and evolving with new features.
- Update notification, even though you can see from your administrator access when a component, module or plugin needs to be updated. It would be great to get email notification when new versions arrive.
- More Community user features, you can use different components to create a community of users. But it would be great to have the opportunity to create new information field for the user profile, picture and social platform links as a features in joomla user management.
- More video tutorials introducing joomla and main features as specif information about installation and configuration.
Our company Cloudaccess.net is a Joomla! hosting company that specializes in hosting Joomla! sites optimally and offering most excellent support to our clients and customers who are building their websites using Joomla! on our platform.
- Joomla! is very user friendly for all experience levels.
- Joomla! is extremely flexible in the sense that you can build any type of website you want including an advanced E-commerce site or social media. The possibilities are endless.
- The Extensions and templates that are available to use in building your site is wonderful. You can get beautiful designs from template manufactures in the community and at good costs as well as well functioning extensions that give you the abilities and functionalities you are looking for to make your sites vision come together.
- The ACL manager for advanced user control is also a great feature. Being able to easily set up different access control levels for different types of users is a wonderful attribute. It can be as simple or complex as you need it to be.
- I cannot think of any improvements I would like to see at this moment. The new version release has addressed a few of the previous bugs/ issues
March 10, 2015
Joomla, Drupal, or WordPress? Oh My! How to Choose.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
I currently specialize in using the Joomla CMS for an extensive range of web site types; From simple writer blogs to full corporate extranets, intranets, sales, portals, and knowledge bases. Joomla is easily used by employers and employees across an organization. In order to keep IT costs down, users with very little web knowledge can manage a Joomla web site with a few days of training. It is not necessary to know or understand coding or design.
- Joomla has one of the largest communities of developers in the CMS market. With easy to install plug-n-go applications there is no need to hire a developer to custom build your web sites main features or functionality.
- Joomla 3.2 and the available template frameworks are responsive, clean, and current. These frameworks keep updated on the cutting edge of mobile and web use.
- With a few hours of training, most users can maintain and update a Joomla site as easily as you would write up a document.
- Over the past few years Joomla remained behind in the ability to update a site easily, with few issues. Joomla is getting much better at one-click updates, but there can still be issues with other applications (components) that do not stay current.
- Joomla does have a small learning curve. Although it is not necessary to know or understand any coding when utilizing Joomla, a user will need to understand how Joomla compiles it pages and how to create use the main features.
- The choice of applications available can make it difficult to find the right one for your company. For example, there are 5-6 top eCommerce solutions on the market for Joomla. Careful thought and investigation should go into selecting the right one.
August 08, 2014
Joolma from an admin/developer perspective
It is being used right now in a couple departments for their own dept web sites. It solves the problem of the dept heads being able to create pages on their own site and edit those pages with very little support. We just don't have the man hours for me to support third party sites outside our primary CMS.
- Edit in Context - Joomla allows editing in context right out of the box which Wordpress and other open source CMSs do not
- Approval Chain processing - It is easy to set up an approval chain workflow in Joomla unlike other CMSs
- The Admin page - Very well crafted admin page and access
- More Templates! Wordpress has thousands of "themes" available and you just plug them in, in my experience, it's not that easy with Joomla.
- There needs to be a Developer API, making it easy for devs to create plug-ins, templates, and access the back-end database.
- I find that end users don't understand "articles" and other Joolma specific jargon. Stick with the defacto standard like "posts" and "pages"