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Joomla

Joomla

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.

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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

Joomla is a versatile content management system used by various businesses and organizations to run and manage their websites. It is …
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Jammin' with Joomla!

10 out of 10
October 18, 2019
Incentivized
Joomla is used across our organization. It solves our website address needs and much more due to its flexibility and ease of use. We …
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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

View all 16 features
  • Availability / breadth of extensions (45)
    8.0
    80%
  • Role-based user permissions (44)
    7.0
    70%
  • Page templates (45)
    7.0
    70%
  • WYSIWYG editor (46)
    6.0
    60%

Reviewer Pros & Cons

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Pricing

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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

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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
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Features

Security

This component helps a company minimize the security risks by controlling access to the software and its data, and encouraging best practices among users.

7
Avg 8.0

Platform & Infrastructure

Features related to platform-wide settings and structure, such as permissions, languages, integrations, customizations, etc.

6.5
Avg 7.7

Web Content Creation

Features that support the creation of website content.

7.2
Avg 7.6

Web Content Management

Features for managing website content

6.6
Avg 7.3
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Product Details

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 Competitors

Joomla Technical Details

Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo

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.

Drupal, Kentico Xperience, and Plone are common alternatives for Joomla.

Reviewers rate Library of website themes highest, with a score of 8.9.

The most common users of Joomla are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).
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Comparisons

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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!

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:

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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

(26-50 of 67)
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Sean Pomory | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Joomla and Concrete5 have about the same capability and similar issues. Purchasing a SAAS like Squarespace, Weebly or Wix would be worth the price to remove the hassle of Joomla. A more robust free CMS like WordPress or Drupal would be a better solution if you wanted to remain in that realm of software.
Ilham AB | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Joomla! is much easier than those products and with the strong support from Joomla! community and the availability of Joomla! plugins and extensions, then in my point of view, Joomla! is better. Also, Joomla! is very suitable for Portal and e-Commerce creation. Many features and add-on support this functionality and requirement to serve the business user.
Danielle A. Pingitore | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I have used WordPress which is similar in many ways but harder to use in my opinion. It is also not easy to teach people how to learn WordPress because of its design and usability. I do think that WordPress is faster to adapt new changes to technology such as responsiveness or parallax designs.
Eli Aschkenasy | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Number one difference is the community. I can't stress it more. The joomla! community (both online, and offline) is extraordinarily friendly and accommodating. I have never heard of anyone who felt looked down upon or ridiculed for any type of question, request, or need. If you're planning on designing and maintaining your own site, joomla! is definitely a good choice, if you're looking to design a website that might need some custom development, joomla! is definitely a good choice (better than WordPress from a technical standpoint and easier than Drupal from a user-friendly standpoint. If the intended application is an API driven (potentially even headless) and doesn't have any conventional content requirements, joomla! is probably not the optimal choice.
Robert Jacobi | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • WordPress,Drupal,ExpressionEngine,DNN
We utilize Joomla! because it is open source, has one of the largest open source communities, and is flexible across all types and sizes of business environments. Joomla! also provides steady security updates which are installable from within the CMS (WordPress has been failing here) as well as provides seamless upgrade paths from older versions (the Drupal 8 migrations will be complete rebuilds if customers choose to go that route).
Michael Pignataro | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Reseller
There are other great products out there such as WordPress or Drupal. Each platform has its own use and they are all great.

WordPress - This product is amazing for blogging. If you want a blogging site this is the platform to use. I recommend looking into WordPress for Joomla - https://www.corephp.com/joomla-products/wordpress-for-joomla This product intergrates the WordPress platform into Joomla giving you that full capability of the best blogging platform. Not as easy to manage a site.

Drupal - This is amazing product for data crunching. Powerful taxonomy system. Most of the time this is overkill for many sites. But still a solid and great product.
James Fauria | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • WordPress,Drupal

Before I settled in on using Joomla for the City of Pomona, I experimented with WordPress and Drupal, as being the right fit for the new website. Each time I went through the analysis, research and development, both WordPress and Drupal, came up short for quickly delivering a robust extendable and easy to use solution that had to be in place immediately.

Here's some frustrations that I encountered with WordPress and Drupal:

  • WordPress limits the number of links you could have in the Main Menu.
  • WordPress's Menu Manager is lacking many features that are standard in Joomla's.
  • WordPress has a useless Media Manager that does not allow for Folder Creation or custom built Hierarchical structures that reflect real life departments and organizations.
  • WordPress lacks the ACL that Joomla has.
  • Drupal also has a useless Media Manager that does not allow for Folder Creation or custom built Hierarchical structures that reflect real life departments and organizations.
  • Drupal was a time consuming headache that always had a dramatic problem popup every step of the way when trying to build the website, and frequently the whole operation would just implode.
  • Drupal wasted months of time because of its incompatibilities.
  • Drupal lacks the ACL that Joomla has.
  • Both Drupal and WordPress are NOT MVC or OOD.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • WordPress,Open Cart,Drupal,oscommerce,Apricot,wix
Many CMS platforms are worthwhile contenders but we have found that Joomla consistently provides the most stable framework with the best options for accomplishing whatever we throw at it. There are times that we will choose WordPress. When the budget is very small and the need is very simple. Other than that scenario, we turn to Joomla every time for a consistently competent end result.
Rita Lewis | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Reseller
WordPress is not a content management system in that it is based upon the concept of blogging where articles are displayed in a linear fashion based on their date of publication. You can make WordPress a CMS through hard work and twisting its navigation system and widgets to fit multiple pages other purposes than blogging, but if you want a medium-sized website for millions of concurrent users, Joomla! is much more versatile and easier to setup and use. WordPress is good for small projects but it also has fewer add-ons (called plug-ins) and they require some coding to work. Joomla! is more fleshed out and usable "out of the box."

Drupal is a programmer platform with modules that require coding to fit together into a very flexible array of purposes. It is meant for larger projects but its aesthetics are lacking and you need to get in and code HTML and CSS to customize its look and layout. Joomla!'s community has created thousands of easily-customizable themes to change the look and feel of a website, or you can create a custom theme based on solid frameworks that provide an underlying HTML and CSS structure as well as the ability to customize using the Administrator vs. programming. I choose Joomla! over Drupal even for larger endeavors because it is easier to develop and has a larger user community and more add-ons.
Mark Goldsmith | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
WordPress is the next competitor, a more complete and robust CMS, with extension solutions to add increased functionality. Well supported by the Joomla community, and strong contractor support for building site projects. It's not as programming friendly as Drupal, but a good option for more limited custom code requirements. Joomla is a nice alternative, depending on requirements, between several top solutions like WordPress, Drupal and Magento platforms.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
After trying WordPress and Drupal, I've realized Joomla is the best middle ground CMS to use. It seems to solve every problem I've had for all sorts of websites. It has great e-commerce solutions, custom app solutions, social web platform solutions, etc. And the list goes on. Endless possibilities are the best two words I can use to describe it.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Wordpress,Drupal,CMSMS,TinyCMS
Again, this was largely our clients decision, and a majority of the time based on our specific target audiences needs, Joomla was the best choice. If you were building a web solution that was primarily a blog, I'd likely recommend WordPress. If you were working with a very small team to manage a very few pages (like a brochure-site) I'd recommend CMSMS or TinyCMS. If you were familiar with Drupal or your in-house engineers had more experience with Drupal I'd recommend that. From a development perspective, Drupal has a much steeper learning curve, but is also likely the most powerful in the hands of someone capable of using it to it's full potential.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
  • WordPress,Zencart
Wordpress vs Joomla: It depends on how complicated the site is. I will choose Joomla for better menu and article management.

Zencart vs Joomla: Zencart is primarily a shopping cart website whereas Joomla is a CMS with shopping cart capabilities. Overall, Joomla has better system for shopping cart when you add in HikaShop component.
July 07, 2015

Joomla!: For What?

Alex Jewell | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Drupal,WordPress
Drupal, compared to Joomla!, is even more customizable and flexible, and is even more modular. Joomla! reels the developer in a bit more and offers a less complicated way to get from start to finish. The outcome, of course, is that Drupal has a steeper learning curve and can take quite awhile to work with - sometimes it's easier to just program the application by hand. Yet comparing the two ultimately comes down to preference. Secondly, WordPress, originally designed strictly for blogging, has evolved into quite an intuitive and useful CMS, blog or not. WordPress has also acquired quite a staggeringly large market of themes and plugins with which you can hack a WordPress installation into practically anything you heart desires. Joomla!, contrarily, is a WordPress on steroids; it's slightly more complicated to learn and navigate, but it's also a much more powerful tool out of the box. WordPress has its place, yet Joomla! is a better option for mid-size applications, as that's what it was originally intended for.
Cesar Babino | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Even though Wordpress had increased its exposure lately and developed a broad presence with Blog implementations. I feel you can get same effect using K2 and the possibility to expand functions in your website.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Joomla! competes against my WordPress developed sites. Joomla! has a harder learning curve than WordPress, but has been better suited for non blog sites up until recently when WordPress went head on to develop a CMS that wasn't geared specifically for blogging. This, I believe, has hurt Joomla!. Joomla! needs to continue to make the CMS user experience as easy as possible for the novice.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I started working with Joomla! for my career working for Cloudaccess.net However I use Joomla! for my own personal sites as well and wouldn't want it any other way. It allows me to create beautiful websites without needing to know advances CSS coding. This was my biggest pro about using Joomla!, I know some coding here and there but not enough to code my own template or spend a lot of time entering custom stylizing to my Joomla! site. I simply find a nice template that is close to the look and feel I want and start plugging in my own content with minimal required customization to make it my own. It is a great CMS for any user level to use whether novice or advanced. I will always recommend Joomla!.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • WordPress,Drupal

Joomla! can seem a little more complex to use than WordPress right out of the gate. However, that additional complexity brings with it immense power to add and customize the site to perform anything you want it to do. While WordPress is working to add more CMS capabilities with more varied plugins, it still lags behind. Additionally, while WordPress plugins are generally 'free' and Joomla!'s best extensions come with an immediate price tag, upon closer inspection, the Joomla! ecosystem is much more robust. Paid WordPress extensions are generally two to three times more expensive than comparable Joomla! ones and they usually come with less features.

Drupal is at the other end of the spectrum regarding add-ons. Almost all are completely free, but you're expected to pay handsomely to have new features added. In general, with Drupal, it seems you need a PhD to be able to create your own site. Definitely not for do-it-yourselfers.

Mike Demopoulos | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
ResellerIncentivized
WordPress and Drupal are all backed by corporate groups that don't foster the open source community which I want to support. Joomla! is non-profit and 100% volunteer based and the time I put into Joomla! outputs a better product for my clients and everyone else.
Janice Gentles-Jones | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
I think Joomla falls in the middle when it comes to CMSs. I compare to the 3 Little Piggies story. I think Joomla is 'just right'. Wordpress is simple to use but when comparing the extensions that you have available for online donations, online memberships and event registrations I haven't found good alternatives for them in Wordpress. Drupal has a higher learning curve and I think you need to have good technical skills to really use it so it may not be the best solution for the average user.
Marni Derr | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
  • WordPress,Drupal
In today's market there is no 'best' CMS, only the right CMS for your web sites requirements. I have used WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla over the years. WordPress is a great CMS, but it started, and in my opinion, continues to largely support more simple blogs and portfolio's. Drupal is the most robust CMS, allowing for the greatest customization and heaviest of traffic, however Drupal requires a developer with strong coding knowledge modify or grow a Drupal web site.
Joomla falls nicely between these two categories. Easier to use than Drupal for a designer or weekend coder, while still allowing experienced coders to take Joomla to whole new levels of features and functionality. Joomla has more pre-built applications and more control than WordPress.
Joomla is perfect for small, medium, and large businesses while keeping development costs down, yet still performs perfectly for the sole-proprieter, blogger, or hobbyist.
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