1. Home
  2. Content Management Systems (CMS)
  3. Joomla Reviews
  4. User Review of Joomla
Why I Choose Joomla over other CMS's
Updated March 18, 2015

Why I Choose Joomla over other CMS's

Janice Gentles-Jones | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

3.2

Overall Satisfaction with Joomla!

I use Joomla to build websites for non-profit organizations and small businesses. I find it to be a great resource for non-profits who need functionality such as online donations, event registrations, online directories and online membership management. Joomla has some great extensions that makes it easy for users to manage these function right from within their website.
  • The new release of Joomla, version 3.x, has a new, user-friendly interface. This new interface reduces the learning curve a lot compared to the other versions. It also makes it easy to keep your website updated and to find extensions to add to your website.
  • Joomla is also great at managing different permission levels for users. For organizations that want to have members-only content and have different levels of membership and what people can see, Joomla 3.x handles this well without need a third-party extensions.
  • I find that Joomla has some great extensions for managing online donations, event registration and online membership. This is what makes me choose this CMS over many of the other popular CMS's out there.
  • Joomla does not have a good preview system. If you want to preview your pages before they go live you have to use a third-party extension. I wish this was built-in as this is a common feature in other popular CMS's.
  • I haven't found a great ecommerce system for Joomla yet. There are some semi-good ones but they are either overkill or not enough functionality.
  • There are not as many Joomla specialists as there are for other CMSs so it puts my company at an advantage for businesses that are seeking a Joomla expert.
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.
Joomla works great for non-profit organizations that want to utilize the web for managing their donations and memberships online. It can be a lot more cost-effective than other vendors that have monthly cost for these services. For simple websites that do not need all the bells and whistles that a non-profit may need Joomla works well for also, although depending on the client's tech level and how often they'll be updating their website, I may choose a different CMS for their business.

Using Joomla!

1 - The person using Joomla is the owner of the company.
I've used Joomla for over 7 years now and just find that it meets the needs of my clients. If it stops doing that then I'll consider something else but right now it does.

Joomla Implementation

Using Joomla

I think Joomla is easy to use if you have the proper training and support.
ProsCons
Like to use
Easy to use
Technical support not required
Well integrated
Consistent
Quick to learn
Convenient
Feel confident using
Familiar
Unnecessarily complex
  • Creating/editing a page
  • Updating the website when a new release comes out
Yes - It works as expected,