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A great CMS with an even better community of developers behind it.
November 06, 2018

A great CMS with an even better community of developers behind it.

Jen Garfinkel-Canseco | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Joomla!

I use Joomla for a number of websites for my clients. I've used Joomla for over 10 years. Joomla is an excellent CMS for building simple to complex websites. I've used Joomla for everything from small business websites, to real estate portals, to ecommerce websites, to social networks. The possibilities with Joomla and the many extensions and community members behind it makes it one of my top choices for web development.
  • Joomla provides a strong core to get website development started quickly and easily.
  • The possibilities that the many Joomla extensions offers are unlimited.
  • Joomla's templating system is quick and easy to create a custom design for your website.
  • The community of experts are second to none, the community offers excellent support.
  • The administration can be difficult for non-technical people to use, some of my clients find it daunting and not very user-friendly.
  • Security...Joomla is a really big target to hackers...I do know that Joomla works hard to get security patches out as quickly as they can though.
  • Speed, I'd like to see the core Joomla sped up with out having to put in tons of work to speed it up.
  • The Joomla community has made it easier for me to find answers to questions I've had on Joomla issues and customizations making getting projects for my clients done quicker and easier.
  • The administration has NOT been liked by many of my non-technical clients vs other administrations for other software, and has caused some clients to be unhappy with making changes to their website themselves.
  • Joomla has made getting complex websites up quicker for my clients resulting in happy clients.
For complex websites, with unique customizations, Joomla is my go to. If my clients want a user-friendly administration and plan on making changes to their website content themselves, I choose WordPress. Joomla's templating system is quicker and simpler to create completely custom templates vs WordPress' Theming system. For managing content, creating content, extending, both software packages are pretty equal. I use both Joomla and WordPress extensively for my client base.
Joomla is especially great for complex sites where non-technical clients won't be using administration. I use Joomla for my clients that want a robust CMS where, between extensions and customizations, I can create very specialized website projects. I'm not a big fan of any of the e-commerce extensions for Joomla, but the social network capabilities of some of the extensions are excellent! I do highly recommend using a dedicated server so server settings can be tweaked to optimize Joomla, though it will run on a shared hosting for a simple site.

Joomla Feature Ratings

9.1
WYSIWYG editor
9
Code quality / cleanliness
10
Admin section
7
Page templates
10
Library of website themes
9
Mobile optimization / responsive design
9
Publishing workflow
10
Form generator
Not Rated
9.0
Content taxonomy
9
SEO support
8
Bulk management
8
Availability / breadth of extensions
10
Community / comment management
10
10.0
API
10
Internationalization / multi-language
10
9.0
Role-based user permissions
9
CMS programming language or framework ()
Not Rated

Using Joomla!

1 - Joomla is used as the Content Management System for the websites of a number of my clients. The websites are used for marketing, relaying information to their customers/clients. Used for both non-profit companies as well as for profit companies, Joomla is a great choice for complex websites with complex needs. The core Joomla project makes extending it easy and reliable.
1 - Web Developers with HTML/CSS, PHP, MySQL and Javascript skills are needed to support Joomla and extend/customize it. I actually also recommend dedicated servers so you can adjust server settings to optimize for Joomla, so Developers familiar with web server management are a plus. Although someone with very little experience can get Joomla up and running, to really get the most out of the possibilities with Joomla, an experienced Web Developer is highly needed.
  • Non-Profit website with membership directory, e-commerce for events/products and a large amount of content.
  • Website for a specialized antique furniture dealer showcasing constantly changing pieces available with custom information provided on each piece.
  • Previously used for a social network specializing in the home design industry with extensive customized features.
For highly customized website needs, I definitely would use Joomla. The Joomla core is a strong base for creating complex websites. Extending and customizing with Joomla is quick and easy for someone with PHP knowledge.

Joomla! Support

Between the core Joomla developers who are excellent at answering questions and providing support, you have a whole community of developers who work with Joomla and are happy to help fellow developers out answering questions and supporting the Joomla project. Out of the many communities I am involved in for open-source software, Joomla's community is by far the best.
ProsCons
Quick Resolution
Good followup
Knowledgeable team
Problems get solved
No escalation required
Immediate help available
Support understands my problem
Support cares about my success
Quick Initial Response
Not kept informed
Yes - Yes, after submitting the bug, I had a response in less than 24 hours and was able to get the issue resolved. Another instance I submitted a bug that was immediately placed in the queue for the next release. Bugs are generally addressed quickly for Joomla.