This Joomla review covers everything you need to know before using the Content Management System (CMS). Who doesn’t like a free and open-source CMS? Joomla is one of the growing CMS that is widely used for publishing web content. It is created on model–view–controller web application framework and it can be used as independent software as well.
Learn what a CMS is with our free guide.
Joomla is written is PHP and stores data in MySQL, MS SQL or PostgreSQL. Its features include page caching, news flashes, blogs, and support for language internationalization. It also offers printable website pages, RSS feeds and search features.
Joomla’s History as a CMS
Joomla is a fork of Mambo and was formed on August 17, 2005. During that time, Mambo was a trademark name owned by Miro International Pvt. Ltd. They began a non-profit to fund the project and protect it against the lawsuits. However, the Joomla development team claimed that the major chunk of the provisions of the foundation violated some agreements made by the elected Mambo Steering Committee, consultation with key stakeholders never happened and the values of core open-source system were violated.
Joomla developers started OpenSourceMatters.org (OSM) to publish and distribute information about the open-source framework. A letter written by the project leader Andrew Eddie was published on the public forum of mamboserver.com that instantly went viral. Over 1000 people joined OSM and expressed their support and encouragement. A Slashdot effect caused by the letter on mamboserver.com forced the CEO of Miro International Pvt. Ltd. to respond to the letter publicly with another article named – “The Mambo Open Source Controversy — 20 Questions With Miro”. It sparked an open-source controversy and about its rules.
By August 18, 2005, teams were divided, and Andrew Eddie who lead the untitled Joomla project, asked the community to help suggest a name for it. Joomla – the name was announced on September 22, 2005 and Joomla 1.0 version was released. By October 2, 2005, the guidelines for the Joomla brand, its manual and logo resources were published on OSM.
Did You Know?
“Joomla has been downloaded over 78 million times, as of November 2016”
Some websites built with Joomla:
- Unric.org
- Thefashionspot.com
- Mtvgreece.gr
- Guggenheim.org
- Linux.com
- Gsas.hardvard.edu
- Ace.nd.edu
- eBay
- GE
- Ikea
Here are a few things that you need to consider before choosing Joomla as your CMS.
1.SEO
Joomla might not be as SEO friendly out of the box as the WordPress CMS but it offers some amazing plugins that help with SEO. The URLs generated by Joomla script are quite SEO friendly and help with SEO positioning. Joomla 3.3 update comes with extensive SEO friendly feature and option handles.
2.User Friendly
Joomla seems to be quite user-friendly. It is quick to install and takes just around 10 minutes to have a script up and running on the server. Its admin interface is quite pleasing and easily understandable. Some believe that out of the box it has one of the best interfaces that can help you to manage large amount of content effectively.
3.Cost
Joomla is FREE open-source content management software. However, some of the plugins and modules for Joomla are paid.
4.Security
The core of Joomla is reasonably secure and if there is any security vulnerability they address it quite quickly. The areas where the security flaws mostly come from are via 3rd party add-ons (modules, components, plugins, etc). But if you keep all your third party add-ons, plugins, themes and modules updated, your site will be more secured.
5. Up to Date
Joomla fairly keeps itself updated. When your page is published and a newer version is available, you will get a message to update your script to a newer version. You can easily do it from your web browser only.
Overall Joomla Rating and Recommendation
To be frank, this is a average CMS. It is a bit more complicated than WordPress (which even a non-techie can use with ease), but less complex than the Drupal CMS and Magento. If you are new to web development and using CMSs then don’t use Joomla. If you are and you are looking to learn a new platform then go right ahead. The script is free and they have tons of modules, plugins along with great support.
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