Joomla
What is Joomla?
Joomla is an open-source content management system (CMS) that enables its users to create interactive websites and applications. It employs a high-functioning, intuitive interface that gives you the ability to bring very innovative changes to your web platform.
If you are an active part of the web development landscape, you must have heard of Joomla at one point or the other. It is a popular solution and is, in fact, one of the most used content management systems in the world. It has over 99 million downloads to date, so one can affirmatively say that it has at least some unique aspects to it!
The programming language Joomla uses is PHP. It also uses the MySQL database to store data. Joomla is very easy to set up, and considering the plethora of resources available on the subject, you can easily learn how to use it to your benefit.
Joomla Features
- User Management
- Media Manager
- Banner Management
- Contact Management
- Search
- Web Link Management
- Content Management
- Syndication and Newsfeed Management
- Template Management
- Integrated Help System
- System Features
- Web Services
- Powerful Extensibility
Advantages of Joomla
Besides these features, Joomla comes with some other advantages as well! Let’s see what these are.
Modules
By using Joomla, you can easily position your modules. This means that it will be very easy for you to evolve and adapt your websites. You can easily expand your website by stacking module positions above or below each other, or even side to side!
This is much more convenient than WordPress, where you need at least some sort of coding knowledge before you proceed.
Search Engine Optimization
Joomla really helps you take your SEO strategy to the next level. It enables you to construct meta descriptions that incorporate the right meta keywords, page titles, and other metadata. It also has additional metadata settings that you can tweak to make your content even more SEO-friendly.
Additionally, it even allows you to make redirects, canonical URLs, and other aspects that contribute towards the betterment of your ranking.
Articles
Unlike WordPress, Joomla doesn’t differentiate between “Pages” and “Posts”. On Joomla, both these elements are known as “Articles”. The reason that this is an advantage is that with Joomla Articles you can choose an introductory image for the Article, set an alt tag and caption for it, as well as having a “Full article image”.
This gives you complete autonomy over how the post appears to people, especially when it is shared on social media.
Multi-Lingual
Another great aspect of the platform is that it has multi-lingual support! No longer do you need a third-party plugin for this as you do for WordPress - it is actually built into the core and is, therefore, a part of the platform itself.
Paid Features
Not everything on Joomla is free - for example, Joomla doesn’t offer free hosting.
Website Media
Although it offers media management, it is nowhere as advanced as WordPress.
Content Migration
Joomla updates itself regularly. This, for the most part, is a good thing. However, it also means that content migration can be problematic sometimes.
Joomla Alternatives
In case that the drawbacks of Joomla have a bearing on your decision to use it, here are some incredible alternatives you can use instead!
- WordPress.org
- HubSpot CMS Hub
- Pantheon
- Progress Sitefinity
- Drupal
- Sitecore Experience Platform
- Contau
- Duda
- Crownpeak DXM
- Concrete5
- Salesforce CMS
- MS SharePoint
The Bottom Line
If you’re looking for an affordable and convenient CMS solution, Joomla will make a great option!