CMS Overview: Joomla

Joomla!: Lots and Lots of Goodies

Get it at:

http://www.joomla.org/

Why you’d choose it:

Like Drupal, Joomla! is developer-friendly, but like ExpressionEngine and others, it’s designer-friendly as well.

  • Many, many modules are available
  • The developer community is active and friendly
  • Many, many templates are available, both free and for-pay – this is one of the nicest things about Joomla!

Joomla! provides a nice balance of design and coding customizability. There’s such a large developer community that finding a VAR or custom coder or designer is easy.

Features:

  • Blogging
  • Hierarchical category organization
  • Polls
  • User and group login and management
  • RSS
  • Integrated help system
  • Sophisticated eCommerce

Installation:

http://docs.joomla.org/Getting_Started_with_Joomla!

Templates:

 https://www.google.com/search?q=joomla+templates

Extensions:

 http://extensions.joomla.org/

 How does it compare to Drupal and Plone?

Older versions of Joomla!, like 1.5-1.7, are infamous for messy code. Newer versions like the LTS 2.5 and the new 3.0 are in theory cleaner, but any Joomla! site (like any other site) will become less stable and less upgradeable the more extensions you add.