One of the questions that I received recently from a JMMO reader/visitor is:
“Do you use Joomla to run any of your websites?”
My quick answer: Yes.
To expound on that, here’s my longer answer: I actually have two sites right now that are running on Joomla. I used to have three. But, I decided that they were too difficult to maintain on the run, so I shifted one site over to WordPress.
WordPress is my preferred content management system at this time. That’s why for one of my projects right now, I decided to venture with WordPress MU. (Special note: Even though there are a lot of similarities, they are not at all the same!)
So, what’s wrong with Joomla? Nothing, really. I do love it. It has a great interface, very extendible, and plenty of features.
But, I feel as though I need a lot more skills, time, and money in order to make Joomla work the way I want it to work. Since I am unable to extend those resources, I find that it’s best to use a CMS that can help me to make me job easier.
Joomla just doesn’t have a huge “mainstream” community. From my experience, most of its users are web developers (or those who can hire them). So, there are not as many free themes, plugins, tutorials, and other resources. Everything costs money. That’s why I ended up spending hundreds of dollars just to make some of my Joomla sites look and act the way I want. Even then, sometimes, I still encounter issues – and there’s no one around to help out. Unless I’m willing to spend more money, that is.
So yes, to summarise, I do use Joomla to run a couple of websites that I own. I believe it’s a great CMS. It can do a lot of things that WordPress can’t do. But, there are also a lot of barriers to its use.
Will I recommend it? It depends on what you wish to do. For basic blogging and content management, probably not. But, if you wish to run a powerful CMS and you have the resources to do it, then yes, definitely.
You Might Also Be Interested In....
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
