Joomla is used as our main CMS for all things web-related. We run our web pages, the online cart and all the communication for wood gallery through this CMS.
Pros
Content management.
Image management.
Cons
free templates
extension help
Likelihood to Recommend
Joomla is very easy to set-up, even for the nontechnical user. Once it is set-up, ongoing maintenance is very easy. The community behind Joomla is very active and it is easy to find questions related to development in forums.
I use it to build web applications to solve an engineering problem that a corporate company has had. I've improved the business processes and communication between all our locations working together. Without Joomla, we'd all be back to email processes and slow production.
Pros
Custom Applications (Fabrik Extensions)
Complex Custom User Access - As complex as you can think it, you can create the access!
Mobile Compatible - Joomla 3 is mobile ready and bootstrapped. Also there's so many professional templates to choose from, most being mobile compatible.
Cons
Accessibility - Fortunately they have a team working on that improvement
Marketing - I hear they have huge plans with this and I'm excited to hear!
Updates - On older versions of Joomla it's really complicated to upgrade! Luckily they have been improving this since Joomla 3.
Likelihood to Recommend
The biggest question is how simple does the client need a website. If it's a basic few page site or blogging site, then WordPress would be a great and lighter solution. Joomla is best for mid level small to medium sized business sites.
VU
Verified User
Professional in Engineering (Machinery company, 201-500 employees)
We use Joomla! as our primary customer facing website CMS. It's the front-line method of engagement with our customers by providing information for our product; allowing users to log in using their social network credentials for an easy login experience; helps the user make the purchase by providing detailed information and has an integrated support area to keep our customers satisfied after the sale.
Pros
Easy to use Content Management system for creating rich content for your website.
Cost-effective extensions allow adding new functionality with minimal effort.
Easy integration with social networks using JFBConnect to help grow your site organically.
Cons
User ACL can be tricky to set up and manage if you need many different levels of user groups with various permissions for each.
Media manager is rudimentary. Uploading and editing images isn't possible.
Likelihood to Recommend
It's an excellent, well-rounded CMS applicable to just about any website need. Unless you need the most basic of websites, Joomla! is an excellent choice.
VU
Verified User
C-Level Executive in Engineering (Consumer Electronics company, 1-10 employees)
Joomla is currently the content management solution for our website. Joomla provides for a user account based front and back end as well as a public website presence. We have also implemented customer contact forms within our Joomla site for reviews, quote requests and more. The entire organization provides content for our Joomla site. Sales and Marketing are the largest users and responsible for the majority of the content.
Pros
User management, the creation of custom groups of users, various security levels, and the ability to separate back end from front end users. For example you could grant a customer access to a particular front end page that has content dedicated to them only with a username and password, yet keep them from other customers files on the back end of the system.
Numerous free extensions, Joomla provides a solid foundation for whatever kind of site you would like to build and offers a range of not only free templates but free functions such as photo galleries, contact forms, shopping cart functions.
Joomla! extension development and customization for plugins and modules. With knowledge of MySQL and PHP a skilled developer, or in many cases, even novice users can create their own extensions. For example, we created a custom FTP front end to share files with users.
Cons
Joomla! is open source and therefore does not provide immediate support for the product. If a problem occurs during setup or operation the best way to solve a problem is report it to the Joomla! community support, but a quick fix to your problem is not guaranteed.
Joomla!'s data is held (typically) in a MySQL database that the user will never see. When a Joomla! site becomes very large with an extensive number of users and/or information it can become sluggish, but this can be mitigated with some basic database management skills, specifically someone who can create new indexes, procedures or someone who knows the data well enough to archive at a certain point.
Content Management Solutions, such as Joomla!, continuously update and change with the market requirements and security requirements of the online community. I would like to see a standardized backup and restore process implemented so that if a user does upgrade there system it is easily reverted and or changes are tracked more thoroughly.
Likelihood to Recommend
When a powerful CMS is needed for a business I would recommend Joomla! over its competitors. Joomla! is great for handling data driven applications such as real estate, online shopping and so forth. Querying the database for properties and clothes is much faster than with competitors and the extraction of data into other systems for reporting is quite simple.
