Is Joomla Still Popular?
Widely regarded as the second most popular CMS in the world, Joomla powers 3% of the whole web. This is a comforting thought especially if you’re considering using it for your website. Although it’s used by a sizeable number of websites, is it still popular? To answer that question, we need to look at its strengths and weaknesses.
Joomla’s strengths
According to Joomla, using their CMS gives you access to the following 7 key benefits:
- Flexibility and ease of use
You can build a professional, feature-packed website without necessarily knowing how to code. Thousands of free and commercial templates make it easier for you to do this.
- SEO-ready solution
Given the huge number of websites on the internet, the focus has increasingly shifted from merely having an online presence, to standing out from the crowd. To achieve this objective, Joomla gives your SEO efforts a head start by making it easier for you to use keywords, create menus and add metadata.
- Affordability
Because it’s an open source CMS created by passionate volunteers, Joomla is free to use. The only time you’re required to pay is when you opt to extend your website’s functionality through premium templates.
- Security
In the recent past, there has been an increase in cases of hacking and online identity theft. This means security is an important factor to consider when choosing a CMS for your online project. Joomla makes it easier for you to implement two-factor authentication, as well as various control levels for members.
- Scalability
The more members your website gains, the more complex its needs will become. Joomla anticipates these needs by making it easier for you to scale it and add features in a way that will not interfere with its smooth running.
- Lightweight PHP framework
This allows you to build additional PHP applications for your online properties, which further extends their functionality.
- Multilingual support
With Joomla you can easily translate your online content into at least 70 languages, with support for more readily available through premium templates. This makes it easier to reach more members at a very affordable cost.
With all these benefits, it’s little wonder that Joomla powers nearly two million active websites.
Joomla’s weaknesses
Although it comes with impressive features, Joomla is not devoid of deficiencies. For one, you might find it harder to install and use when compared to a more intuitive CMS such as WordPress. This limits its adoption among people who might be afraid of its relatively steeper learning curve.
Despite numbering over 8,000, Joomla’s repository of plugins and extensions is not updated regularly enough. This coupled with their limited functionality makes it harder for your website to achieve optimum performance.
Another downside of Joomla is that it doesn’t give you a good enough reason to use it. It doesn’t have any special feature that specifically sets it apart from other CMSs that you might have already been comfortable using. This doesn’t give potential new users enough motivation to switch to it, which serves to hinder its long term growth.
Joomla might still command a sizeable share of the web, but its popularity has been decreasing over the years. Over a one year period, its market share reduced from 3.25% to 3%. Given that the internet keeps witnessing growth overall, this is not good news for the CMS.
So, is Joomla still popular?
Joomla has already been downloaded more than 100 million times. Other than powering more than 9% of all documented business websites, it also holds a 6% market share of the worldwide CMS market. Although these statistics make it one of the leaders in that industry, its market share is dwindling fast.
Compared to WordPress which keeps growing year over year, Joomla is no longer as popular as it once was.
