Is Joomla still relevant in 2020?

Every year, the same question returns: Is Joomla still relevant in the current year? And you know what, that’s a great question, because:

• Every year, new people start on a journey to find a good CMS, and…
• with technology changing all the time, the answer to that question might change every year.

So without further ado, let’s dive right into answering the question.

Is Joomla still relevant? Sure.

There are people who’d be insulted you even asked, whom would answer with a resounding “yes”. Our answer is a little more nuanced. Yes, Joomla is still a good tool. Just like it was in 2019 and 2018. Because nothing has fundamentally changed. And even if Joomla 4 will be launched somewhere this year, it’ll still be mostly the same CMS. You’d have to be knees deep in Joomla to notice the changes that are made over time. Don’t @ me and mention some minor changes that have been added. Do most of Joomla’s users even know they exist?

Because of this, Joomla is still a good CMS that excels with systems for menu management, user management and module management. Joomla still doesn’t have an equal in these departments.

However, don’t expect any grand innovations any time soon. Joomla’s editing experience is still the same, and if you’re not installing JCE I’m wishing you tons of fun wrestling with the Media Manager. If there was something that stopped you from using Joomla in 2019, that feature is probably still there.

The features that have been added, don’t seem to be added for any particular reason and don’t seem to follow a larger, overarching plan. The main reason Joomla can be called both stable and stale, is that OSM has been expanding their grip on Joomla which has turned it into a product with a very complex enterprise style organization where the numbers of team leads, board members and people with titles that don’t directly contribute to pushing the product forward far outweigh those actually working on the core product.

For every George Wilson working on making Joomla the best product possible, there’s at least one or two people with complex job titles who can block progress at any given time, be it through endless meetings or holding back features for who knows what reason.

A failure to launch Joomla 4, paired with a lack of a true vision that might appeal to its core audience of site builders, has killed most if not all of the momentum that Joomla had. Search statistics don’t lie, and market share has been given up left and right to old and new competitors. But that doesn’t seem to be a problem, because they’re defending the decline by claiming that the numbers don’t matter. So, that 3% you kept mentioning…? This has also lead to a minor trend of prominent developers porting their extensions to other CMS’es (you know which one) because of economical reasons. And who can’t blame them?

Politics aside, though, Joomla is still a stable product. It’ll likely be the same, reliable CMS in 2021, 2022 and 2023. If you are looking for a safe, reliable solution for your website with specific strengths, then of course Joomla is definitely still a good choice for a CMS in 2020. Just don’t expect to be blown away by a new feature in the next few years.

Hopefully that answers your question, and if you want to yell at us, the comments are open as always.

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