Site builders will find that Joomla has stark contrasts to a commercial content management system such as ExpressionEngine. But it is a worthy option for low-budget projects and small staffs that don?t have strong technical skills or support.
This company used Joomla to build a Caribbean travel guide at Caribeez.com. Six months of working with the CMS has revealed a great deal about it. Here are some strengths to consider:
- A single html template and a single cascading stylesheet.
- Graphical and intuitive user interface.
- Fast to market implementation.
- Massive community support via forums.
- Numerous extensions for expanding site functionality.
- Disciplined approach to organizing content by section and category.
On the flip side, consider these potential weaknesses of Joomla:
- Security concerns. Go to the Joomla message boards and note the number of postings about sites being hacked. In fairness, Joomla appears to be much more widely distributed than EE. The bigger you are, the more people pick on you.
- Slow response time by the user interface as the site gets bigger.
- Inflexible templates due to the system allowing only one per site.
- Because it is open-source software, there is no one to pursue if something breaks. The software comes as is, without warranty.
Joomla and EE have a contrasting list of strengths and weaknesses. The right choice depends on your people, your skills, your budget and your project.
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Promise Media provides online marketing strategy for content-rich Web sites. It also publishes a guide to best Caribbean vacations to test online tactics.