Joomla!
Battle-tested open-source CMS powering millions of websites
Overview
Joomla! is one of the world's most widely deployed open-source CMSes, written in PHP and running on MySQL/MariaDB. It provides a sophisticated access control system, multilingual support out of the box, a template manager, and a large ecosystem of extensions for e-commerce, forums, calendars, and more. Joomla supports both traditional and headless (API) content delivery. Self-host on any LAMP stack.
Where it falls short of WordPress.com
- Admin UI is complex and dated compared to modern CMSes; steep learning curve for new users
- Extension quality is inconsistent; vetting third-party plugins for security requires effort
- Headless/API capabilities were added late and are less polished than dedicated headless CMSes
- Page builder and WYSIWYG experience falls behind Squarespace or WordPress.com in ease of use
We list the gaps honestly so you can decide if the trade-off is worth owning your data.
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