Why Joomla Sucks! (My Joomla Review)
Nov 10th, 2006 by AhYap
(Skip this post if you don’t know what is Joomla, it is only meant for Joomla Fans)
joomla 
drupal 
phpnuke 
wordpress
Joomla is the MOST popular CMS today. They have a lot of users, a lot of developers, a lot of contributers, a lot of extensions and a lot of templates. I put in a very high expectation on Joomla and have play with it for the last few months. My experience ended up quite disappointed with Joomla and thus I take the time to try out over 30+ CMS, reading their documentations and users feedback. Finally, I admit that Joomla is not for me with the following problems.
#1. Joomla Uses UGLY URLs (No Built-in Friendly URL Support)
As the #1 CMS in the market, Joomla didn’t even have built in SEF (Search Engine Friendly) capability to display nice looking URL. The best built in capability is still something like www.yoursite.com/section/category/2/5 and sometimes it can be as ugly as www.yoursite.com/component/option,com_weblinks/catid,26/Itemid,45/
Long and Ugly. There are 3rd party extensions available, some are free and some are not! Installing and managing the friendly URLs do takes a lot of configurations and a lot of work. Joomla 1.5 is said to put in more attention to SEF, but it will be in 2nd phase. The current Joomla 1.5 beta still doesn’t have any improvement yet.
If you have already have a website and thinking of converting it into CMS, think twice before you choose Joomla. It’s very hard for you to configure Joomla to use your old addresses and naming. Unless you don’t mind losing your old addresses (i.e. lose all the traffic that is going to the old addresses).
#2. No Built-in Comment System!
This is really bullshit, as the so-called #1 content management system, there isn’t built in comment system support for your articles and blogs! You need to install 3rd party extensions and I tried almost all of them, but didn’t like any of them.
#3. Documents are group using Section and Category System
While there are people who like this, I prefer a hierarchy model. All documents in Joomla must be placed in a category. What that means is that if you have 2 sections call FRUITS and COLOR and categories APPLE, ORANGE and MANGO under FRUITS, GREEN, YELLOW, BLUE under COLOR, you must put your document in one of the 6 categories. You cannot put your document under FRUITS or COLOR, nor can you create subcategory under APPLE or BLUE. So everytime you create a document, you must pick 1 section and 1 category.
There are 2 problems. The first one being that if you just want a category call FAQ, you have to first create a ‘ghost’ section call FAQ that you will not use and create FAQ category under the FAQ section. So everytime you create a new item under FAQ, you need to choose FAQ under the section drop down, and then FAQ under the category drop down. This is not logical.
The second problem is already mentioned, you will not be able to have more subcategories. Even there is section and categories, note it is still 1 LEVEL only and not 2 level because you MUST put a document under a category, you cannot put it under a section!
Hierarchy method is a more logical way of grouping, you can create a 1st level call FRUIT, then 2nd level call APPLE & ORANGE and 3rd level call RED APPLE, GREEN APPLE (under APPLE). You can put you documents in any of them! Hierarchy method make more sense. That’s the way how our files are saved in our computer (directories, subdirectories, more subdirectories …) where you can save your file in any of them. That’s also the way how book are indexed (chapters, sub chapters, more sub chapters …).
#4. Poor Documentation for Developers.
Joomla core-developers are busy migrating all their Mambo codes to Joomla and they are too little effort on documentations. If you are new to Joomla and you are a hard-core PHP programmer, you will find it very difficult for you to start making extensions for Joomla. There are not enough tutorials and documentations. Maybe they think it is not worth it to make documentations for Joomla 1.0 as all their effort now is to fully migrate to Joomla 1.5.
#5. Nightmare if you want to add a little PHP code to your site!
Joomla is designed for end-users and expect everything to be easy so that grandma and grandpa can use it easily. However, if you know some PHP and wanna add some dynamic stuff to your site, it can be a nightmare! Even a simple echo “Hello World” will require you to create a complete module/mambot/component (writing XML file, a lot of joomla-integration PHP codes, etc). There isn’t a more simple way to quickly put some PHP code.
For other CMS like Drupal, MODx, WebsiteBaker, etc, you can easily add some PHP code to extend your site.
#6. A Joomla site is very fixed to its Pattern
What I mean is that you can easily recognize a site being made by Joomla by looking at a few things. Most of the time you can see from the urly URLs (look for the word component and option) This search in Google looking for both keyword in the URLs return 13 million pages
http://www.google.com.my/search?q=inurl%3Acomponent+inurl%3Aoption&btnG=Search&hl=en&safe=off
Others include the way they list our their categories with a bullet on the left and with a bracket that contain the articles count on the right. Also thanks to their Section/Category structure, you can only see a long flat list of documents listed in a category because there isn’t any hierarchy. There is also an easy recognizable filter, order, display row on top of listing. And lastly the << Start < Prev 1 Next > End >> Joomla Signature found under the listing of their documents.
Something Good About Joomla
Ok, I have bash too much about Joomla and with their fan base, I will not be able to stay alive long. 
So here are some praises for Joomla.
1. Should be the CMS with the most templates available! (only maybe WordPress can have a little bit more)
2. So many users that the website and forum is extremely active! Joomla.org is the top 500 most visited sites of the internet according to Alexa!
3. A very BIG and dedicated team behind Joomla. So Joomla will continue to grow rapidly in the future. You don’t need to worry that it will be abandoned like some of other CMS (or maybe wait very long for new releases).
4. Hopefully after they read this post, they will do something on it and I can blog “Why Joomla Rocks!” in 2007!
Subscribe to My Blog in a Feed Reader or simply
Subscribe by Email
joomla sucks! joomla follows mambo.
JOOMLA SUCKS!!!!!!!
Joomla is the SON of Mambo. The developers have a fight and leave mambo, creating they own ‘mambo’ called Joomla.
So, Mambo and Joomla also sucks!
no wonder la.. but yeah.. the cms is too complicated. and it sucks. whats ur best recommendation for cms? i’m lookin for something i can work and tweak with.
After testing so many, my recommendation would be
#1. MODx
#2. CMSMadeSimple
MODx can do everything cmsmadesimple can do. But cmsmadesimple is extremely easy to use. And i think it is the fastest tool to make a complete working website. The initial installation come with a premade website with contents that is actually some basic guidelines on how to use it! It make getting started really very easy. If what you need is really a simple website (such as a brochure site for a company), cmsmadesimple is very suitable. After playing with CMSMadeSimple and get comfortable with it, you can start playing with MODx, once you good with MODx you will want to stick with it all the time.
MODx advantage is that it is simple and at the same time allow further extension easily if you are a PHP programmer. Another CMS that is good for developer is Drupal. It is not for beginners. If you are new, you got to read a lot of documentation to learn what is node, what is taxanomy, etc. The default installation also doesn\’t come with any sample site.
I definitively agree!
The shortcomings of this crappy “CMS” caused us two launch delays (three weeks each)!!!
I have to add the following annoyances:
1.) No fine grained access control (permissions)
2.) BLOAT
3.) API is changed quite often – Modules break quite often after security updates
4.) “Dirty” and extremely verbose HTML output
To be continued …
Totally agree!! I wrote another article almost at the same time this was released about how Joomla sucks as well. It really sucks, I had to take a few hacks in order to get my things done for SEO. I spent nights to fix the weird stuffs in the Joomla components and its internal structure was a nightmare! I was/am really mad about it! It just SUCKS!
Elvis
Internet Marketing Watch
1. Joomla have Built-in Friendly URL Support
2. Joomla have Comment System (Extension)!
3. Documents use Section and Category System, and its the best way to do it.
4. Good Documentation and Support for Developers.
5. Easy to add PHP code to your site (Extension)!
6. A Joomla site is not fixed to its Pattern
Hi Babula,
Thanks for commenting in my blog.
1. The built-in friendly URL doesn’t allow you to name your path exactly the way you want it.
2. How could the #2 CMS doesn’t have built-in comment system but rely on 3rd party extensions. There are few of them and users need to waste time to further research to decide which one to use.
3. That depends on people. Some like it, some (like me) don’t like it.
4. Are you sure? For future Joomla 5 maybe. For Joomla 1, developers are busy focusing upgrading Joomla from Mambo and doesn’t spend much time on developer document. User documentation are indeed quite good, but not developer documentation. (Compare Joomla Documentation to Drupal Documentation and you will see Elephant and Mosquitoe)
5. Haha. Extension again. The extension are buggy and insecure. If you run a multiuser site, your user can enter PHP code! Drupal handle this perfectly.
6. Look at the way its display a listing of pages and the next previous link, and other I refer in mypost.
I have made 40 sites with joomla.. never needed some built in comment system
http://www.juicymedia.co.uk joomla-site
I have tried drupal, it was quite ok.
The main reason why Joomla is #1 is it can be used out-of-box and is user friendly enough for not technical savvy users (which are most people). For technical savvy (programmer, coder…) who like to have more control and customization, we might prefer other CMS like Drupal.
Joomla out of the box? Friendly? I’ll have a pint of whatever you’re on my friend.
@11ahyap
you’re definitely on drugs, joomla sucks big time, but what annoys me the most are the extensions and their management(they’re either installed or removed, shitty placement.. )… heck, all the administration sucks, tables everywhere, templating systems sucks too, doesn’t give you enough freedom and the presentation code is both on the template and extensions, etc etc etc, I’m really pissed off with joomla, started creating a template thinking it would be as easy as creating.. you know, a template, like a few hours and I’d have a super-duper xhtml/css/wai compliant layout as usual but no, I ended up wasting lots of time looking for extensions that allowed me to make the template look like the original prototype…
I am starting to hate joomla, i used 1 before and 1.5 version today and i cannot stress enough who much i hate this category/section bs. Just cannot see the point, what are they trying to do? Tell everyone they are stupid and only them are smart with that crayze system. Hate it, it’s so confusing and it cannot be me because i tried other systems and did lots of stuff easily. I like the big community but hate product..
This article sounds so awfully familiar to me. The tutorial on how to display ‘hello world’ on your webpage was absolutely hilarious. And I find it very difficult to add my own programming to a website. It’s like I am forced to do it Joomla-style, for creating your own menu (with divs and links and not tables or ) is too much work. But I have to use this crap because my employer uses this. I hope I can find my way in the code-mess of joomla.
Also for a month now I feel that Joomla is designed for end-users. People who don’t understand a crap about programming. For example, when I want to use a seperator in my menu I have to fill in a parameter. Seems simple, but somehow it doesn’t work anymore. But when I look at the code, I just can’t find the solution for this problem for it is hidden in the humungous amount of code… needle in a haystack so to say.
Menuhighlighting is another crappy thing. I wanted to use a seperated submenu. On top of the page I have my main menu, on the left the submenu. Highlighting doesn’t work then. So we spend a whole day figuring out how to implement this in the website. I could’ve managed it in a few minutes using a CMS built by an ex-colleague of mine…
Have to go…have to make a very simple webpage…with joomla…
Hi everyone!
I find it a bit hard to sort out who lies about cms in order to defend what interest so I can only speak about my own experience. I use both drupal and joomla 1.5 to create sites for my customers…
If you honestly compare joomla 1.5 and drupal, you will be disappointed by joomla basic limitations at early or later stage of a site development unless you need a blog type site and nothing more.
When you really need an important basic extension you don’t find it… only gadget free extensions made by companies who want to sell you something behind them but nothing serious.
Joomla looks very nice and that’s why it’s a very good trap for people who don’t compare cms by trying them themselves…
Drupal is much more efficient than joomla which was thought and made as a fly trap for non professional people to sell templates among free template, SEO amongst free SEO services, and so on…
Drupal has the core functionality for the long term which joomla misses from the start and which cannot be patched even with the millions of extensions.
Example: Group access should have been basic in joomla core as they cannot be cleanly extended later without creating many holes in cms security … too bad for joomla unless they start it all over again (you will find extensions sooner or later for group access but don’t use them!).
That’s probably why only private individuals and small companies use joomla when clever companies use drupal.
Allow unregistered visitors to submit a new article with captcha in joomla as a simple proposal for approval by admins in a queue before it is published is possible but will never be secure… it takes 2 minutes with drupal !
Hi, nice thread here. I have to say; I think Joomla! is excellent! for creating messy, instable, non xhtml complient, SEO-unfriendly, WAI-losing, impossible to manage or deploy.
I tried Joomla to create a simple, seo-friendly, complient website and stopped after a week… I tried CMSMadeSimple to do the same and was finished in 5 hours. Believe me; this is the one. Have to see what additional modules bring, but so far, this is something that could actually be used! I just started my webdesign firm and use CMSMadeSimple for my first client… He LOVES the easy admin module, and added content is actually humanly understandable..
Kudos to them!
Wouter
I think Joomla is kind of old school. Things are moving into ROR like frameworks: Cake, CodeIgniter…
I dumped Joomla because of the Joomla-SMF stuff thats going on.
I used TinyPortal for SMF to do what Joomla did and I’m happy with it.
http://eCric.net
Agree with all the points, there’s gotta be built-in commenting and SEF support like drupal.
What do you guys think of Website Baker?
http://websitebaker.org
It is super easy to setup and use.
2 things I really like are #1 it is super SEO Friendly with the urls it creates. #2 unlike joomla it uses a simple system to publish pages. You can install and publish pages in a few minutes. No stupid category system to figure out. I installed joomla and gave up after a few hrs of trying to just get a damn article on the front page. What a joke.
I have so far about 10 sites of my own and another 10 for customers. This is pretty much the only system I have found where I can set it up for some one who knows nothing about how to operate a website and they can catch on and run it without too much trouble. There are some decent templates available and they are pretty easy to modify. I have 1 site that does about 1k to 1.5k unique visitors a day. Not much I know but the site is solid and google really likes it seo wise.
I would just like to know how others feel about this cms.
###
Joomla 1.5 has a lot going for it.
The Model-View-Controller design pattern for extensions is EXTREMELY powerful. I find most people who complain that Joomla isn’t “developer friendly” actually mean that Joomla isn’t “scripter friendly”. Anyone who understands object-oriented design and common software engineering design patterns will be in love with Joomla 1.5’s extremely clean and extensible framework.
The templating system is insanely flexible and easy to use. Some of the core components are still outputting outdated tables, but it is dead easy to write override templates since ONLY pure data is passed to the template – no HTML is passed from the code which is very uncommon and forces people to hack core code to change default HTML.
That said, Joomla is FAR from perfect. The user access is short-sighted and very limited. Also the content management setup with Sections and Categories is utter nonsense.
I personally look at Joomla as a site framework more than a CMS. Once you learn the ins and outs of the API, Joomla makes a great base for web application development as opposed to typical content management.
Hi AhYap,
I know joomla sucks, but it is open-source among others. Now I’m stuck in Fetch PHP coding, anyone willing to help?
Or recommended me other CMS. Thanks a lot.
Your are absolutely right — Joomla will not be abandoned, but it will abandon it’s older version users.
As I have built a site using the pre Joomla 1.5 engine, I have become quite comfortable with my plugins and components.
Now that Joomla 1.5 is out — there is no easy way to move my data over from an older Joomla to Joomla 1.5. Even the Joomla site states that data may be lost upon conversion.
None of my components and plugins will run natively in Joomla 1.5 unless you turn on legacy mode which is counter intuitive to Joomla 1.5 and turns off certain features of 1.5.
So… as no more security updates will be done for an older Joomla structure, I will therefore be stuck with a system that will eventually get eaten by hackers.
Since my plugins and components run on Mambo as well, I guess I will be forced to switch back to Mambo eventually unless the Joomla team can come up with a better solution to let me move all my data from Joomla 1.0.014 to Joomla 1.5.
I’m sure I am not the only person stuck in this boat.
-joe
Hey some of you guys are forgetting something.
Not everyones a programmer. While I agree Joomla is hard to understand it’s not such a bad option for those who prefer to go to the configuration screen rather than edit configuration.php
Also there are some pretty decent templates for Joomla.
Sure IMO Drupal is better all round it could do with a few slick templates (themes). Joomla hardly ’sucks’ but it’s also not the ‘king’ of CMS people make it out to be.
My company wants to deploy content, not provide a playground for programmers. We’ve been using drupal, but every time we want a design change in our sites it results in months of work by our one developer, all accompanied by grousing and complaining about how much is expected of him. We’re moving to Joomla slowly and find that with little work we can deploy feature rich and content rich sites that are easy for end-users to manage, cutting out the programmer middle man. Maybe others are finding this to be true as well. That probably accounts for the complaining on this blog from hard-core coders that Joomla isn’t good enough. Of course you’ll complain about a technology that cuts you out of job. So much for the high-tech high-priest guarding the technological holy of holies. Joomla is delivering web design and development to a broader audience. Warts and all, that’s a very good thing!
Hey guys,
)
I’ve been using Joomla for a year now and must say that I’m quite satisfied with it. I’ve installed Virtuemart and a few other components and modules and everything runs fine. I count X pages that I made with Joomla, one of them with 1.5.
When I read some of your posts, I ask myself if half of you even think about what they are writing. This is an OS CMS. Got something to say? Give your 5 cent to society and make it a better world. It’s really easy to point the finger and say: “bad” or “sux” or “shit” … But about changing it to make it better?! I point the finger and say: “retards” “idiots”. Why ? Because You can’t do better than this! You can ? Prove it!
So what? there are some extensions or templates that have to be paid for ? Don’t we all want to survive in this jungle and have something to eat every day ?
Stop talking s*** and try to build a community like the Joomla one and/or do a better Job.
To “ahyap”, what have you done today that makes you proud of yourself? Or in the past? Bitching about 3rd party components and modules … Oh man, you’re sad. This is an OS. Open your dictionary, maybe you’ll find the meaning of it. As for me, if there weren’t possibilities to add these “plugins” or make some hacks, where would the OS concept fit in?
To tekno_boy: You’re right, Not Everyone Is a Programmer. And most of the so-called Programmer do forget that …
Why don’t you guys just join the community and earn money with your so called “talent”. Because if you have a big mouth to criticize, I guess You Must Be Really Really Good in what you are Doing or Bitching about!
This was my 5 cent about this great (but by far not perfect) CMS. Anyway, who’s is? YOU?!
Regards
Oh, and I almost forgot None of my clients ever complained about this CMS. ;op
Interesting read. I tried searching information on Joomla after evalaluating if for several days and had a hard time. I absolutely agree those several drawbacks ahyap initially listed. I am trying to migrate one of my client site and I think this post helps me a lot on my decision.
To LusoLux, if you are grown up then try to behave civic.
I totally agree with those drawbacks too.
The worst thing is the section/category feature … not only you must have a 2 level category system (not 1 or 3 but exactly 2) but also you cannot put an article in multiple categories. I can’t understand how can people bear such limitations …
joomla are not for blog shit, so why need built-in comment system.
joomla have the ability to reorganize the module positions, unlike other cms, u have to tweak the code.
@ LusoLux
“Stop talking s*** and try to build a community like the Joomla one and/or do a better Job.”
What community are you talking about there buddy?
I have to agree, Joomla is rather crappy. And that is also true from the developer side. Mostly because even simple things are implemented in a messy complex way technically and completely naive in functionality. Same goes for praised MVC implementation for extensions. I’ve done rails, I’ve done MVC-s on .NET and none of them required so much dumb keyboard dumping as Joomla requires.
I’m won’t even discuss the content model Joomla uses or the “great” globalization features it offers nor performance issues and handicapped caching system. I must confess I don’t know how much of the 1.5 code was actually ported from 1.0 and how much was rewritten. If it required such a bloaty framework, I wonder why they didn’t start from scratch.
hi,
been there, done that…well ur pre-mature experience wif joomla n ur complaints against it like u know ‘em better! i have nothing against other cms, as i used different approach towards projects. n of course this doesnt mean that joomla can fits in every project though. it’s the questions of what to use n how to use it. it’s the person who use it that matters most!
I must agree to ahyap regarding the shortcomings of Joomla. It’s true using Joomla often pissed me and made me cursed “Joomla sucks!”
Main flaws:
- Bloated
- Little flexibility
- Found it’s often unable to do some basic CMS functions
- Doing simple CMS things the complicated way
Main benefits:
- Very popular, many users base
I have to admit I am not a big fan of Joomla but I do like all the available modules . Even the commercial ones if they allow code modification. I have used cms made simple and must admit it is much better for smaller sites and non tech savvy users but joomla may be better for large sites for organizing lots of content with thir limited but still useful sections and categories. Although I totally agree that it is poorly developed. I see version 1.0 like the cms version of oscommerce: badly designed, mixture of presentation and business logic and a lot of questionable modules BUT it comes with a large user base with a lot of off the shelf extensibility. I think they are headed in the right direction with 1.5. Adopting the MVC design pattern is a big step in the right direction. My biggest gripe right now with joomla is that urls are all hard coded in the database. Both in the menus and in content items. I would also like to see better documentation to the likes of drupal or the codeignitor framework. Both well documented. I also don’t see why anyone would say it is end user friendly. Try sorting the menu structure in joomla then try the ajax sorting in cmsms. Try assigning a different template to each page. Try counting an explaing to the end user each step to create a page in joomla. Between creating the section, category, content item and menu item there must be at least 12 page views to get the result. Then compare to single page using cmsms.
I’m a user, starting an online business. Not a coder at all. I just want a tool to build my business (an arts-oriented portal) My criticism of Joomla and other cms’ is that
**the sites and templates all look the same**.
Very rectangular, no graphics, menus, or anything running at angles or overlapping. It’s a very corporate look. No matter what the color scheme or images, they’re all just these very blocky grids.
So can somebody tell me, is this because
(a) CMS like Joomla are limited to this look, by design?
(b) Designers are too lazy to make anything else?
(c) Nobody in the world other than me wants their site to look any different?
Thanks. I’d really like to hear something about this.
Most of the stuff you’ve mentioned is either inaccurate or outdated. Perhaps its time to take another critical look at Joomla.
- Sid
I think Joomla is for end-user with little programming knowledge..Not without total programming knowledge/experiences at all!
However, you don’t have to be a competitive like a ‘genius’ of knowing how to make a ‘complex’ – ‘Hello World’ output.. Untill now I don’t even know how to make ‘Hello world’ using PHP.
I don’t even know how to program at first and my background is in agriculture! Yet I figured out how stuff work out and find solution toward it. Not just cry out yelling here and there.
By the way, layout of Joomla is mostly depend on the designer creativity and their tweaking experiences on using CSS, PHP and HTML. Sadly the structure of design still have to adhere and limit to JOOMLA positioning..However, this is not a major issues. I’m sure by time goes by, Joomla will develop into better CMS..
I totally agree! Joomla is for idiots who cant code in php. Joomla created their own alien language that is designed to be understood by morans only. I had a competition with someone who is a joomla professional and created a site with 10 times more functionality in half the time using php and notepad.
While we’re slamming stuff, has anybody noticed that the site ‘joomlabook.com’ will not open in IE6? I pinged the author, Barrie North, about it and the response was that “IE6 is old. Don’t use it.” Excuse me, but IE6 is still 30% of the user base according to w3.
In fairness, I’ve not seen this problem with any other Joomla-powered site. But I thought for a Joomla ‘guru’ to take such an attitude to a browser-compatibility issue was way off-base. Especially since he was pitching me on his ‘SimplWeb’ service at the same time.
First off, I’m a coder who got sick of building custom CMS systems for each one of his clients, so I decided to look for a CMS system that would meet most of my clients needs and could be easily extended to meet those that it didn’t. I built a membership based site that needed a couple of extra modules, as well as automated user import from a legacy system. I built the site on Joomla 1.5, thinking that building with the newest and best was going to save my client money on later upgrades… Bad call. They want a forum component… Oh yeah, none exists for 1.5. (They may now, this was about six months ago.) In fact, MANY components don’t exist in 1.5, and the whole Joomla Open Source component sales issue means that many will NEVER exist for 1.5, paid or free! The API is very poorly documented, and writing the admin side of any component is a MAJOR pain in the butt.
So, I tried Drupal and was blown away at the ease of customization. The previous commenter who said their coder was complaining about customization obviously has a very crappy coder working for them because I’ve never met a pre-built system easier to customize than Drupal. You can hook into (almost) any part of the page building process easily, allowing you to inject your own functionality almost anywhere in the system. Integration possibilities are endless (we do a lot of flash, so Services/AMFPHP is awesome).
Yes, Joomla is pretty and somewhat easy to use, but I’ll take the power any day. My clients can handle a learning curve if it means that they can save lots of money and get more bang for their buck.
I just have to say that in my opinion Joomla [1.5] is more framework than CMS, sure it has some faults [non SEF urls (by default!!!, but it breaks with non-SEF extensions), fixed user groups and fixed content categorization [section->category->your-content or static (with no section)]], but it accommodates my client’s needs and mine perfectly.
I think you should see Joomla more as a framework tahn a CMS, it has succeded as a CMS thanks to the vast library of extensions, but you can’t always rely on extension devs [Fireboard is a good example].
For those arguing about not being able to use custom php, there are several custom-code modules that work with no problems, and it is quite easy to add your own code for anything you like [even pre-existent hand-written php sites] as a component, just following a simple file-structure [read the first pages of "Learning Joomla Extension Development"].
Again, if you are a dev, Joomla should be seen more as a framework, not as an openly customizable CMS ["hackable" for the joomla fanbois (as me =P)]. If you want to make a blog, use wordpress, a BLOG software, using Joomla for that is like using a cannon to kill a fly, but hey, the fly still dies in an awesome way =).
Joomla is not blog software, it’s for real websites
, so its dumb to compare it to wordpress, as dumb as comparing PHP to Ruby On Rails (language vs. framework) . As I said, I’m a Joomla fan, but if i had to do a blog, I wouldn’t hesitate to use Wordpress instead.
Get the packt publishing books, that is all you need to make joomla yours in no time. Want forum integrations?, look at JFusion [http://jfusion.org/], still under development, but its advancing extremely well and can be looked at as a solution right now.
Why cant we compare joomla to wordpress? we just redid an entire site with wordpress that was running on joomla and was never finished.. so if joomla is meant for real websites, how come this one sucked and it works fine on wordpress now?
because.. yes, joomla sux!
Joomla… Does the Job but not the tidiest/cleanest of all
CMS Made Simple… One of the Best CMS
Drupal… The Best CMS
ROR (framework)… Kicks Ass
Old School PHP… Beats them all
After converting 2 static websites (10k+ documents each) into Joomla 1.5 powered websites, I can honestly say, I’ll never consider using Joomla for anything ever again.
Not only is it so developer unfriendly its repulsive, but try explaining to a client how they are now supposed to manage 10k documents using Joomlas admin UI. Its a nightmare to say the least and no one comes out happy.
Because of this, I developed my own CMS – API powered. Requirements on the client front-end are almost non existent (make xml requests and get the response [curl], and a way to parse the XML). Mavieo does not force people into cold fusion, php, .net, jsp, or anything else. Its completely up to the client what language they wish to use to build out the front-end of the site. This makes the CMS completely portable, flexible and a joy to work with. However, I have developed a PHP powered frontend to get those with PHP servers up and running quickly.
Check it out and leave your thoughts.
Frontend: http://demo.mavieo.com/
Backend: http://myadmin.mavieo.com/?demo
I agree with some guys that Joomla is not so user friendly. Well, basically most of our clients find it a little hard to understand the system, while others find it simple!
hmmm.. i guess that’s a matter of hmmmm.. can’t say.
but overall, i believe on a project management level, Joomla helps you really finalize your work .. fast and efficiently, except for the challenge in making people understand how to build their content on it.
In short, Joomla sucks!!
I know inside out of php and still struggling to change my button name and text labels in joomla …
With a day of meeting with client i listed 2 pages of changes he want, like changing lables and buttons and basic functionality and addition of few extra fields..
In php it is a 2 days of work so far ..
In joomla, i guess this will take for ever, 2 days passed with not much of progress … ya may be because i am new to joomla but still joomla is just a system written in PHP and I understand PHP well, so wat the fucking language does joomla speaks that was rooted by PHP.
Shame on you joomla guys … well comment is based on Joomla 1.0.15
I am stuck with this crappy, bloated, fucking so called CMS.
I agree with this.. Joomla is nothing but a whole lot of B.S… I shifted from joomla to wordpress for its ease to use and the space it takes.. and nothin can beat wordpress..!!! NOTHIN!!!
Great read,
Joomla is horrible. I tried for months to give it a chance. Everything is way too hard to do, even after you figure it out, its like WTF, why is this so difficult!
I tried all the CMS’s on opensourcewebdesign.com and like how CMSMadeSimple does it, plus the smarty template system is genius.
For everyone who think Joomla sucks:
You just don’t understand the system.
And indeed, it can be a framework or a CMS, your choice. But to create a good site in Joomla, you need to understand the system. For upkeeping your site, you can let users give less rights then superadmin, everbody who has a bit more then an IQ of 60 can work with it.
You can piss on Joomla all you want, agreed, it has somke quirks but that goes for every framework/cms.
The startpost is also on 2006, 2 years is a lot of time guys
Joomla is easy and excellent. But users need some IQ (above 60 yes)
rom- We don’t understand the system? If it were better organized we would be able to. That’s the issue! Your IQ comment is ridiculous. Regardless of IQ, one could work with any program, but one IS intelligent they choose the program with better UI. I’ve read most of these posts and they pose valid points, not insults, so they’re not pissing on anything. No program is perfect, but our point is that there are a number of programs that have far fewer issues. In two plus years, what has improved?
OK, I had to work with Joomla 1.0.x on a film festival website with this guy who would not use anything else. He initially set it up so was stuck with it. I found it painful to use and to develop. I usually hate a bunch of 3rd party components that do not do the job they way they want it. IT does not dictate. The user base dictates the functionality. The administration was painful for me and I am used to a Unix or Linux environment where all configurations are done with VI. They users hated trying to even write documents using this piece of garbage. The people coming to the site found it difficult to navigate. When the users find a module they would like to implement then the component costs a price they do not wish to invest. Well, it basically means I have to emulate it at what they pay me. This retard split and we have to move hosts. I am rewriting the site in ASP.Net 3.5 with the functionality they need. At least I will be able to maintain that with greater ease.
Mark:
In my opinion the system is well organized, there is 1 place where articles are stored. Pretty basic if you ask me
A lot of comments seem to be about this sections and categories, I agree that there were better solutions possible.
But Joomla is more of a framework, not just software to create a simple blogwebsite.
In to years plus (lets state the original points again)
#1. Joomla Uses UGLY URLs (No Built-in Friendly URL Support)
-> Not true, nice URL out of the box
#2. No Built-in Comment System!
-> I still don’t see why this sucks.
#3. Documents are group using Section and Category System
-> Minor issue for all websites beside blogsites
#4. Poor Documentation for Developers.
-> http://developer.joomla.org/
#5. Nightmare if you want to add a little PHP code to your site!
-> just extend the framework! (why is that an issue, ever framework shoulb be extendable?)
#6. A Joomla site is very fixed to its Pattern
->entirly untrue. In J1.5 you can customize the output to whatever you want, without touching the corefiles
See http://developer.joomla.org/tutorials/165-understanding-output-overrides-in-joomla.html
Thats is why I said if you think it sucks, you just don’t understand the system
I see a lot off people hacking into the core files of a component or even joomla because they do not know about this whole output override mechanism.
Again: Joomla is a FRAMEWORK, not just some blogsitecreatethingy.
My IQ remark was not intended as an insult, but more of a statement how easy is it to work with Joomla, so I’m sorry if anyone has read an insult in it.
Chris:
“The administration was painful for me and I am used to a Unix or Linux environment where all configurations are done with VI.”
-> don’t blame Joomla for what you are used to. Just as you should not blame a manually shifted car if you are used to an automatic
“The people coming to the site found it difficult to navigate.”
-> don’t blame Joomla if you have a bad navigation implemented
“When the users find a module they would like to implement then the component costs a price they do not wish to invest”
-> for almost everything there is a good free extension at http://extensions.joomla.org/
“I am rewriting the site in ASP.Net 3.5 with the functionality they need. At least I will be able to maintain that with greater ease.”
Don’t blame Joomla for the fact that a beginner has set up a site and got stuck. You should have rebuild from scratch, but you couldn’t know, because you were not a Joomla expert.
In c# you would also rewrite an application if a beginner has started the wrong way and got stuck, you would not automatically rewrite it in Java. You would do that only if you didn’t know enough c# and a lot of java
So again, you think Joomla sucks because you had 1 bad experiance, which has nothing to do with Joomla, but more about cleaning the mess someone else has made.
Here are some new points and some we are still waiting on:
#1 No ACL system….this is something any well designed cms has from the start…authors, editors and admins oh my…we will see how 1.6 solves this! IMHO this is the single largest issue for J1.5!
#2 can not choose a different template for different menu items like cmsms…
#3 no multiple site manager…ok to be fair not many open source cms systems have this
#4. STILL POOR DOCUMENTATION for Developers – come on be real…do you really consider this line item fixed haha …see http://www.codeignitor.com for what real documentation looks like
#5 extensions are not really true MVC…i looked at 6 or 7 of them to verify and i think only one came close…most others still mixed business logic and presentation and where are the models?
#6 poor ui – Somebody tell me why I can’t i move multiple menu items to one parent menu item…in fact my favorite cms menu managers allow me to drag and drop sort my menus…
#7 poorly designed extensions and modles – 65% of the modules and extensions I have reviewed for use in a customer websites were crap and had issues. That being said the rest were great. I think better documentation will help with that issue. Then all you newbie developers that don’t know basic coding will stop creating hack jobs…i mean c’mon does joomla want to be the oscommerce of cms’s.
#8 slooooow – has anyone noticed that joomla is slower then your custom apps and other cms systems when they are on the same server….ok granted my custom apps are light years more efficient and better designed then Joomla but I do use a framework and people are touting Joomla as a framework
Some points that joomla HAS improved upon:
overriding core and extension templates
almost an HMVC design pattern – although not all module and extension developers follow the rules
much better urls which are human readable!
added uncategorized category and section and got rid of static content
It is true that Joomla was a horrible when this was first posted and now it is just mediocre. Developers that belong to the church of Joomla just don’t know better because to them it probably is the best framework they have ever been involved with!
Here are some new points and some we are still waiting on:
Also this is probably al legacy problem, extension not completely rewritten.
#1 No ACL system….this is something any well designed cms has from the start…authors, editors and admins oh my…we will see how 1.6 solves this! IMHO this is the single largest issue for J1.5!
-> Is has ACL, but admitted, it is not GROUPWARE quality
#2 can not choose a different template for different menu items like cmsms…
-> Sure you can, you can assign a different template for every single menu item (just check extension->templatemanager and click a template you want to assign. Then assign it to the menuitems
#3 no multiple site manager…ok to be fair not many open source cms systems have this
-> Yes there is, check the extension library
#4. STILL POOR DOCUMENTATION for Developers – come on be real…do you really consider this line item fixed haha …see http://www.codeignitor.com for what real documentation looks like
-> Maybe not a lot af docs for the framework, but surely enough to create extensions and develop your templates.
#5 extensions are not really true MVC…i looked at 6 or 7 of them to verify and i think only one came close…most others still mixed business logic and presentation and where are the models?
-> don’t blame Joomla for poor 3rd party extensions
#6 poor ui – Somebody tell me why I can’t i move multiple menu items to one parent menu item…in fact my favorite cms menu managers allow me to drag and drop sort my menus…
-> True, this can’t be done. Never missed it.
#7 poorly designed extensions and modles – 65% of the modules and extensions I have reviewed for use in a customer websites were crap and had issues. That being said the rest were great. I think better documentation will help with that issue. Then all you newbie developers that don’t know basic coding will stop creating hack jobs…i mean c’mon does joomla want to be the oscommerce of cms’s.
-> again, don’t blame the framework for poor 3rd party development.
#8 slooooow – has anyone noticed that joomla is slower then your custom apps and other cms systems when they are on the same server….ok granted my custom apps are light years more efficient and better designed then Joomla but I do use a framework and people are touting Joomla as a framework
-> Point taken, but this is tweakable.
Maybe it is not the best cms or framework in the world, but I see a lot of comments that Joomla sucks because of this or that, but a lot of these comments are there just because lack of knowledge of the framework.
So I’ve given Joomla what I consider to be a fair try. I originally chose it over Drupal because it seemed easier to theme. And it did in fact prove to be so.
But in the end, I really wanted simple, computed URLs. I didn’t want to force users to associate pages with no less than Sections, Categories _and_ MenuItems. I just don’t see how have complicated URL lookups was at all efficient, and considering the output, it was definitely useless. So I have switched my project over to CMS Made Simple, and I am really appreciating the simplicity. Theming is fairly easy the admin UI seems user friendly. Overall, a much quicker turnaround product. The main loss of course is Joomla’s massive repository of addons. CMS Made Simple have quite a few, but i haven’t explored them heavily yet.
Dissapointing version 1.5 :
+ Easy installing modules, components, templates.
+ Relative easy to organize articles.
+ Speed is okay.
+ Amount of free (gratis) templates are fair.
+ Very good backup plugin (JoomlaPack) !
- To many buggy and ugly extensions.
- Not even a events calendar build in ?!
- No way to organize backend articles.
Major disadvantages (to my use anyway) :
- No (core) content access control (by groups and users).
- No (core) way to force specific articles to use SSL.
(Hope to see these functionality in V2.0) !!
Don’t mention Drupal as an alternative. Same disadvantages, just more ugly ;-/
———————————
Any alternatives ??
When V1.6 ACL is implementet and actually works – Joomla becomes a winner.
http://developer.joomla.org/coordinator-blog/286-happy-new-year-2009-is-going-to-be-a-big-one-point-six.html
I found this post by googling “Joomla Sucks’…. LOL. I just installed it today via Godaddy and I’m having tons of problems with it.
well bro, even after 3 years you post this, Joomla still suck.
* time consuming when updating website
* too many page level to go through
* template not so user friendly even Forum/Wiki page not very helpful
Trying out Joomla now. My god it is slooooow and disorganized, the navigation system is stupid, the entire UI is completely useless and non-intuitive. The only good part was the setup procedure which was reletively painless.
Fully agree, Joomla is really a strait jacket. Huge amount of files but almost no creativity possible unless you make radical changes.
It is almost 20 MB when uploaded – with so much software you would expect to have much more up-to-date performance, like stylish gallery, elegant forum, perfect slideshows, attractive random headers, first class text editing, SEF. Actually I also don’t like the design very much, it is all without fine details. For me a website must have all functionality, but a website must be also like a jewel, something what people like to see again and again. Joomla is a big disappointement, you work for so many hours but what is the result, upgrade to next version? Yes, Joomla is for old people who cannot write code.
I’ve been doing design for more than 10 years. Being a non-programmer, I agree that Joomla SUCKS. If its good for developers, then thats all good but when you have to watch video tutorials to understand how the back-end works, you know there is something wrong. I have written my own CMS’s in the past, and I can tell you that Joomla sucks bone compared to Wordpress or other CMS tools.
just curious, which CMS did you use for this site ahYap?
I’m finding that Joomla is not as bad as I originally thought. I had to do a lot of troubleshooting, and spent 12hrs one day just digging into it to figure out what was going on. Once I got ride of the sample data and built the tutorial site to learn how to use it, I grew to actually like Joomla. I’ve also found that editing the backend is about as easy as wordpress once I figured out what I was doing.
Heya.
I’ve used Joomla once for a fairly extensive site re-build, as at the time, it was the only Open Source CMS capable of handling what we needed to do, the site we made even won an award from the Joomla team.
I found it a nightmare to design for, and after the fact, there was the frustration of seeing the system publish using tables, regardless of my markup, and after a few months the users were unanimous in their dislike of it as a publishing system.
It seems that a few years down the line, nothing much has changed really, as I’m having to work on a Joomla site now, developed by someone else, and it is just IMPOSSIBLE to get into, even with experience. It has to be one of the least intuitive CMS’s out there, and I can guarantee I’ll never use it again. I switched to Textpattern after that, before Wordpress was as good as it is now, and will probably look into CMSmadesimple at some point, along with Drupal.
If you’re looking for something to run a small to medium sized site, use Wordpress, bigger sites, use Drupal.
As a developer friend said, “Joomla is great. IF you can afford to hire a full-time php developer, a part-time designer, and a part-time website manager, all to run it for you. Otherwise, forget it.”
I am content with Joomla.
I assume this is an old article because most reference is about 1.0 and not 1.5. In either case, it’s fun to rant
Joomla sucks, reason X+1:
I installed the thing, and when trying to access the admin panel the password I had just set didnt work, tried to reset it to a known hash, didnt work, twice. Goodbye Joomla
Joomla totally sucks bigtime, you’re absolutely right. No way to change the look and feel without hacking code or creating templates? WTF? So I can’t change header image, font or background colors AT ALL from inside the interface??? No file upload from my computer straight into an article? A Frontpage Manager which is an article manager, and very little to do with how the frontpage looks?
Crap interface, crap functionality, crap security, and zero flexibility unless you’re a programmer. So much for Web 2, putting power into the hands of ordinary people.
reading these comments, it´s clear some people haven´t spend long enough with it.
Joomla is incredible if you know how to use it. Of course you can edit css files to change colours and suchlike within the template (in the admin panel). Just don´t rely on crappy templates, go with professional ones – or write your own.
The SEO function works well, but you need to edit your configuration.php to ensure this works (livesite line).
The updates for joomla are so simple a 3 year old could do it. Just upload and extract… it´s not difficult!
With Joomla you can change the site to make it how YOU want. So many people say all sites look the same but it isn´t true. Use some imagination people!
Joomla is the core engine, if you want it to work for you put the time into it.
@Cropper
I’ve spent more than enough time on Joomla, enough to know that it’s the most cumbersome, laborious, and clunky CMS out there.
Clients hate it, and almost all agree that in order to use it proficiently requires hiring a web manager, or getting a developer on staff.
For small jobs there are much more appropriate systems out there, like Wordpress or Textpattern, or SimpleCMS. For larger jobs, given the amount of time needed to learn about Joomla, I would always go with a bespoke system.
Joomla simply doesn’t cut it.
The section / category model is extraordinarily inflexible, limiting, confusing and just plain dumb. This is not content management.
Still no built-in commenting or blogging functionality in 1.5. Unreal.
The admin interface is so complex that clients invariably end up not even using it.
Joomla is a disaster. How this so-called “CMS” ever got to be so popular is beyond me.
Joomla is a big crap!!!! Nothing else!!!!!
Never used but I like complaining, so Joomla SUCKS !!
All prebuilt CMS’s suck. Use CakePHP or Ruby On Rails if you want some power.
make your own cms then.. Jommla ROCKS!
it helps those who wanted to create a powerful CMS page with ease.
Hail Joomla! and THANK YOU for such a good cms! and billions of cool templates!
Joomla programmers just can’t figure what kind of template basically most people want, something like http://www.nps.edu/ with good-looking dropdown menu, impressive slideshow, and below articles with comment function. Joomla isn’t meant for static content, it is meant for dynamic stuff. So far unless you make a whole new template on your own, there is nothing ready available.
Well Lenny, glad you found a website you like, but opinions are not all the same regarding the beauty of it
Joomla sucks big time!
can’t even figure out how to alter a menu. Or add a single page. Don’t see how this is easy.
I also agree with the fact that Joomla has got some limitations as in the case of SEF and all. But it is not a Crap at all. If it is a whole crap , then why it become this much popular..? Actually Joomla is powerful CMS that will help anyone to create a simple site or a complex one like a Social Networking, Video Sharing, Online marketting using the powerful thirdparty extensions. There is a number of free extensions avialble . It will work great if the code is hacked a bit. If you want to study Joomla thoroughly consider visiting http://joomtuts.co.cc for the resources and http://hacking-joomla.blogspot.com for useful hacks.
well, maybe joomla is not for the mentally challenged forcefiend
RTFM
@smartass
Is that what you tell clients?
That they’re mentally challenged and should RTFM?
No wonder we don’t let the programmers answer the phones…
No Pah, just forcefiend
I hate joomla..I have to get it off my chest.
Reason being is you have to link a menu to a componet, and everything you write has to be an article or a blog. There are preconfigured ways to arrange these articles and you CANT CHANGE THESE!! (unless you do like a milliion hacks..) See I thought ooh id like to control layout of two articles on the same page in different places, would it let me, yeah right!! You have to link menus to components, you cant link them to modules, and you can only put one content component on a page! But people say ooh theres so many add ons and templates…the templates you get free are terrible and the add ons i tried are slow, trying to fit these together with a single style that runs throughout your site, which is the essence of design is insane!!
I have wasted too much time on this joomla, I will do better just programming from scratch, at least I know when I make a box, I know where it will be!!!!
I only used it because I thought clients would easily be able to maintain their site..hmmm. How do web designers allow clients to maintain websites without one of these cms?
Right I think im going to go to the coffee shop and get a blueberry muffin before i regroup
(feel betetr now)
Good point, joomla is far too complicated compared with the result what you have at the end. Meanwhile wordpress has so many templates which are much easier to handle, with more features and look even better like joomla. Seems like joomla is made for this that once you get envolved you have to pay for impressive templates which make the whole endeavour worth it. At joomla’s main page they took off the free templates section and more and more you find they want to sell stuff. At the joomla forums you always read, “hi, I’m a newbie to joomla…”, why, because all experienced webmasters avoid joomla.
Yes, Joomla is a serious web development tool, and if you need a blog then something simple like WordPress probably makes more sense. Drupal has its place but is not the framework Joomla is (there are extensions to plug Drupal INTO Joomla, but have not heard of vice-verse).
A few tips for some of the ‘Jhaters’ out there:
1) To resolve your Section/Category and diverse layout issues, just use the K2 extension.
2) Use the JCE WYSIWYG editor to make it easier to directly upload images into content.
3) Joomla is somewhat limited by GoDaddy’s bulk server solutions: they seem to restrict quite a bit of access from my experience.
—
But honestly, Joomla, WordPress, Drupal, and CMSMS are all tremendous accomplishments for open source development. Coders who learn the ins-and-outs of any of these systems have far more power to create than ever before; and the cost of affordable web development is now within the reaches of average businesses like never before.
One thing I’ve noticed as we’ve continued to use Joomla more and more through the years, is that more and more often we’re just writing our own extensions from scratch: it seems odd to me to review these comments and not read more postings from developers who tried to take the route of developing their own components, modules, and plug-ins.
Once you get THAT down, Joomla is a very beautiful beast.
-Matt
MLP
Joomla CMS is considered to be the #1 CMS system all over the world
User list in millions – Numbers Simply DON’T STOP
Everything is based on MVC pattern, if you are a developer you will need to learn its API or framework (Only if you are writing an Extension all by your self) – Though most of the extensions are readily available
Joomla.org is ranked top 500 by Alexa..
and so forth and so forth.. I am talking about facts. Also, have a look out for Joomla 1.6 Beta, it has over come all the lame negative points mentioned in the start of this blog.
Joomla only gives you its fruit if you are a user / developer with PATIENCE, or else you will just use fast systems which are not secure, not reliable, not scalable, not user friendly & so forth..
Joomla Team and community Simply Rocks !
@Dino
You’re talking nonsense, and I have one word for you. Wordpress.
Just like you said, “Joomla only gives you its fruit if you are a user / developer with PATIENCE”. Why should I be patient with a CMS? I want it to work, I don’t want to have to hack on it to make it work.
Here’s a fact for you Dino, since you like facts. Joomla was written with code stolen from Mambo, by ex-Mambo staffers. It’s a horrible mish mash of code, put together by horrible people, and it sucks ass as a CMS. End of story.
Have always hand coded my sites because I like the control,
I was told to use Joomla for work but after four months I could honestly quit my job in order to stop using this crap.
Joomla is not for pussies. Why don’t you losers go play with drupal or something.
fucking complicated BULLSHIT thats what joomla is, i’m at the end of my tether with it
I’m with Haha Haha:
Everyone who posts these negative Joomla rants is one of three things:
1) An uninformed and uneducated newbie (this must be the biggest class of commenters here; all these complaints about SEF URLs, comments, section/category, etc. are all items that can be easily added with common FREE extensions).
2) A designer posing as a developer.
3) A untalented wannabe coder.
Plain and simple. End of discussion.
- MLP
@Matt
I’m none of those things Matt, I have a decade of experience in front end development, and I spent 8 months fighting with Joomla. 8 months was too long. I simply don’t like it, I don’t like the architecture, I don’t like the interface, I don’t like designing sites with it, and every single client I’ve handed it over to has hated it and asked for a different system.
Your comments are pretty immature generalisations, so I’ll make one about you. You’re a child.
Matt, yes your right.
m: Complicated? Not at all
you can’t be humourless
there remarkably is no way to make known the fact
DMC-
8 months to figure out Joomla and you’re calling ME a child?
You don’t like “designing” with it?
Recommending WordPress as a robust CMS?
And get your facts straight about the Joomla/Mambo split – you’re assertions are quite inaccurate and sound a bit out of date, or are you just talking about Joomla 1.0?
Either way, sounds like you’re a classic case of #2: the designer wannabe developer.
And Joomla rolls on…
- MLP
Matt-
I’m not going to bother responding to your comments, you’re just an obnoxious little turd. Go play with your attitude problem.
I hate to take sides DMC, but you’re not offering much of a retort in your responses other than calling Matt a “turd” and a “child”, and generally attacking him rather than his points.
Nor do you have any kind of link to your work or abilities as Matt has provided – why don’t you show us what you’ve built WITHOUT Joomla?
As such, your comments are fairly meaningless.
BigBorker
Funny discussion. I don’t think we can call Joomla a “framework”? It’s really a big mess. I would suggest Django CMS as a nice option for a near future.
May be we have to be fair about Joomla in that sense that it might be an useful Content Management System for bigger enterprises, like hospitals, schools, ministries, etc., who, more and more, engage people for starvation wages. Big companies were a team of unpaid student apprentices are updating the easy to handle Joomla backend – which doesn’t require any programming knowledge. Could be that Joomla was made, what we’ll surely have soon, to engage foolish people in slavery work, pittance?
BigBorker:
Thanks for pointing out the obvious frailty of DMC’s argument, but I think I can defend myself here (thank you very much).
Brosc.oLHo:
Yes, it is appropriate to call it a “framework” if you’re able to use it that way – the MVC structure is quite easy to use once you learn it. And I’m not sure why you think it’s such a mess.
And Lenny: This is nonsense.
Isn’t the idea behind a CMS is to allow non technical people to manage a website once technical people build it for them? This doesn’t have to be for minimum wage or “slave labor”, but as a business decision, the choice to use ANY CMS is generally to allow non-techies to manage a website- if Joomla caters to the lowest skillset, as you’ve suggested, then isn’t that to its credit?
And if something is good for bigger enterprises, then why wouldn’t it be suitable for smaller enterprises that want to have a platform that will grow with them or at least hope to compete with larger more established enterprises in their market? Overkill for simple jobs? Perhaps, but for those of us who know what we’re doing with Joomla, it only takes a few minutes to deploy a basic site, so if clients want more “bang for their buck” and want to be able to manage their site themselves or with lower cost labor – then Joomla is a good fit.
Seems these critiques of Joomla are becoming less and less factually based, and more and more opinionated – as Joomla continues to improve, I’d expect this trend to continue.
- MLP
Joomla – commercial crap disguised as Open Source.
Just don’t like it.
Two words – Bloated Crap
Wow, great to see comments starting from 2006 to 2009, going to be 3 years since the first comment had been posted, in a few more days. I am with most of the people here. Joomla sucks!
If Joomla is too good, can you show me any well-known sites that is built on top of it? WordPress is used by NASA, CNN and so on, same goes for Drupal.
Sean,
A little bit of research (like less than 2 mins) would have yielded sufficient answers for your question.
Perhaps you’ve heard of:
- Porche
- Nikon
- Olympus
- Epson
- TNA Wrestling
- Sprint
- Burger King
- and others…
See a more complete list here:
http://www.internettips.com/departments/website-publishing/who-is-using-joomla?/
And the list keeps growing…
Cheers,
MLP
Wonder why so many template and extension sites require user registration to download non-commercial stuff ?? To sell my email adr. to spammers ?
joomla has built in crap.
if you like crap add virtuemart and you’ll get the crappiest crap ever.
if you want to make an online shop without wasting your time on fixing other developers crap code you might as well code your own mini CMS-store. i used virtuecrapmart once and will never ever touch that crap again.
otherwise CMS made simple rocks.
i don’t understand why people like joomla, maybe that’s just because the masses in general always love crap.
Crapman,
Let’s keep our comments about Joomla specific to the CMS and not get into dissecting specific extensions – VirtueMart is now one of the older ecommerce platforms developed for Joomla, and not the only option either mind you – and yes, you can even build your own ecommerce platform for Joomla if you want (or bridge with Magento).
As for why it continues to dominate the marketshare for open-source CMS platforms, it most likely has less to do with your “masses love crap” hypothesis, and more likely has to do with the fact that you can build advanced websites with greatly varying functionality – even custom components – using the Joomla MVC framework, and Joomla has a very large and well established development community (presumably of coders like myself, who don’t get stuck on minor bugs in otherwise completely FREE software like VirtueMart)
MLP
Matt Hammond,
Virtuemart IMHO, which if you don’t mind me expressing it, is crap. I am aware that Virtuemart is an external application and I am aware that there are others. Now you can get all pissed off i guess, but don’t forget, free software comes with freedom of speech. Don’t go there.
I just tried Virtuemart/Joomla for a client in order to keep dev costs down and I realized that in the end I spent almost as much time as if I where to develop the webstore myself. I had to go into the code and change things for it to work, don’t even get me started on the product images. It’s ok, because now I know. Virtuemart is crap. CMS Made Simple isn’t like that, it doesn’t yet have a perfect shopping system, but that will come.
I don’t mind if people use and enjoy what I consider to be crap, that is what makes our world so diverse and colorful with rainbows, and crap.
Mambo 5 will use CakePHP framework, will Joomla follow the path taken by their elders ?
Actually there are 3 different php frameworks I know of for Joomla. It is fairly easy to add most any framework to joomla.
Cake, Ruby and another that is based on cake that speeds up joomla 40% or more. Just take a gander on google and you will see the makers.
I actually like several CMS systems. Drupal is really fun and so is MODx but a real pain for customers and finding ciders is an issue. Frankly I don’t care which CMS we use in our business as long as we get paid.
Many angry people on this blog. Seems not the most productive use of time. But as I type I am getting ready to watch a TV show
So I best keep my mouth shut!! 
Regards,
Lawson
BTW – Ruby is not php but an example of a framework that easily integrates into Joomla.
Apologies fir the mistype.
joomla is a kind of framework which allow user to do something under its framework which not much flexible and not possible to hide people that your site is not use joomla CMS.
(unskilled) Joomla user,
This is only true if you have no coding skill or talent.
It is very easy to conceal the Joomla foundation of a site if you know what you’re doing – as it is also infinitely flexible if you are a real coder who understands MVC structure.
Stop spreading rumors that are simply not true.
-MLP
If you are a real coder then why use Joomla ?
Matt. I’m not a programmer, but I work with a team of 4 programmers, all very involved in the open source community. None of them had anything good to say about Joomla, in terms of the software, the code base, or the company ethos. In fact, until I read the comments on this blog, from you and a small handful of people, I’d never heard a good thing about it. Ever. It strikes me that you’re throwing insults at anyone who criticises Joomla, and as crapman has pointed out already, free software comes with freedom of speech. Nobody is spreading rumours which aren’t true.
Maybe you’re more involved with Joomla than you’re letting on.
It strikes me that thou dost protest too much…
Crapman – if you’re a real coder why NOT use Joomla, or more clearly why is Joomla so difficult to use if you know what you’re doing?
Dad – um, people indeed ARE spreading rumors about Joomla that are untrue or simply outdated. I have no affiliation to Joomla other than using it for my company’s and clients’ projects – and I happen to appreciate being able to utilize the MVC framework to develop custom functionality (what’s to complain about the company ethos? will you even give 1.6 a chance once it comes out?).
If anything, I too am exercising my right to free speech.
Cheers,
-h
I stumbled upon this thread by chance whilst looking for an update to a template for one of my Joomla sites.
With no experience in CMS or anything like that, Joomla was a pain to go into. 1.10 was so confusing that the whole thing was just so limiting. I had big ideas for my websites, but limited to what Joomla could do. I couldn’t really go into the others like Drupal because… I just didn’t have the technical experience to go into something that would be difficult to use (on the idea that joomla was an easy CMS to get into).
Joomla 1.5 came out, and things became a lot easier. 3rd party extensions caught up with Joomla 1.5, and eventually what you pay is what you get… 3rd party extensions that you had to pay for actually improved on the core Joomla system.
I am no programmer, although if I was I might be inclined to the non-fans of Joomla, but Joomla is a really versatile system to use if you add in the right 3rd part components (K2 Content takes care of the limited Section-Category Problem for example). Yeah, the debate will long continue between what CMS is really best to use, and a out-of-box system should have all the bells and whistles that it should.
I recognize that the debate here is on the Core system.. Joomla… and I agree. it’s really bad. But great party extensions really make up for it. Today, I’m finally happy with Joomla onl
then go use plone or whatever “sophisticated” bullshit.
Hi,
I’m a computer programmer with not much time since i have a demending job. I know a lot of programming languages.
Now i’m wanting to make a site that other peeps can easily change (like my father and non programming friends).
So i decided to try Joomla. I gave it up after about 8h, it is very confusing to use. You have Sections, Catagories, articles, …. The basic page setup is just awfull, when i program 8h i have a full working application.
So now i’m looking for a other CMS to use, and i must say the candidates are many but few are ready.
I set up several joomla websites but I never entangled myself with the basic joomla. There are now thousands of ready to use joomla portals, for any purpose, full with all kind of fancy features which normally take you days to integrate. If you google you often get them free. So make sure, never to install a basic joomla. Only install joomlas which are up-to-date and stuff like at bestofjoomla.com.
Your server has the setting of “safe mode on” ? Never start with joomla at servers with “safe mode on”!
The joomla engine runs quite smooth, better than wordpress, basically never crashes and loads quite fast.
This I did last week for a Hindu temple in our city. Originally it is “Sport Line” by Youjoomla, http://www.prabhupadanugas.eu/gopal/
Once you installed it, it is immediatelly ready to post content, no time wasted with webdesign.
There’s no mystery to anyone with skills. Joomla is for programmers like windows is for the general public. Lots of users, all jerking each other off, pretending to be “skilled” in web production, all the while, bolting more and more shit onto the steaming dung heap of the core. Creating progressively more bloat, system resource hogging, conflict ridden, impossibly fucked up architecture, while heightening client expectation and lowering billing rates.
Please God, move on and go back to simply jerking off to porn, and leave the business of business on the web to real programmers.
Been using Joomla and Virtuemart for 3 years and I spend the first 4 hours of each day trying to figure out why things aren’t working. From trying to get SEF URLs or searching endless files through disorganized folder structures, Joomla and Virtuemart does nothing but make my life a complete misery.
There seems to be a lot of hot air and swearing going on from people who for the most part, on their own admission, have no or very limited actual experience with Joomla. 1.This post originated back in 2006 so was actually about Joomla 1.0 which was Mambo rebadged. Joomla 1.5 (the current system) is a whole different kettle of fish. 2. For all those people who thought they could install Joomla and then call themselves professional web developers, life is not like that. You have to take the time to learn how to use the Joomla framework. When a website is developed in Joomla by a web professional that takes the time to develop their skills, it will be a fast loading, search engine friendly site that is easy to maintain and update by non-programming users.
3. As for Virtuemart – yes it is a complete disaster and nearly turned me off using Joomla for ecommerce sites. It is NOT Joomla, it IS a third party application that has been hacked to tack on to Joomla. Have a look at a shopping cart like SeberCart that is designed specifically to utilize Joomla functionality and you are on to a real winner. Bottom line is, if you want a CMS based website with all the flexibility and time savings that go with it, hire a Joomla developer. If you want an HTML page, hire an html programmer, if you want a Flash site, wake up, its 2010.
I not sure why you so hate joomla, first of all, it is free, I am sure we can’t complain much cause they didn’t charge us any cents.
Yes, i agreed with you there are lot bug, but think most of them can be solved if you know some php programming. (Maybe for those not good in coding, yes, they will face problem)
Following from version 1 till version 5 now, I can host a few thousand member site with joomla without facing much big problem. Of cause, it being hacked before, but if you do your backup and always update your joomla version and study to improve the security. It still a very good cms out there.
My opinion is that Joomla 1.5 is too complicated, not logical.
I hate section/categories…And to many mouse “click” for some simple step. Many times I tried to use Joomla and was always disappointed with the result.
I have been using joomla from the start..a long ..long time ago…I have tried them all.. I will stay with joomla.. for now.. I do not like the load time of 1.5.. it is 4 times slower than 1.0.. yes the cache option will help 1.5..but it is still slow.. to slow for me.. if you have a massive site 1.5 would be ok ..or if you dont need a fast loading site 1.5 is ok.. I have deployed over 100 1.5 sites and around 400 1.0 sites.. and I still like 1.0.. its so frickin fast.. and good…. I wish there was options to turn off all the bog that 1.5 uses.. framework and all the stuff that most folks do see or use.. everyone was expecting it to be better performance.. but I was in shock..so much the first time.. I thought my internet was acting up.. 1.5 is ok.. but I find I am building more sites with 1.0 than the new 1.5.. customers just dont understand the load time.. and it can be noticed on ANY SERVER … and turn your cache on and have a nightmare with the diff mods and logins.. I think 1.0 was better performance and learn how to use the sef mods and you can have a nice fast site……….well………… thats my thoughts
Hi, I am a newbie, and decided to impress my boss. Installed Joomla on one of our rarely used websites, expecting to create a miracle SEO friendly website. So may be my fresh look will be interesting in a funny way for this forum.
Here is what I stumbled upon at first steps:
1) How do I rearrange content of FP? FP manager shows only list of articles to be on it, not it’s positioning.
2) I frantically searched how to change the default FP logo, and found a pep talk in a book I have that I just need to go to a Template Manager, open the default template to Edit, click Edit CSS, find a line for “div#logo style, and replace the text for image url. Phew!!! And that’s in “QuickStart” chapter. Is that normal for a friendly CMS? The book is Dan Rahmel’s Beginning Joomla.
3) How I am supposed to maintain Breadcrumbs with links and hierarchy. There are commercial extensions, but how they will work for me? What if I need more then 2 level pages structure. I can make the menus of any level, right? But it won’t correspond to sec-cat. So will the commercial Breadcrumbs module give me links to upper level sec/categories, or menus? I guess sections/categories.
It is an SEO 101 that you need to break your site content in 3-4 levels structure, in accordance with your keywords natural structure.
Again, I am a beginner with some general programming understanding, who learned all the typical advices for SEO. I dont know if I can implement them with Joomla. Thanks
..and yes time is money..
i did not read all 129 comments but i can asure that if you use an cms that was not developed by you, you cant be called developers..
If you cant use pure sql you will allways suck..
If you cant structurate data and data relationships you will allways suck..
no matter what you call your self..
joomla cuts all of this..
build your own cms..
build your own hierarchy for sections, subsections, page, products, config systems, logins …
after a good time of developing you have your own modules created, you are sure that you dont have any unknown files..will reduze your project size and unknown bugs..
i dont thinks joomla sucks
lol
i think that joomla ‘coders’ sucks
even worst a webdeveloping company with website made out from joomla
.. is just information ..
fell free 0mail0ohmesappy@gmail.com
@badfish
Yet another developer who completely fails to see things from anyone’s perspective, other than a developers. Some people commenting here are designers, some are just end users, not developers, and they have as much right to have an opinion as a programmer, because they USE Joomla.
Also, if every CMS does much the same thing, ie: publishes content and media, who should a developer continually re-invent the wheel? Why SHOULD they make their own?
Jimmy,
That’s a very essential point that a lot of complainers on this post seem to miss – that the cost/benefit evaluation of any CMS extend far beyond its utility as a developer’s platform/framework.
In many ways, the critical mass of the Joomla project is it’s greatest attribute.
Consider that for a client planning an investment of hundreds if not thousands of dollars in a website, having a custom-built CMS has many disadvantages in terms of long-term operations. Being tied to a single developer is one drawback, another is not having reliable upgrades to the core CMS available on a regular basis, and not having any designers or CSS developers who are readily available to step in and implement design revisions who are familiar with the framework used for the site.
Not to mention all of the support available for Joomla that would NOT be available to anyone with a custom CMS or any of the other fledgling CMS discussed on this post.
Joomla might not be the “easiest” tool for developers to get their minds around, but certainly not particularly difficult, and while adopting a platform meant to server a wide array of general CMS needs certainly has its drawbacks, then perhaps the question should not be so much whether Joomla Sucks or not, but rather, whether other substantial open-source CMS systems out ther suck more or less than Joomla.
-MLP
@Veta, I think you should post those question on joomla forum or search the net to find for ur answer.
A year ago, I was like you. But if you never give up..I think you will feel joomla work best for u. The good thing about it is all code usually in php, if you know a bit more, you can easily hack and do what ever you want. If really can’t hire someone that expert.
@all
A lot of people think why they didn’t build their own? Yes, you can build…but how fast you can do that..few months or one year? By that time you complete..I think your site will be obsolete..
So think smart..study joomla and make yourself get familiar with it..else if you are a designer, get a coder partner to work with you. If it really suck…why till now it still the best free cms around? Don’t only view from your own angle.
@Thomas – when you have to “Study” how to use something, it’s an indication that it not a very intuitive application.
For example, how one would expect to add a menu item in comparison to how one actually adds a menu item in Joomla is totally backwards.
Say that I wanted to add a page to my site and link to it from my main navigation.
What I expect:
Step 1: I click on Add New Page/Link
Step 2: I start typing content in for the page.
How it works on Joomla:
Step 1: I create an Article
Step 2: I configure the page by selecting a section and category (since I won’t be able to take advantage of Joomla’s other crappily named “blog” layout without it), then type in my content.
Step 3: Click save.
If I didn’t set it up yet, I have to create a new section, then I have to create a new category
Step 3: (What was I doing again? oh yeah – I wanted to add a page to my site and add it to my main nav) Click on the menu manager and select a menu group.
Step 4: Click on the new button to create a new menu item
Step 5: Select “Article Layout” from the myriad of options they give you.
Step 6: Configure your menu item, Then, select your article from the box off to the right.
Step 7 Click Save.
To answer your question on why it’s still the “best” cms around, first off, I wouldn’t call it “best” I’d say it’s popular and I attribute this to the vast number of blind zealots like you trumpeting joomla bullshit off to clients and colleagues who don’t know any better, I should know, I was one of them.
Your numbers will dwindle soon enough and Joomla’s popularity will sink.
http://www.google.com/trends?q=joomla,+drupal,+wordpress&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0
Joomla: Sh*tty code base, sh*tty plugin, module, component system, uninformed (though commendably well meaning) community, user and developer base who seem to substitute code quality with hard labour (as an example of how check out the codebase behind the VirtueMart e-commerce extension – f*cking awful).
The community support you’d get would go as far as “oh you need to do the following steps to add a menu item, then make sure you clear the cache” or “disable the plugin, manually delete it from your server and reinstall it”. “try this”, “try that” – you go around in circles after a while.
I’m bitter because I invested so much time into trying to use this as a flagship product for my web development company, only to be shot down by the sh*tty codebase.
If you think this is a smart move, then good for you. I’ve seen this from A users angle, a developers angle and a clients angle. Which angle are you looke at this from? The blind zealot angle? Because that’s what you are.
Stop pushing sh*tty products to the unknowing – JOOMLA SUCKS!
Note to ahyap: Errr that Step 3 should have been the last step for “What I expect:” steps – please move it from “How it works with Joomla” to “What I expect” … for clarity.
…get real –
I’m surprised you’re able to brush your teeth without poking your eyes out.
If you got stuck linking a menu item to an article, maybe you should just stick with WordPress and other kids toys.
BigBorker
@BigBorker, Did you ignore the rest of the comment?
Don’t insinuate that I’m dumb or lacking in co-ordination just because I think the Joomla menu system is complicated. Are you going to tell me it’s easy and straight forward?!
Yeah right. Go build another Joomla powered website.
… which sucks
… and so do you.
…
… and your moms.
JOOMLA SUCKS!
C’mon Get Real Dude…
It IS funny when someone can’t figure out how to create an article and then link a menu item to it – and if you can’t remember what you’re doing when you’re at the computer then perhaps you should put down the bong and stop trying to figure things out when you’re stoned. It just seems fairly simple to me.
I also think it’s funny when people can’t tie their own shoes or have absurd dogmatic beliefs.
Zealot? Do you even know what that means?
You say you’ve seen it from a developer’s perspective – Have you ever built a custom component for Joomla and compared that to building something similar into an alternative framework or CMS?
Joomla certainly has it’s flaws, though I don’t think you really touched on any of them, but I assure you that it has and will continue to grow in popularity because it is evolving, growing, and built to allow many developers and end users benefit from the flexibility of developing with it’s framework.
Template development systems such as the Gantry System developed by RocketTheme demonstrate what third party developers ARE able to contribute on top of Joomla’s core capabilities, and a massive library of over 4000 extensions exists to quickly add enhancements to sites, but let’s be clear; there’s “out-of-box-functionality” available in every format that can either be good or crappy depending on the developer – but the quality of this code is entirely independent of the CMS, as you also have the choice to simply or simply build your own components as you wish.
I don’t see any facts behind your argument that Joomla is going to die off – not sure what you’re trying to prove with your link to a Google trends chart. You didn’t explain much except for the typical rant about how VirtueMart is a pain in the ass (agreed but it’s NOT Joomla) and that otherwise Joomla is “sh–ty”.
Why not vet out other options like Magento or Sebercart and stop blaming the whole CMS for your sorry experience with VM?
So read on as I might into your ill informed diatribe, I have to agree with BigBorker again on this one – I’m surprised you were even able to post your comment correctly in the first place.
(Oh wait a minute, you actually had to ask for a correction!)
MLP
Let’s face reality. Joomla is meant for folks who have no idea how to program an interactive website. But, who feel the necessity that they need for their business or hobby, an internet presence that looks professional. Remember the slogan, a bad website is worse than no website? Ok, therefore Joomla has that backend for those who can manage to enter a password, login, and post new content.
However, my experience is, this kind of clientel is most likely totally overburdened to fully customize a Joomla basic installation for their specific needs. I talked to tons of people. Nobody felt having the know how and especially the time, to get into customizing a basic Joomla installation.
So what happened is, all kind of so called “webdesigners” are using Joomla to sell their work of customizing a Joomla for their paying clients.
Not even telling them that Joomla is free opensource. Agreed, customizing a Joomla to the needs of a customer is work, takes time. However, Joomla should be honest. Joomla could not manage to present a backend situation which normal people can get under full control and customize their own website to their full satisfaction. This did not happen. Yet.
Jason,
You seem to operate in a skewed and one-sided perspective of ‘reality’: certainly development companies like mine fully disclose to our clients what Joomla is, the costs involved, and what they’re getting.
No CMS in the world would even attempt to be an entire “site builder” as you’ve described – and certainly quality coders are able to develop their own functionality into Joomla to allow total customization of the framework.
The benefits in the real world (”reality”) for clients, is that they have a platform that MANY coders are familiar with, so if your initial developer quits or dies or simply in incompetent, you can easily find another developer who can come in with a general understanding of the platform.
Alternatively, you end up with a proprietary CMS that is a pain for anyone not familiar with how it was built to come in and try to learn and then service.
Joomla also provides a core structure that can easily be updated with each new version of Joomla, such that websites built 2 years ago can be updated to have an up-to-date technology behind them without having to rebuild them.
So while you are right that many people out there call themselves “developers” and lean heavily on Joomla as a crutch to support their shortcomings, it certainly IS a framework worthy of professional corporate level sites: or do you think companies like Burger King, Harvard, Toshiba, and many others have just been duped by their developers?
- MLP
Look what former Microsoft VP Dick Brassis is saying: “When we were building the tablet PC in 2001, the vice president in charge of Office at the time decided he didn’t like the concept. The tablet required a stylus, and he much preferred keyboards to pens and thought our efforts doomed. To guarantee they were, he refused to modify the popular Office applications to work properly with the tablet. So if you wanted to enter a number into a spreadsheet or correct a word in an e-mail message, you had to write it in a special pop-up box, which then transferred the information to Office. Annoying, clumsy and slow.
So once again, even though our tablet had the enthusiastic support of top management and had cost hundreds of millions to develop, it was essentially allowed to be sabotaged. To this day, you still can’t use Office directly on a Tablet PC. And despite the certainty that an Apple tablet was coming this year, the tablet group at Microsoft was eliminated.”
This could be the case at Joomla, too. They made it unessessarily clumsy so that at the end only “Joomla agents”, can handle the whole thing with a few shortcut keys.
Quote:
“or do you think companies like Burger King, Harvard, Toshiba, and many others have just been duped by their developers?”
This wouldn’t be the first time such a thing happens. It’s not because a company is big that it implies that they don’t get “duped”.
Your other argument about using a published CMS rather than a self coded thing is true, however are you saying that only Joomla exists ?
If you use Joomla and it works for you then goody gum drops for you. I have tried it out in 2004 then in 2006 and then in 2009 and every time it’s the same lame story. I have used other CMSes and they are so much better, they cannot do it all so depending on the project I would chose either one or the other.
The bottom line for me is that every (GPL) CMS has it’s pros and cons and each one is better at doing certain kinds of tasks, however in every case Joomla is crap and it sucks rhino c@ck.
@MLP whatever zealot.
You and I know joomla sucks. You say it has it’s flaws?! That’s a f*cking understatement and you know it.
You’re either a developer who learnt to develop web applications using Joomla alone without having to code your own solutions up and decided Joomla is the best thing since sliced bread and ignore the little things such as the $mainframe variable and god classes used to control session states and other unrelated functionality etc. hahaha – yeah ok… Joomla is great… and so are it’s users… at sucking dick!
Yes I’ve developed several successful Joomla sites that are still running to this day. Components and all – and you know what? To this day, i have to answer stupid questions from clients like “how do I add a menu menu item again?”
Great! So now I have to install a KB plugin for my site which I have to maintain. More maintenance.
To this day, I have to put up with shitty upgrade procedures which involves me having to go through each and every site to manually copy the new files. Oh by the way, thanks to the fragmented way that people create their components due to the lack of a solid SDK, there’s a high chance that an upgrade may or may not break one of the several components, plugins or modules that I’ve added to different sites.
To this day, I have to put up with language packs coded to the core.
I’d love to continue to tell you about the things that are sh*t with joomla, but hey try this, try not turning a blind eye to all the f*ck ups and you can see for yourself. Easy eh?
On average, I’d say that the code Quality of your shitty 4000+extensions and Template factories are sh*t. Just like Virtuemart is. Code quality of Joomla? Don’t make me laugh. Just buy a Joomla book. Look at all the bad coding practices and magic hoops they make you go through.
But you wouldn’t know that because you taught yourself PHP and are a happy Joomla code Zealot d*ck sucker just like BigBorker and Thomas.
Diatribe? all comments on this post is diatribe. You’ve just sifted through it, so stop lying, you love sifting through sh*t – heck you must, since you loooove Joomla so much.
You, BigBorker and Thomas can all go suck each others ill informed d*cks all you want, I don’t need to you to agree with me.
I ask for corrections because I know when things are incorrect. You don’t ask for corrections, because you’re too stupid to see it.
Typical Joomla zealot. Go blow yourself up.
One thing is for sure, the marketing dept at Joomla! is fantastic. How they can get so many people to believe that they NEED this program is incredible considering – after years – sites created with it are still not cached. It’s easy for web developers to kick out a site, but no room for organic seo. It’s like having a hot car that you can’t get wheels for – people can come look at it in your driveway – but they aren’t going to see you out driving with the top down.
I’ve been searching for a simple flexible CMS forever. and after developing a complex site in Joomla, i’ve come to the conclusion that Joomla just doesn’t do it! Its just way too complicated for a simple task of managing pages. The fact that their is no concept of pages, but instead menues, sections, and categories, proves that there are too many layers of complexity for administrators and web masters to navigate through. and good luck customizing and managing all the modules you buy! Where is the simple CMS frontend for administrators and easy to code backend for developers???? why is this so difficult to develop one?
I wonder if there is a cms that is soooo easy to install, use, and extend, and at the same time soooo flexible so any design you want to implement is possible… and then, has a soooo easy yet flexible framework so a coder can just start coding additional functionality without ever having to learn about the framework. and then, it has to be soooooo freaking easy for the customers(that easily get stressed by word). jeez… I bet most of you also say “chicken sucks!” because they dont fly into your mouth after beeing cooked. come on, are you guys serious?
)
joomla is my first cms to work with, and yea, it requires some time to get used to it, time to know how to code with the joomla framework, to work with the template system… time until you know how to get the best out of it. I bet this is the case for any cms. and the more features and flexibility we want, the more complicated it will get, thats just the nature of things… sure, some things suck, like the category/section idea… but with plugins like k2, you can eliminate that problem. another thing that sucks is that its not working with multidomains… i.e. managing multiple sites and domains with one joomla installation… and the access management control and user right management well, sucks too, but that will be solved in 1.6 I think. besides that, there is nothing i can complain(or remember right away) about. I recently took a look at typo3, and if you complain about joomla, try typo3(come on, they got their own language you have to learn before you can be productive…sick.), and then… well, you won’t hate joomla anymore… once you get used to joomla there is so much you can do with it, and if you do your homework, you can do it really fast. its beautiful how flexible joomla 1.5 is (i.e. template overrides).the documentation sure is not the best, but I bet all of that will change because the userbase is so big. on the other hand – I had no paid seminars for to learn about joomla, I got all my knowledge from the net, and still I was able to accomplish every customer request so far. most of the criticism from the article or the comments is:
either outdated,
or from users who installed it, gave it a try and then complained because they need to get used to it(didnt want to take the time to understand how joomla works),
or is simply not true because there are very good extensions that solve these problems.
well, but I suppose everyone and everything has haters… good luck with that
Cattlebaccle, if you have only tried typo3 and joomla I can understand that you think joomla is easier.
Try out CMS Made Simple, it is exactly how you described what we all want, meaning a cms that transforms itself into a flying cooked chicken.
I have found it is so much easier to self code a cms if you got real things going on, or install an adapted proper cms like CMSMS or Worpdress, etc. It’s always better than installing a broken cms and adding multiple plugins just to get basic functionality.
I can understand some of the things mentioned in this article….when I was new and learning. I knew nothing about webdesign 8 months ago. and I do it as a full time job. UGly urls? Its a 2 minute job to fix…no extensions needed. I believe you need to do a little more research before taking your time to write this article. With joomla it doesn’t get much easier. Those thinking of using it. Use it. I make about 1000 us per site. the sites take about a day and a half.
.eyecandycreations.co.nz
.gibsonrural.co.nz
.skintasticbeauty.co.nz
.vinylheaven.co.nz
Easy peasy!!
Gareth,
This article was written in 2006. A whole lot has changed in Joomla since then.
PHPwcms, simple and effective for 99% of websites.
Right a lot has changed! If you google, today 2010, ‘Joomla hacked’ you get some 10,000 entries. Even the main page of joomla.org got hacked twice.
And this is the conclusion after uploading 20 MB of hundreds of folders and thousands of files. If your Joomla gets hacked you can delete the whole thing. Nobody is able to clean up a hacked Joomla, including infected database entries. Your host charging you for having to shut down your website, because he is also responsible for illegal spam mailers on his server….
What hackers get from this, they use your Joomla installation as spam mailer for sending out millions of spam mails. Small is beautiful, better stick to CMS which can be easily checked and kept under control.
give me a break… every cms has its security bugs that have to be fixed and joomla.org did get the last time… when? 2008.
google it:
joomla hacked: About 513,000 results
joomla: About 99,600,000 results
wordpress hacked: About 2,130,000 results
wordpress: About 335,000,000 results
drupal hacked: About 2,810,000 results
drupal: About 25,900,000 results
modx hacked: About 232,000 results
modx: About 1,120,000 results
typo3 hacked: About 395,000 results
typo3: About 3,810,000 results
you gotta see the absolute numbers in relation to the popularity…
even modx has a ratio of about 1/5 hacked search results compared to overall, with ALL other cms having a way worse ratio then joomla. despite the fact that the extensions cause most of the security holes and the number of extensions that exist for joomla and many people do not know how to secure joomla, this IS amazing. Think about it, considering its the most popular cms(excluding wordpress because its not really a cms) and therefore gets the most attention by hackers, its even more proving how secure joomla is.
joomla has become quite secure, the main problem is the extensions by 3rd party developers that are not coded. so security definately is no weakness of joomla compared to other cms…
I wanted to take my company online. Thought i needed a website. Contracted with a company that insured me they would meet all my needs for $7500 utilizing Joomla. $12425 dollars later i’m still pissed and without a completed and ready for business site.
the problem isn’t that joomla is not secure, it’s that it sucks.
that said, your google results are just “google results”, they have nothing to do with anything.
well, thank you for your objective argument “it sucks”. however, to decide if something sucks or not you have to talk about the flaws of it, instead of saying “it sucks”… that beeing said, my previous comment was about the fact that security is not one of the reasons why you could say joomla sucks, after that was one point mentioned before…
so – yes, it has to do with it.
i guess you need clearer explanations:
1. making statements based on the number of google results is completely irrelevant.
example (in case you still don’t get it): there are (a bit) more results for “pigs fly” than “pigeons fly” on google, does this mean there are more chances for me seeing a pig fly than a pigeon ?
2. there are already so many reasons stated for the suckiness of joomla on this page, what’s the point of elaborating again. The only good thing s I heard about joomla here is “I manage sites with it” (people who work with crap and are happy like that, i applaud) and “the problem comes from extensions”.
I use joomla to make a website…but instead I did a “good shite” As in a big shit….BIG!
Good day to you all! It was nice to meet you.
I hate to admit it, but my google results statistics are really irrelevant… I proved myself wrong by trying to proof the opposite.
still, most of the why joomla sucks arguments are either outdated or by ppl who tried joomla only for a very short time period…
if you want to know what people do post in a XY sucks page about a cms that REALLY sucks, look at this one:
http://hatetypo3.blogspot.com/2008/04/welcome-to-i-hate-typo3-list.html
compared to the posts there about another cms, ppl here are really being nice about joomla.
Many of these content management scripts have their limitations but because of those limitations in the way they are designed, they tend to be slightly easier to use for admins who are not technically inclined. For an alternative content management system, a free open source option is Typo3 (PHP/MySQL) — Typo3 has great flexibility and extensibility through add-ons and extensions, however this greater freedom comes with a price, learning how to use and develop in Typo3 is a very steep learning curve, but if it can be mastered then it provides one of the best options for creating complex website structures with the most control.
Typo3 is used by a variety of large corporate sites, including Airbus and these good examples:
Airbus:
http://www.airbus.com/index.php?id=1526
TotalBeauty:
http://www.totalbeauty.com/
SuperStoreSearch Shopping:
http://www.superstoresearch.com/
we have a client’s site on Joomla – designed about 5 years ago and are finding (through the website company we deal with) that keeping it accurate and updated is an absolute nightmare. Time consuming due to the inflexibility and so expensive, They recommend a simple html site as the site is predominantly product information – a resource to end users and distributers. The query – will moving to htmlmake sense and if we move service providers will it be easy to maintain with another supplier?
Joomla! sucks. Period.
I think he is right! Joomla is nothing but a big cms with lousy URL Managment and many not working modules, plugins and components. Sometimes if you have luck…it works. A Jommla installation got more than 4000 files!!! I think for e.g. wordpress is much better and you can use it also as CMS.
Most of my pages I did are Joomla Sites…but the few I made with WP are much more efficent e.g . Clean and short URLs…without having any stress!
There are hundreds of good and smal CMS Systems for free…and somtimes you must decide if its necessary to have a big system like Joomla, Wordpress or Typo3 or something else! Not every client needs it! There are so many other good & tiny CMSystems for free…
Hi all,
I am going to KILL MYSELF after working 2-3 weeks with Joomla – I am so frustrated with well… fighting everything… from the:
* Horrible “Section > Category > Article” thing
* Non dynamically generated Menus and Items
* Menu has to be a module thing – WTF???
* Modules need to have a “Menu Assignment” to display? WTF???
* No such thing as “pages”
* Many, Many steps to create a new “menu linked page” out the door – WOW!
* How its all “ONE HUGE CRAZY JIGSAW PUZZLE” to figure out – YAY!
* Don’t get me started about figuring out the “breadcrumbs” thing – notice they don’t even use them over on (http://www.joomla.org/) for pete sake! * All of there docs (http://docs.joomla.org/) use Media Wiki for content creation – that ought to tell you something… hmmm… they don’t like dog food?
I am a currently an employed PHP Developer with over 10 Years experience in this stuff… Isn’t the reason to use a CMS to make things straight-forward and easier?
Joomla makes the EASY STUFF HARD!
I need a gun cause I am gonna go shoot myself. Thanks Joomla.
I hate HTML and HTML editors. The shortcut to UGLY articles.
However, if Joomla is a Content Manager, howcome is it so hard to create and maintain content ?
@Boo
You hate HTML?
Riiiiiiight…
not every extensions FREEE!!
you should pay for this !!!
@168
Sorry. Forgot that HTML is hightech in North Korea.
Thank god I found this site. I thought I must be losing my mind, because I can’t for the love of god figure out how to do jack shit with Joomla. I have been a professional software developer across all realms of development, and Joomla must be the worst “thing” (I won’t even call it an application) in the history of the internet. The only reason I am working with it is because I was supposed to do a “simple template redesign”. Anyway, Im feeling the same exact way as post 166 – Kill Myself. I could have remade the entire site in less time than it took to figure out that Joomla can’t do anything I want it to do. So if anyone ever finds this page, do yourself a favor and boycott Joomla as much as you can.
“Kill Myself” and “Wasting”,
Why did you try to take on Joomla projects if you don’t know the platform?
KillMyself, your confusion with the Web2.0 structure of Joomla DOES make it sound like you learned to code 10 years ago (and never got your mind around the concept of database driven site architecture).
Wasting, you sound like one of the profiles listed in post #95.
For every idiot whining about how Joomla is too complicated or too confusing there are hundreds if not thousands of developers and website owners who have figured out how to use this CMS to make highly functional and professional websites. And most of you whining about how hard it is for you to get your minds’ around suggest simply that you’d rather build your own solution from scratch – THAT seems like a waste of time to anyone who has invested in the time to learn Joomla or any other open-source CMS.
-BB
BigBorker, joomla suck hairy ones. As for your idea of a waste of time, well I do develop my own CMS and it makes life so much easier, more fun and any new ideas are always possible to implement in whatever way I want. And it’s so clean, logical and etc etc..
If you want something simple go with a simple cms, but if you want more, than code it yourself, it’s so much easier in the long rung, instead of spending time figuring out how some else’s brain works you could be using your own.
K2 Yes K2 really sucks, no page breaks and it is loaded with errors, just like virtuemart. Don’t waste your time installing this crap!
@Boo
You should maybe try a Flash or Silverlight based CMS ?
I totally agree! I have built several sites using other website tools and this one takes the cake. What is up with text editing?? I have tried mulitple times just to get my text spaced and formatted correctly and it always reverts back to single spaced type. HELP!!!
If you are interested in Joomla… I would highly suggest running as fast as you can to any other web developing software. Joomla is HORRIBLE!
hahaha yeah it is a pile of crap, the main problem massively bloated code base and crap SEF. It tries to do everything, and because of that there are huge parts of the structure and framework that would likely never be used, like open id login etc. And I know as i have worked on a good number of sites with it, it is totally bloated and unecessary for most sites, crap SEF, numerous problems with SEF, the whole architecture is flawed because of this and there is vast potential for duplicate urls, how they have ammassed such a large community is behond me, as the way it is programmed is dreadful, and overcomplicated also. It will also hammer your sql usage for shops when using virtuemart with sef also as almost all SEF extensions for this store the urls to a database. MY CONCLUSION: IT IS A TOTAL PILE!!! YOU WILL WASTE MORE TIME TRYING TO GET BROKEN THINGS TO WORK AND FIND FIXES TO ISSUES THAN WITH SOMETHING ELSE. It sucks also because it makes newbs who learn to install install a template think they are suddenly web designers, Joomla is not web design, coding something from scratch learning how it works and how its coding, libraries, frameworks etc eg jquery mootools etc all the other effects taken for granted in joomla, interact that is web design
i am a rookie php programmer. been developing since 1 year now. i use my own cms which follows the mvc architecture. one day i got this project and the client wants me to use Joomla 1.5 . I thought wow..this should be cool..so many websites are using it…must be the best cms in the world..so i downloaded it and installed it…the only tutorials i got on their website is how to download and install..thats it..nothing else..videos after videos of installation which even a 5 year old could do..there are no docs available for the developers on how to build components, modules..finally i found one..it explained very nicely how to build a component for the front end..but man did it suck while explaining how to build it for the back end..all we can do is follow the methods that joomla devs have made..forget about adding your own code..its been 3 days now and i am still trying to figure out the model code being used to do simple operations like add, edit delete etc..forget about customization or coding according to your requirement..joomla is like engaging yourself in a losing battle..its better to look for other options..or code your own cms..atleast you will know whats happening behind the scene..instead of just trying to solve a big jigsaw puzzle..just my 2 cents
Joomla is the best CMS, it has loads of add-ons, easy to setup, easy to use and modify… you all suck and should improve your skills.
@179 – I am guessing you have never used any other CMS or have never had to teach Joomla to a client. Open your mind and expand your horizons. There are many content management systems out there. Most of which are better organized, faster, intuitive, Properly templated, and free.
I am sure my 14 years experience in web development could still be improved. But anyone who casts a vote for Joomla is simply ignorant of what a CMS is and should do.
ive used a number of CMS and i have had to teach Joomla to many clients.
Hello all, i am a relatively new php coder. have just started to work on cms based websites. i am not here to criticize Joomla or any other software. but can you guys please help me out. can you suggest me a simple opensource cms which is basically for beginner developers, follows the Model view controller pattern. it doesnt have to involve any ecommerce. just a simple cms which follows MVC and is recommended for beginners.
peace.
Joomla! is terrific – best thing to happen to computing since Microsoft became popular. So good in fact that I’ll be naming my next boat “Joomla!” . Joomla is popular because it sells the same old con – you’d don’t need to learn a thing, you can get rich quick. Witness teh number of Joomla! designers that canna spel. Tomorrow we’ll line up all the people who can code or design and shoot them – then the trailer-park web “masters” can rool the world. Next week we’ll launch learning you just sprinkle on your morning bowl of bachelor chow (sigh). Show me one good site made with Joomla# and I’ll show you a site that is not standards compliant, doesn’t decompose gracefully, is hard to read and navigate, un-viewable on a mobile device, won’t load quickly on a slow connection, can’t be navigated with a browser for the blind, and *is* insecure. Now bring on the hordes of Joomla# lovers who say none of those things (sic) are important. As for the grossly distorted use of the term “Open Source”… ever bother to read the actual code in your lovely, for sale, templates? Just below where you fanbois write your copyright tag is the line about GPL – have you read that far? Or did your lips get sore (sigh). Back to ffffFacebook and your “desiging” (autistic faecal finger painting).
Cheers
—
If 16 million people believe a stupid thing – it’s still stupid
… improve your skills (full stop)
Well the comments made about Joomla are the opinions of many. However the comment about it being dificult to create a simple echo statment maybe true but with reasons. If you simply allow someone to “Echo” there is a good chance you can screw up the cms itself. This is why Joomla (and mambo) do what they do, to stop developers screwing things up. Developing components and modules etc is so simple as Joomla does all of the work for you with its inbuilt classes.
Joomla is number one for a reason. It has a masive fanbase and lots of developers. Its used by general public and large companies even for Intranets …. why? because its designed to do these things. If you want a simple blog then to be honest Joomla is not the choice mainly because of its size.
Which do I use? well this depends of what my clients want. However 90% of what I do uses Joomla the other 10% is Drupal ….. the others are not worthy, easy to hack, poor fanbase or lack support.
Perfect posting, well written I must say.
joomla, joomla, ain’t got room for ya! joomla, joomla how do I work with ya! joomla, joomla, that’s right, I can’t, click, click, clickety, click, click, clicky, click, click, sorry boss nearly there, click, click, clickety! Right boss, first page posted, what’s the content boss?…right…no worries……………..are you sure you want all 5 pages done today boss?……..right…..will do then…..might need some overtime if Ok with you boss?……….yeh, wife will be fine, getting divorced anyway……………clickety click click
First of all, nobody here critizes Joomla, when reading through the posts, these are mainly plain facts. Computer technology as a whole was invented for one reason, to make life more easy, save time. Same with CMS, it should make things easy, save time. When I set up a Joomla portal it usually takes 2-4 weeks. Agreed, it is not only Joomla what requires lots of time to customize, it is mainly the content which has to be developed to make things look impressive. Usually till a new portal is actually done, it might take even up to 6 months. So thats lots of time, not really what people thought how things would become easier.
I like Joomla
I have built several websites with Joomla since the old old versions. It had its bad and good sides back then. Then version 1.5 came along and I had to migrate and redo all my client’s websites for free cause it wasn’t their fault that there is an upgrade and vulnerabilities in Joomla previous versions.
After more than 50 hacked websites by bench of kids and by some serious hackers, I still thought that Joomla will now bring this 1.6 to impress us and give us this break to all if us lovers and fans… An when I installed the new Joomla 1.6, I just now figured that this is alllll a big BS. Not only it has a new structure that needs migration, but there are no fucking templates that look good anymore. I have trained many of my clients to update their material on 1.5. Now after 8 years using joomla, I myself had a FU@$@$%@$% hard time adding a FUC#$#$%#$%#$%#$#% menu item. So this means my clients – whose CMS will no longer be supported in a few years, will have to not only migrate but trained for Joomla 1.6.
Me telling them that is a BUSINESS SUICIDE. This is what Joomla has become a C.M.S it stands for COMMERCIAL MARKETING SUICIDE…
God, we are screwed….
^ I agree not having fun with 1.6 after trying to do an upgrade this weekend =(
Been a while since I’ve chimed in, and after initially reviewing 1.6 and starting to play around with it I am quite impressed, though agree that like 1.5.0 when it came out, still a bit too early to start porting sites over.
“Reviewing the Love” – seems to me you are more in need of updating your approach to providing web services than any real gripe with Joomla. There is simply no such thing as a “timeless” technology, and there’s a reason that successful, well-established development companies provide maintenance and upgrade services (at a price). If your customers are not willing to pay to keep their technology updated, then that’s their choice – if you’re trying to undercut the competition by working for free, that’s your choice.
Furthermore, I don’t see any real “better” alternative – if you built a site from scratch in PHP4 in 2004 years ago would you feel compelled to update their code to PHP5 when that came out (for free)? Of course not, and customers who upgrade will still have a working website – just like Joomla 1.0 websites still work.
As for security – get a handle on your server man, we had some sites hacked by those turkiys and quite easily fixed the sites, upgraded our Joomla cores (easy) and added some security to our servers – haven’t had issues since but like any software there is the potential for hacking and shared services create a larger target for hacking communities to try and crack. You also get the benefit of the community behind you to offer support if you should seek it out.
(You really had a hard time adding a menu item in 1.6? Kinda hard to believe that – it certainly seems easier than 1.5).
And yes, in technology you will have to keep educating yourself (and your clients) as it continues to improve and evolve. You don’t hear Microsoft crying about having to retrain companies when Windows7 gets implemented at the corporate level – they turn it into a product and sell ongoing training services.
Learn, adapt, grow: it’s what technology does so get used to it or get out of the business.
My advice is start getting used to J1.6 and continue using J1.5 in the meantime.
“Don’t expect too much from a cheap webhosting package though.”
If it has “safe-mode-on” forget it altogether.
Joomla is an absolute joke. I can – and did – code a complete website faster with PHP/CSS/mySql/flash & AS2 faster than with Joomla. Why? Joomla did not work “out of the box”. Links are broken on the default install (404 errors on the pdf/print buttons).
I do this stuff for a living and wanted to see what the “buzz” was about. Now I know. LOL
LNL3VHM7 wtf? definitely another Joomla developer that went crazy!
All you Joomla Haters out there, you SUCK. if you can’t figure out the simple things in life how do you get by. Joomla is THE MOST EASIEST of CMS’s to install, set up, configure, re-configure, develop modules, components, etc.. for. cmon you losers.. If you spent half the time you have here bitching about Joomla, in figuring out what you need to do in Joomla, you could have figured it out. It’s not rocket science by far…
@Mike
You make a compelling argument – which bus shelter do you and your friend hold your meeting in?
I so much want to be a loser like you, then I can move out of a house into a trailer and make web sites out of spit. what’s the latest count of insecurities in Joomla core? 98??
But then in addition to being unable to program you probably can’t count, so you opinion is hardly influential.
Cheers (and love your website)
@mike – You do realize the majority of the comments are from professional designers and coders.
That’s BS “amonkey” Cause if that was the case, they would not be bitching like they are about trying to configure a menu item.. Cmon… And if it is true, I would find out what companies they design sites for and STAY clear of those. It’s clear they have no idea what they are talking about or doing for that matter. A bunch of “monkey” designers that steal others code and ideas and try to pawn it off like it was their own. Ask them if they even know what “php”, “js”, “html”, “xhtml” even mean (yeah go ahead quick look them all up you lamos before you reply….
You suck and the only way you can feel better about your inabilities is to vent about another success. It’s the american way. And before you say “he’s not from America….”… Yes I am, 100% born and raised.
INT13 what are you talking about????? Thanks for the compliments on the website. Which one?? I have 30+ sites…
@mike – Actually I prefer to hand code my sites. I only use a cms for clients who need the ability to enter their own data. The majority of my clients only need a CMS with a WYSIWYG like tinyMCE, SPAW, FCKeditor, etc…
My complaint, and why I no longer except Joomla projects is the fact that there are more steps per task in Joomla than there should be. Not because it’s hard, but because the logic of the Joomla developers is different than the average user.
Mike, what does being born and raised in America have to do with anything ? And which America are you even talking about ?
Joomla sucks because 1.6 does no ldap group mapping
I don’t support Joomla! I hate it! I don’t have patience with it!
Why?
Joomla didn’t allow me to activate the option of site for maintenance, when I applied it, it happened an error and it said it wasn’t possible to open the archive for alterations!
Joomla didn’t allow me to activate the option of enbaling the FTP for making backup of my archives and it happened the same error! I tried to connect to FileZilla and FilleZilla didn’t recognise the host of my host!
I have already tried to ask my webdesigner to take my site down, but he didn’t, he didn’t pay attention to me!
Joomla says it’s open source and free, but it’s a LIE! It’s a deceptive or false advertising!
Why? Because the webdesigner who projected my site, said me to pay a host for hosting the site and the Joomla! I paid 80 Brazilian reais (more of 50 US dollars)! Joomla isn’t free! It’s a lie!
Joomla sucks really!
Gustavo Reis, it is people like you who make this world so stupid.
^ agreed!!!
As much as I dislike Joomla, I have to say this seems like more of an error in communication with you and your web developer.
For “fake” Gustavo Reis
Please don’t use my name and my e-mail for “faking” me.
I’ve just witnessed more another error: I tried to acess the CPanel (Panel Control) of my site host web page, I tried to type my e-mail and my password many times, but after many times, my host site and Joomla have just blocked my IP! I can’t backup of my archives and I can’t delete or take down my site from internet!
Gustavo,
You seem very confused and your issues do not seem to be with Joomla but with getting blocked out of your server for attempting to login with the wrong username and password too many times (”brute force attempt”).
While often the complaints I read on this forum say more about a poster’s technical abilities than anything about Joomla itself.
It’s a great open-source CMS that is not perfect but certainly one of the best available.
-BB
Big Borker
Joomla is open source and freeware for paid sites, but not free for the free and blogs sites. Do I have to pay a host and a site for hosting the Joomla?
I don’t want to pay the host and the site. I want to use a free blog-site, as Blogger and Wordpress, but Joomla can’t be hosted in free blogs and sites! It’s stupid.
Gustav,
Clearly you’re not understanding this – you can download the Joomla CMS code and deploy it on any server you want, for blogs or anything else.
Where exactly are you seeing these “prices”?
gustav is too “inexperienced” for any website – joomla or not
Warning: Parameter 1 to modMainMenuHelper::buildXML() expected to be a reference, value given
That’s why it sucks and the instructions to upgrade Joomla also sucks big
I feel that the dashboard could be better. Why does the menu stop working? I constantly have to hit the back button to use the main menu again.
If you use joomla you belong in a mental institution.
Joomla is such a mess compared to Wordpress. Anybody can build a wordpress site, have content up, change themes, install plugins (WITHOUT PAYING FOR MOST!!!!), and do it all in just an hour or two.
I usually code all my site by hand but recently I create a few sites for some clients that wanted the ability to edit their own content. One client wanted to use Joomla because she heard about it from some friends. What I don’t get is why publishing an article is such a huge mess. I have to create the article, choose a title, choose an alias, write the article, save and close, then go over to the menu manager and manually add a link to the article I just created. I can’t simply create and article and choose a category. The whole thing sucks and is really lame.
Zach,
You obviously don’t know what your doing and don’t have your Joomla System and Site configure properly. It’s not that hard and it’s actually very easy and you don’t have to do all your saying you have to. ONly in special situations do you have to do what you stated, and more…
Learn the system before you attempt to do something.
Joomla sucks because:
-Inserting an embeded map is nightmarish
-Sections on the templates suck and are hard for normal users to identify
-HTML on articles suck, fogert iframes
I prefer Sharepoint on Office 365 by far, only problem is its payed, and has very litle templates. but it sure beats Joomla regarding all the rest.
Agree with you completely! Joomla websites are ugly. Moreover, the performance is poor!
I want study web designing. where i can study. i want to learn php, Joomla, drupla and some other. Now i am in India – Tamil Nadu – Coimbatore.
where i can study. but i have only 4000rs to study please anybody tell me some good training center or any other person you know these languages. my Mail Id : Tamil. IIdloxy2009@gmail.com.
please give me any suggestions
Oh my how things have changed since 2006! Wordpress is now in the top position. Joomla is on the wane. Drupal is on the rise again (probably because they NOT using Mootools). Anyone still using PHPNuke is officially eligible for food stamps.
@InWebDesign: If you have internet access you can learn everything on all those CMS, PHD, MySQL forums, why spent money?
Long time I stop working with Joomla. It’s ugly, heavy and sux. Wordpress beat Joomla on every field, it is already known.
Otherwise, I mostly using custom CMS. To me this is the best solution. Doing just what you need.
“Most of the time you can see from the urly URLs (look for the word component and option) This search in Google looking for both keyword in the URLs return 13 million pages”
Try that now. 711 million
Just adding my 2 cents:
I’m currently in the unfortunate position having to work on a rather complex Joomla site because our “Joomla PRO” “has been quit” his job because he didn’t get anything done in time.
Our client wanted a simple “Favourite products” system where you could add products to your personal favourites list, and then recall that list. Simple as that.
He estimated 40 hours for that.
Now I know why.
I mean, I had NO IDEA about Joomla or Virtuemart AT ALL just a few days ago, but I implemented this favourites stuff in 5 hours.
But HOLY COW, this VirtueMart thing is HORRIBLE!
The single MOST IMPORTANT PIECE OF INFORMATION – the final PRODUCT PRICE – is calculated in at least SEVEN DIFFERENT PLACES (!), INSIDE TEMPLATES (!), with DUPLICATED CODE in – I repeat – SEVEN DIFFERENT PLACES!
The other day, I had to add a few custom properties per product specifiable by the site visitor – Yes, I had to change SEVEN DIFFERENT PLACES to update the calculation! At least I wrapped the price calculation into a function and only call that (in seven different places
)
I also had to visit seven different places in various templates and codes to show the specified properties:
- The product “flypage”
- The cart
- The “read-only” cart (a duplication of the cart with a few characters changed)
- The “Final order confirmation” page
- The “Order confirmation E-Mail” template
- The “Order history” page
- The “Read only Order history” page
Oh, and let me just add:
How fucking complicated is it to just have automatically generated thumbnails in Joomla?
In a “sane” CMS, you just add a page (news entry, article, blog, whatever), enter text, upload an image, and the CMS automatically creates any thumbnails needed whatsoever for whatever view your new page might appear in (galleries, frontpage, menus, category lists bla bla bla) and you’re done.
In Joomla, I don’t see any such functionality.
There may be extensions, but the few I’ve looked at are so complicated that none of my clients would ever be able to use them.
So what do we have got ? #77.
Thank you, roared with laughter for 3 whole minutes.
Then $120. Thank you, says it all.
Then, more hours of reading all those things again and again, an ordeal.
Then, a brief intermission, ## 203-212. Thank you, I was in deep need for this.
And as conclusion, in 2012 : Thank you very much everybody here, I’ll stay miles away from this incredible piece of crap, you’ll have saved me months of thinking of suicide.
I want to say other CMS near Joomla like ant against elephant, check my website,
when you don’t know how to work with knife you just cut your finger, and pain! so just try to study this swiss army knife dude.
Jacob: Swiss army knife, right? Just that in order to use it for cutting, you have to first download a blade and screw it on, but hey, first get a screwdriver from the next tool shop. And oh, beware, the threads are neither imperial nor metric, but Joomlic, and full of rust (read: code quality), and screws aren’t included.
Notice something? Well, just look at the GREAT “reference quality Jommla Site” behind your username.
It includes SIXTEEN (16) CSS files, ELEVEN (11) Javascript files, and as if that wasn’t enough, on top of that SEVERAL KILOBYTES of INLINE CSS and Javascript.
It is OVER ONE MEGABYTE for a SIMPLE, ALMOST TEXT-ONLY site, and needs just short of ONE MINUTE TO LOAD on my crappy 384 kbit/s connection.
So, please give us another site, THIS one certainly doesn’t change my mind on Joomla quality!
Your website is really slow and it doesn’t work without googleapis’ Javascript, real websites have no-js fallback. The colours, while nice, don’t help the reader. And so many CSS files all over the place, and what’s with services/joomla-update ?
In the end, using Joomla just to have a few static pages, that’s like using an elephant to kill an ant, and then dissecting the ant with a Swiss army knife.
Fuck Joomla! Not easy to move to a new server. The instructions on the Joomla site are BS. I have moved hundreds of Joomla Websites and every single one has some weird unique problems that take days to solve. Overcomplicated and bloated software.
I still like Joomla. wordpress is for grandmas!c
It is like comparing a Volkswagen with a Mercedes or a Rolex with a Swatch.
It’s not possible.
Joomla is like a precious diva, a bit touchy but impressive. Wordpress is for everyone, functional, up to date, unemotional.
In sum, it’s just not possible to say what is better. Depends on who is using it for what purpose.
Hey, I agree in part with what you are saying here. Joomla definitely has SEO problems but sorry mate it does come standard with SEO friendly URLS and the fact that you say otherwise just tells me you were completely out of your league if you couldn’t even go into the global manager and enable search friendly URLs. This said, I myself are coming to terms with Joomla and the learning curve is relatively high. It’s not a system I would recommend highly to a complete novice and in fact I have recommended to a couple of friends to use Word Press. What Joomla kills WP over is the amount of plugins and the community behind it. Besides this it is ideally suited to larger sites while WP is perhaps better suited to smaller sites. However Joomla is, after all, number 1 for a reason. But hell yeah, SEO wise they need to do some work – most SEO experts would agree on this. For instance, I am currently putting a couple of new sites up now – smaller, blog based sites to increase the SEO of my Joomla site. This said I think there is a time and place for either CMS system – both have their strengths and weaknesses. It is simply a case of overcoming these glitches. Go well
I just switched from a fully functional site hosted on godaddy (which sucks ass/blocked for international access BTW) to namecheap (better international access!) + joomla… WTF!!! this is the absolutely most fucking tedious piece of crap on earth, er.. the net. JOOMLA that is. search everywhere and its “free”!!! Joomla “Free!” blah blah blah.. even in Joomla control panel, they advertise WIX free templates.. NOT FUCKING FREE MATES!!! yeah, free with some crap ad banner and/or footer linking to some spam fuct site. ALL bullshit. JOOMLA IS TO BE AVOIDED AT ALL COSTS!!!
@Rai You do realise that his post is 6 years old right ? clearly you haven’t read the thing to well, before posting a reply.
@all the haters, Joomla does require some PHP knowledge to tweak it right, so those hating joomla, might just be playing around with a to big system for their level of skills.
Wordpress is made for the blogging teens, so that might be more of your level.
So stop whining and start learning.
I think you didn’t learn to use Joomla very well. It has all the capabilities you want, and more… It’s an older post that I am responding to, but I have used Joomla since right after they forked from Mambo, and though I did test drive Mambo, I saw the difference with Joomla immediately. It was faster, easier to use, and now (Joomla 2.5) is an extraordinary way to build a website of just about any kind. Just because you didn’t read the manual, or know how to reference the documentation does not make Joomla a bad site building tool. It is NOT website tonight, and it is NOT the simplistic (though laudable) Wordpress. I find Joomla much easier to manage sites for my clients, and for myself. If you need help, get some, but don’t simply blast an obviously HUGE free piece of web programming due to your lack of capabilities. (Right on Morten!)
Joomla and other “CMS” systems ARE crap! CMS is trying to bridge some perceived and invented gap between Business and IT and it satisfies only the IT side once again.
CMS would never have been able to land men on the moon in the 60-s. It’s merely another example in a long string of IT wet-dreams that want to re-invent a perfectly good wheel. Why dynamically generate pages that are 99.99% static? DUMB!!!!!
Although it generates everything on the fly, it generates NO documentation about what it does or, even MORE basically, what “components” comprise a web-page. If you’re taking over maintenance of an existing joomla website, you’re fu**ed. Unless you know the intricacies of the sql/db and know the tables and know ERM, you’re fu**ed. And, this is supposed to remove the technology from end-users? HOW??? and DUMB!!!
Why add inordinate, additional overhead and time using db calls, html generators, overlaying on templates and style sheets when you consistently exceed the web’s golden rule about delivering a page within 2 seconds? DUMB!!!
Why force object-orientation on something so simple that it does Not offer any advantages? DUMB!!!
after working in dreamweaver, MS web Developer, etc for nearly 6yrs now I’ve been lumped with maintaining a joomla site and I’m ready to pull my hair out. Joomla is so bad at what it does and so restrictive that I’ve decided to re-write the whole site in dreamweaver with a little java etc just so my updates can be done with ease… I mean this site has 18,000 files for god sake and I reckon only about 20 to 30 are actually being used. There’s so much shit in there, so many unused templates, images and crap. For any web developers out there STAY AWAY FROM joomla it will destroy your positive outlook on the world