Joomla! review: the free open-source CMS powering millions of sites. See 2026 features, extensions, pricing, pros, cons and WordPress/Drupal alternatives…
Joomla! originated in 2005 as a fork of the Mambo CMS, after most of Mambo's volunteer developers, including Andrew Eddie, Brian Teeman and Johan Janssens, split from Mambo's commercial sponsor over control of the project. They incorporated the nonprofit Open Source Matters, Inc. in New York to steward the new project, and Joomla 1.0 launched on September 16, 2005.
Two decades later, Joomla remains entirely community-developed, with the project reporting more than 1,500 active volunteer contributors, over 155 million downloads, and more than 2 million websites currently running on it worldwide, translated into 76 languages.
Joomla is a PHP and MySQL-based CMS with an extensible architecture of templates, modules, plugins and components, giving developers a foundation to build anything from a simple blog to a complex, access-controlled membership site.
Joomla ships with capabilities that many competing CMS platforms only offer through third-party plugins, most notably native multilingual content management and a granular, role-based access control system for managing what different user groups can view or edit. Its templating system supports responsive, mobile-friendly designs out of the box.
SEO controls are built into the core, including friendly URL structures and metadata fields, and the platform includes a Web Services API for building headless or decoupled front ends. A library of more than 10,000 third-party extensions and templates, distributed through the Joomla Extensions Directory, extends the core with e-commerce, forums, event calendars and other functionality.
Because the software is open source, developers and agencies can modify Joomla's core code directly, which appeals to organizations with custom structural or compliance requirements that off-the-shelf plugins can't fully satisfy.
Joomla! itself is free, released under the GNU General Public License, with no license fee, usage cap or vendor subscription. Anyone can download, self-host and modify the software at no cost.
Real-world costs come from elements outside the core software: web hosting (shared, VPS or managed Joomla hosting), premium templates or extensions sold by third-party developers in the Joomla ecosystem, and any professional design or development services a site owner chooses to hire to build or maintain the site.
Yes, Joomla! is free, open-source software released under the GNU General Public License. Costs only arise from hosting, premium extensions or professional services.
Joomla was created in 2005 by the former core development team of the Mambo CMS, including Andrew Eddie, Brian Teeman and Johan Janssens, who founded the nonprofit Open Source Matters, Inc. to govern the new project.
Neither is strictly better; Joomla offers stronger built-in multilingual support and access control out of the box, while WordPress has a larger plugin ecosystem and a gentler learning curve for beginners.
Joomla 6 is the current major release as of 2026, with the project actively maintaining it through regular security and maintenance updates.
Basic sites can be built without coding using templates and extensions, but Joomla's deeper customization and access-control features typically benefit from some development or configuration experience.
The main alternatives are WordPress and Drupal among open-source CMS platforms, and hosted website builders like Wix and Squarespace for users who don't want to self-host.