Joomla! is one of the world's most popular software packages used to build, organize, manage and publish content for websites, blogs, Intranets and mobile applications. Owing to its scalable MVC architecture its also a great base to build web applications.
With more than 3 percent of the Web running on Joomla! and a CMS market share of more than 9 percent, Joomla! powers the web presence of hundreds of thousands of small businesses, governments, non-profits and large organizations worldwide like Citibank, eBay, Harvard University, Ikea, McDonald's and Sony.
As an award winning CMS led by an international community of more than a half million active contributors, helping the most inexperienced user to seasoned web developer make their digital visions a reality.
Here are some of the Joomla! features you will love.
Multilingual
Joomla! is the most popular and widely supported open source multilingual CMS platform in the world, offering more than 64 languages. Webmasters and content creators can create websites to be presented in multiple languages, without ever needing to step outside of the options available in the Joomla! core software. This is a big step forward and represents a set of capabilities that can make websites much more accessible, reaching out to a much larger audience.
Well Supported
Our worldwide, enthusiastic community is filled with individuals, and teams of world class developers and business consultants who actively help at no cost in the forums.
There are thousands of professional Joomla! service providers throughout the world who can help build, maintain and market your Joomla! projects. The Joomla! community has a vetted directory of just some of these providers at the Joomla! Resources Directory(http://resources.joomla.org/en/).
Easy Upgrades
One of the big challenges with any software is keeping it up to date. Fortunately, Joomla! has a "One Click Version Update" feature to make this process super easy for users of any skill level.
The built-in updater also has an automated checker which notifies you if anything needs updating; this includes notifications of the core software and Joomla! extension that utilise this feature. Keeping your site up to date is the single best thing you can do to secure your web assets and Joomla! gives you the tools to do this with little effort.
Integrated Help System
Joomla! has an in-app contextual help system to help every level of user to operate their Joomla. Most pages have a help button in the top right, helping you fully understand all options on that page. There is also a glossary explaining the terms in plain English, a version checker makes sure you're using the latest version, a system information tool helps you troubleshoot. If all else fails, links to a wealth of online resources for additional help and support are available, such as Joomla! Documentation and User Forum.
Banner Management
With the banner manager you have the possibility to easily add advertising and monetize your website. The tool allows you to create clients and campaigns, to add as many banners as you need, even custom codes, to set impression numbers, track the clicks and much more...
Search better, Search Smarter
With the built in search and smart search, your website visitors will be able to quickly and easily find the appropriate information on your site. And even more, thanks to the statistics you can analyze your visitors needs and streamline your content even better to serve them. You have the ability to use the included smart indexing, advanced search options, auto suggest searches - making Joomla! search the best in class right out of the box.
Content Management
Joomla! is a Content management system at heart and has some seriously great features that make organising and managing your content a breeze. Content creation is made very easy by the inbuilt WYSIWYG editor and allows you to edit content without any knowledge of code. After you created your content you'll find a lot of possibilities to show it on the frontend. Next to different layouts, you're able to use several pre installed modules to show the most popular articles, latest items, related articles and more.
Nested categorization
When you are managing content, organisation is a key requirement. Being able to create categories with nesting and no limits on depth is a great plus in helping manage large websites.
Tagging
When categorisation is not enough to structure your content, it's time to look at a flat organisation structure which is best served by tagging. What's more, tagging in Joomla! also supports nesting, so limits are just not there!
Start tagging.
Frontend Editing
Editing content should be easy and fast. You are reading through your site's content and see a change you need to make. No need to login to the administrative section any more for simple edits of content and modules.
Simply click and edit from the frontend.
Content Versioning
You will never again lose a previous important version of your article and other changes on your site. You are now able to track exactly who made what changes, when, and, if a version note was entered, why the item got edited. Then if needed you can revert to any previous version.
Syndication and Newsfeed Management
Make sure your visitors stay updated on the new content you're adding, even when they come only once in a while. With Syndication you create a feed that users subscribe to in their favorite RSS reader and so they receive the updates. With newsfeed management, you can integrate RSS feeds to your site. Gather all posts from some of the largest news sites and show them on your site for example.
Powerful Extensibility
The Joomla! core is just the beginning, the real power is in the way you can customize Joomla. More then 8.000 extensions are available to extend your website and broaden its funcionality. Visit the Joomla! Extensions Directory or use the Joomla! extension finder built right into Joomla! to see thousands of ways to enhance Joomla! to suit your needs.
Extensive ACL for all your access control needs
ACL stands for Access Control List, it allows you to manage the users of your site, and different groups. When you're managing large content portals or even intranets that means you need extensive control on who can see what and who can edit or manage what. The Joomla! ACL is extremely powerful and can be tweaked via configuration to suit any needs you might have.
For Designers
Design Uncoupled
Joomla! was one of the pioneers in open source CMS's by adopting a MVC design strategy. MVC means that views are strictly separate from the business logic. This is a huge advantage since you own the views or can override them to achieve superior custom designs. Joomla! not only gives you the design freedom that you have always craved but can help you make your sites stand out in the crowd!
Responsive with Bootstrap
Joomla! is Mobile Ready and allows you to build more than just websites but online applications that can respond to virtually any device. Joomla! core templates are built with Bootstrap making it responsive out of the box. Which means you have a toolset to work with which makes creating templates even easier!
Do More with Less
Spend less time coding and reduce the tedious tasks associated with building interfaces in Joomla! 3. Joomla! now features LESS CSS and jQuery which means you can write less code to achieve greater results. In addition the Icomoon font icon library provides a wealth of retina-optimized icons. The Joomla! User Interface (JUI) library gives you a standardized backend & frontend interface.
Override Away!
With a highly advanced override system, designers get an awesome amount of power over how pages & elements of pages are presented without touching any of the core code! Practically any HTML generated by Joomla! can be customized to your project.
Beautiful Fonts for that extra edge
Designers know the power of fonts for expressing ideas and design strategies. With Joomla! you do not need to get constrained by standard Web fonts. The Joomla! core itself opens a whole new world of expression because it allows you the freedom to use Google fonts to make that new design dream come true !
Template Management
Templates in Joomla! are more than a framework for managing your designs but a powerful tool suite for making your site look exactly the way you want. You have complete control of your presentation since you can either use a single template for the entire site or a separate template for each site section or menu item. The level of visual control goes a step further with powerful template overrides, allowing you to customize each part of your pages.
For Developers
User Management
Joomla! has a registration system that allows users to configure personal options. Out of the box, there are nine user groups with various types of permissions on what users are allowed to access, edit, publish and administer.
Authentication is an important part of user management and Joomla! supports multiple protocols, including LDAP, OpenID, and even Gmail. This allows users to use their existing account information to streamline the registration process. All of this can be added onto with extensions, giving you complete control over what users can access and how they authenticate to your site.
System Features
Speedy page loads are possible with page caching, granular-level module caching, and GZIP page compression.
If your system administrator needs to troubleshoot an issue, an extended debugging mode and error reporting are invaluable. The FTP Layer allows file operations (like installing Extensions) without having to make all the folders and files writable, making your site administrator's life easier and increasing the security of your site. Administrators quickly and efficiently communicate with users one-on-one through private messaging or all site users via the mass mailing system.
Cloud Storage APIs
A new API in Joomla! will allow Joomla! to access cloud storage services including Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, Rackspace and Dropbox. This allows sites to now use these services as content distribution networks without the need for third party extensions.
Web Services
In a web where content is being shared across multiple networks, Joomla! makes it easy to manage your content from a single location. With APIs supporting several third party services and a connector enabling requests to anywhere on the web, users and developers have a magnitude of power and data readily available to them.
Microdata library implementation
Developers will now be able to incorporate microdata more easily into their extensions and sites. From automating the Author tag in articles, to generating detailed markup for directories of information, the microdata library will significantly enhance how you can optimise SEO with Joomla.
