If you’ve chosen to use Joomla for your website, it’s only natural to want to learn more.
And whenever Joomla is concerned, there’s always something to be said or added.
In this article, we’ll briefly explain what Joomla is, who uses it, and what you get by using it. We’ll also share fun and useful Joomla statistics to inspire you to dig further.
What Is Joomla?
Joomla (or better known as Joomla!) is an open-source, content management system (CMS) that helps you build your websites. It’s a free platform too, and it includes many extensions and templates to customize your website (or for those eager to have a unique site design, Joomla allows you to create your own template).
Available in more than 70 languages, Joomla tries to live up to the expectations of its clients across the world. It offers one-click installation for most hosting providers, and although it’s pretty easy to use it, it might prove to be somewhat difficult for absolute beginners.
That being said, there are many extensions and add-ons you can benefit from and install without needing any coding skills. You can do wonders for your website in only a few simple clicks and installations. Plus, Joomla has a lot of developers always working on improving it, so you should be fine using it.
Here are some of the most popular and core Joomla features:
● SEO tools
● Support for multilingual sites (more than 70 translation packs)
● Powerful PHP applications
● Manu management
● Cache management
● Publishing tools (such as Article Management, Media Manager, Editor Buttons, Content Versioning, to name a few).
Joomla can accommodate any type of website – an entry-level website, medium-sized website, an established business, and so on. So, whatever the line of business you’re currently in, Joomla can satisfy your site needs.
General Joomla Facts & Stats
There’s always a lot to be said about any content management system and the way it functions, and although it seems they are all more or less the same, there are always differences in the number of websites using a specific CMS, how long it has been around, and other useful information.
Joomla isn’t an exception. Here’s what we think you should know about it:
● Joomla is the number one content management system for developing social networking sites.
● Each day more than 300 websites are built via Joomla (and up to 1.6 million active sites are built using Joomla).
● Joomla has more than 1000 free and paid templates and almost 8000 extensions.
● It has approximately 700,000 active members in its forum community.
● 9% of all business-related sites choose Joomla over other CMSs.
● On a monthly basis, Joomla websites receive more than 2TB of traffic.
● More than 85,000 of the companies that use Joomla have revenue of $1-10 million.
● Joomla has been chosen 10 times as an organization of the Google Summer Code Mentor.
● Joomla has a higher degree of security than WordPress (this is so because Joomla developers offer security extensions that tackle all vulnerabilities).
● Throughout 2018, Joomla’s worldwide community organized more than 35 significant events (this includes events that took place in countries such as Italy, Germany, Austria, Brazil, and the United States).
Joomla Usage Stats
Joomla powers 4.1% of all the websites using a content management system (this is roughly 2.4% of all websites).
Plus, many users use a different version (we’ll cover all the Joomla versions in the next section, so it will be much clearer who has opted for what):
Source: W3Techs
Version 3 seems to be the most widely used one (almost 73% of all clients tend to use this one).
Source: W3Techs
This diagram illustrates Joomla’s market position with a specific focus on popularity and traffic while comparing it to the rest of the content management systems.
So, those CMS’s placed in the lower right-hand side corner tend to be used by many sites (yet mostly by sites that have average traffic).
Those in the upper left-hand side corner are used by fewer sites (but those sites have high traffic). So, the best position would be the upper right-hand side corner. What this means for Joomla is that currently it’s mostly used by fewer, low traffic sites.
Joomla usage by websites across the globe
Source: SimilarTech
This map illustrates the countries where Joomla is being used the most. Based on the given information, Joomla seems to be the most popular in Russia, followed by the United States, and Germany (the top three countries).
Industry verticals where Joomla is being used
Source: SimilarTech
This pie chart clearly shows the industries where Joomla is being used as a content management system. Joomla is the least popular among health-related websites, and in turn, very popular in other areas (not listed in this pie chart).
However, to get a better idea of what businesses are using Joomla, let’s take a look at specific examples of websites running on Joomla:
beytoote.com
3,866 traffic rank 20.2M monthly visits
slobodnadalmacinja.hr
3,426 traffic rank 17.7M monthly visits
sendpulse.com
6,022 traffic rank 11.6M monthly visits
forbes.ru
7,245 traffic rank 9.7M monthly visits
news.rthk.hk
9,746 traffic rank 6.8M monthly visits
Joomla CMS Versions
Like any other CMS, Joomla has released many versions. You can always find and download the latest one on their website (at the time of writing this article, Joomla’s latest version is 3.9.18, and it includes the most recent features from the developers working at making Joomla better).
However, we’d like to take a walk down memory lane, and go briefly through all of Joomla’s versions since its beginnings till now:
● Joomla’s first version (Joomla 1.0) appeared on September 22, 2005 (it was released as a re-branded release of Mambo 4.5.2.3 which combined higher security fixes).
● Joomla 1.5 appeared on January 22, 2008, followed by the latest release of this version, Joomla 1.5.26, in March 2012). This version was the first capable of attaining long-term support.
● Joomla 1.6 was released on January 10, 2011 (this version included a full access control list functionality and the admin interface was noticeably improved).
● Joomla 1.7 was released on July 19, 2011 (this version had better security and improved migration tools).
● Joomla 2.5 appeared on January 24, 2012 (it was a long-term support release).
● Joomla 3.0 appeared on September 27, 2012 (however, in December 2012, it was decided to include an additional version which provided a better development life cycle and plus, it extended the support of long-term support versions).
● Joomla 3.1 appeared on April 24, 2013 (this version contained a few new features such as tagging).
● Joomla 3.2 appeared on November 6, 2013. (this version included highlighting Content Versioning).
● Joomla 3.3 appeared on April 30, 2014 (this version had improved password hashing as well as microdata and documentation).
Joomla – a new kind of approach:
On April 25, 2014, it was announced that Joomla started following the Semantic Versioning Scheme for the upcoming Joomla versions. This means that the previous long-term support (LTS) and short-term support (STS) policies were no longer included.
Namely, the Joomla 3.3.1 version was the first version released with this strategy in mind. Here are the Joomla versions that followed:
● Joomla 3.4 appeared on February 24, 2015 (this version featured security improvements, Google’s No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA, and composer integration, to name a few).
● Joomla 3.5 appeared on March 21, 2016 (this version had download system information, drag-and-drop images, you could insert modules in articles, and so on).
● Joomla 3.6 appeared on July 12, 2016 (it had download subform field, improved UX, better updates, Menu type ACL, and others).
● Joomla 3.7 appeared on April 25, 2017 (this version had Custom Fields, better Workflow, Backend Menu Manager, better UX, Multilingual Associations Manager, a better update system, and so on).
● Joomla 3.8 appeared on September 19, 2017 (this Joomla version had a better routing system, code improvements, encryption support, etc).
● Joomla 3.9 appeared on October 30, 2018 (it gave users detailed “Privacy Tool Suite” which helped the laws and regulations of the websites that use Joomla).
● Joomla 3.9.10 appeared on July 10, 2019 (it included improved security and a few bug fixes)
● Joomla 3.9.11 appeared on August 13, 2019 (this version focused on providing users with security improvements and minor bug fixes as well)
● Joomla 3.9.12 was released on September 24, 2019 (this version yet again provided users with better security and a few bug fixes).
● Joomla 3.9.13 was released on November 5, 2019 (better security and minor bug fixes).
● Joomla 3.9.14 was released on December 17, 2019 (better security and minor bug fixes).
● Joomla 3.9.15 was released on January 28, 2020 (better security and minor bug fixes).
● Joomla 3.9.16 was released on March 10, 2020 (better security and minor bug fixes).
● Joomla 3.9.17 was released on April 21, 2020 (better security and minor bug fixes).
● Joomla 3.9.18 – minor bug fixes on April 21, 2020 (minor bug fixes only). This is the version we mentioned at the beginning of this section.
As we can see, throughout the years Joomla has released many versions – all of them leading up to the final one. While the number of versions may not decrease, the changes each version comes with are much fewer. This is presumably so because Joomla believes it worked through most of its challenges (and potentially flaws), and thus it provides its users with its best features and operating system at this time.
Joomla Awards throughout the Years
Although awards aren’t always the only criterion that determines whether a particular content management system is trust-worthy and/or has a good reputation, they definitely provide a higher level of credibility.
Since being created back in 2005, Joomla has received many awards and recognitions. Here’s a list including most of them:
2005:
Linux & Open Source Awards in London: received the Best Linux/Open Source Project Award
2006:
Packt Open Source Awards: received the Best Open Source CMS Award
UK Linux & Open Source Awards: received Best Linux/Open Source Project Award
2007:
Packt Open Source Awards: received the Best PHP Open Source CMS Award
2008:
Packt Open Source Awards: received Open Source CMS Most Valued Person Award (this was actually a personal award – Johan Janssens was recognized as CMS “Most Valued Person”)
Packt Open Source Awards – 1st Runner-up Best Open Source CMS
Packt Open Source Awards – 1st Runner-up Best Overall Open Source CMS
2009:
Packt Open Source Awards – Open Source CMS Most Valued Person (this was a personal award given to Louis Landry)
Packt Open Source Awards – 1st Runner-up Packt Hall of Fame CMS
Packt Open Source Awards – 2nd Runner-up Best Open Source CMS
2010:
Packt Open Source Awards – 2nd Runner-up Hall of Fame CMS
2011:
Packt Open Source Awards – received the Best Open Source CMS Award
2012:
Infoworld Bossie Awards – received the Best Open Source Application Award
2014:
CMS Critic People’s Choice Awards – received the Best Open Source PHP CMS Award
2015:
CMS Critic People’s Choice Awards – received Best Free CMS Award
2016:
CMS Critic People’s Choice Awards – received the Best Free CMS Award
2017:
CMS Critic People’s Choice Awards – received the Best Free CMS Award
2018:
CMS Critic People’s Choice Awards – received the Best Free CMS Award
2019:
CMS Critic People’s Choice Awards – received the Best Free CMS Award
To sum up, Joomla is a fairly popular CMS, and while it may not be as popular as WordPress for blogging, it still has its advantages and benefits.
And taking into account that there are 4,263,122 websites using Joomla as their platform, our guess is that you won’t be making a mistake if you opt for it as well.
We have even more stats for you!
Chinese Social Media Statistics
Jamie Spencer
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