More than 6 years ago when we at OurChurch.Com first began developing custom websites to help Christian organizations achieve their mission online, we knew we wanted to use the best open source content management system we could find. In late 2005, we evaluated several options including WordPress, Drupal and Mambo, but the clear winner for both functionality and usability was Joomla.
Over the years, we’ve successfully developed Joomla-based websites for many Christian organizations, however, in that time much has changed both on the CMS landscape and with Joomla specifically.
The Path to Joomla 1.5 (or lack there of)
In 2008, Joomla released its second major version – 1.5. The core code changes were so significant that no upgrade path was provided. Those sites using Joomla 1.0 would have to create an entirely new Joomla 1.5 site.
In late 2009, Joomla ended all support for Joomla 1.0. This left OCC and our existing clients in a difficult situation. If a security problem were uncovered, there would be no way to fix it. We began encouraging our Joomla 1.0 clients to upgrade to 1.5, but because it required creating a new site (and thus a significant cost) few did.
That left both our clients’ websites and the servers they are hosted on vulnerable. So last year we developed the Full Service Joomla Program in which we would charge just $199 to create a new Joomla 1.5 site for our clients (taking a substantial loss) and enroll those who upgraded in a program where we would provide all upgrades to their site for $29/mo.
The Path to Joomla 2.5 (or lack there of)
Wouldn’t you know it, just a short time after we launched the Full Service Joomla Program, began upgrading client sites to Joomla 1.5 and enrolling clients in the program, Joomla announced the release of its next major version – Joomla 2.5. And again Joomla provided no upgrade path. Moving from Joomla 1.5 to 2.5 would require another completely new site.
We were stunned and disappointed.
It’s simply not OK for Joomla to force their users to build a completely new website every time they release a new major version.
In Comes WordPress
In 2005, WordPress was taking the blogging world by storm, but it had relatively few plugins and was clunky to use as the basis for a website. But over the last 6+ years, WordPress has continued to race forward. Thousands of plugins have been developed to provide almost any functionality an organization could want for its website. Its administrative interface has always been ultra-user-friendly. And perhaps best of all, upgrading WordPress and all of its plugins has usually takes all of one click.
We’ve been using WordPress for this blog as well as Church Marketing Online and Christian SEO Guys for years. So, it only makes sense for us to embrace WordPress as our CMS platform.
From this point forward…
…we are developing all new custom designed websites in WordPress.
For those clients who have Joomla 1.5 sites and the Joomla Full Service program, we are committed to providing all necessary upgrades. However, instead of upgrading your site to Joomla 2.5 (which would mean a completely new site anyway), we’ll contact you about creating a new WordPress site at our cost. And in the mean time, we’ll continue to provide support for your Joomla 1.5 site.
Because there is no way to fix any security issues with Joomla 1.0 sites and they create a security risk both for those organizations and all organizations that have their sites on that server, we’ve notified all Joomla 1.0 clients that they will have to transition to a WordPress site or move their site to another host by November 30.
Any comments or questions? If you’re a Joomla user, what do you think of Joomla and the fact that it can’t be upgraded from one major version to the next? What are your thoughts on WordPress as a CMS?
24 Comments
I both Joomla and WordPress user. I am 100% sure that WordPress is far better than Joomla in terms of webmaster friendly, web designing task, social media integration and even easy to integrate with payment system. Just email me if you need some help on development and design
In my opinion, joomla is the best cms compare to others.it offers lots of benefits,easy to learn,open source package,we can easily manage large scale website by using joomla.
I've also migrated my joomla website to wp a little time back. Since I’m not a tech savvy person, I searched for an online converter to get the job done. My search ended when I found cms2cms tool. They seamlessly migrated my website to wp, and was blown away by their level of service and professionalism. I wish I would have done it sooner, but I was afraid. Regards…
Great blog post.
WordPress is very popular in recent time. this CMS has many advantage fro webmaster. Besides, we may use Drupal as a good CMS for custom website.
This information is really new and interesting for me. Actually WordPress cms is a very powerful CMS. It can easily used by not only for those who has programming background but for those who don't know have programming knowledge. Even a man who don't much know about internet can make easily own website or blog by using WordPress. Sometime, accidentally some errors occur in WordPress like database connection error. These types of errors are common but not for a non-programming man. For resolving this, i have found an awesome article on it http://bbcnewsplanet.com/9-common-wordpress-error… during surfing the internet. Anyways, guys you are performing nice job.