Joomla: The best alternative to WordPress

WordPress is undoubtedly the most popular CMS, but it is not always the best choice for every website. For users looking for more flexibility and functionality - whether you want to build a small blog, a medium-sized corporate website or a complex online application - Joomla can be a valuable alternative. Joomla offers more features by default, making you less dependent on plugins and customizations. This makes it an excellent choice for various types of projects, from simple sites to more advanced applications.

In this article, I will explain the main differences between Joomla and WordPress, and you will discover why Joomla can be a good alternative to WordPress in terms of performance, accessibility and SEO.

The main differences between Joomla and WordPress

1. Strong system architecture

WordPress is user-friendly and for many a great tool for small to medium-sized websites or blogs. But simplicity comes at the expense of flexibility. As your website grows, the limitations of WordPress will become apparent. Many users install a large amount of plugins or look for complicated solutions or customizations. Which sooner or later will cause problems. Your WordPress website becomes slow, or insecure.

Joomla, on the other hand, is designed from the beginning as a real CMS, with a solid foundation and modular structure. But what does this mean for you?

• Joomla has many features already built in by default, whereas in WordPress you often need plugins, custom code or changes to the base files. The flexibility of Joomla is readily available and does not need to be added afterwards.
• Joomla has a clear system for extensions, where different functions are kept separate. This ensures that extensions (such as plugins, modules and components) work better together, reducing conflicts and keeping the code more stable.
• Joomla is built on modern PHP and Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture, which means it is future-proof and easy to maintain.

2. A powerful Content Management System with flexibility at its core

Joomla's content management system is more flexible and scalable than that of WordPress. In WordPress, you manage content primarily through posts and pages, with custom post types often requiring additional plugins or code.

Joomla takes a different approach:

• Articles: Joomla articles are highly customizable and can be displayed in different layouts, such as single article, category blog or a list of featured articles.
• Categories: Joomla uses a hierarchical system for categories, making it easy to organize complex content structures.
• Tags: Tags help categorize and link content together, providing better navigation and findability.
• Custom Fields: Joomla offers custom fields in articles and categories. This way, you can easily populate pages with appropriate content that is displayed in a consistent manner on your website.
• Media Library: In Joomla, the media library is more organized thanks to the ability to organize files into folders. Unlike WordPress, where all files are placed in one large library, Joomla provides more overview and structure. This is especially useful for larger websites with lots of media content, as you can easily group and manage specific files.

3. Modular extensions: Plugins, Modules and Components

In WordPress, everything is controlled by plugins. Whether you are adding a widget, creating a custom post type (CPT), or adding complex features such as an online store, it is often done through plugins. While this approach seems simple, it can lead to a plethora of plugins, making your WordPress website extremely slow.

Joomla takes a more structured, modular approach:

• Plugins: These are small pieces of code that add functionality by responding to certain events. They are divided into categories such as authentication, users, content and system. This helps keep everything clear and reduce conflicts.
• Modules: These are smaller content blocks that you can place anywhere in your website, similar to WordPress widgets, but much more flexible. Modules can display everything from custom HTML and lists of articles to banners and specific user content. You can give a module a specific position, assign it to a specific menu item, or link it to a specific access level.
• Components: These are like mini-applications that run in the background of Joomla and manage larger functions, such as e-commerce, blogs and contact forms.

This clear separation of functions makes Joomla cleaner and easier to maintain than WordPress, reducing the likelihood of conflicts between plugins and performance issues.

4. Performance and SEO: Optimized from the start

WordPress users often rely heavily on external plugins such as Yoast for SEO and WP Rocket for cache options, etc.. Unlike WordPress, however, Joomla offers many cache and SEO features already by default, giving you more control from the start.

Here are some built-in performance and SEO benefits of Joomla:

• Search Engine Friendly URLs (SEF URLs): Joomla generates clean and search engine-friendly URLs without the need for a plugin.
• Metadata: You can easily manage page titles, descriptions and keywords for any menu item or article.
• Built-in caching: Joomla has both page and module caching to improve your site load times.
• GZIP compression: Allows you to enable server-side compression to minimize file sizes and speed up page load times.
• Optimized CSS and JS: Joomla can merge and compress CSS and JavaScript files, improving frontend performance.
• Also Structured data, canonical urls, redirects are standard Joomla features that should not be missing in any website.

These features help improve the visibility and speed of your site without the need for additional plugins.

5. Multilingual support: out of the box and easy

WordPress requires external plugins like WPML or Polylang for multilingual support. Joomla, on the other hand, offers these capabilities by default.

With Joomla's built-in multilingual system, you can:

• Easily manage content in multiple languages.
• Set up language-specific menus and modules.
• Display language changers so visitors can easily switch between different languages.

Joomla's multilingual support is robust and does not require additional plugins. This reduces the risk of conflicts and performance issues.

6. Advanced access control (ACL).

For anyone who manages membership websites or needs detailed control over user permissions, Joomla's access control system (ACL) offers a great advantage.

While WordPress relies on roles and capabilities to manage user rights, Joomla with ACL offers many more options:

• You can create custom user groups and assign very specific permissions for different types of content and actions.
• ACL applies to components, modules, menu items and even individual content elements. This allows you to set up complex permission structures, which is ideal for websites with multiple contributors, private sections or restricted access.

This system makes Joomla particularly suitable for enterprise websites, community platforms, or any site that needs detailed control over user permissions.

7. Accessibility: A website for everyone

One of Joomla's greatest advantages is its built-in focus on accessibility. In a world where digital inclusion is increasingly important, Joomla provides the tools and features needed to make a website accessible to all users, regardless of their skills or limitations. Joomla uses semantic HTML and supports ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications), making it easier to build a Web site that complies with WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines). This means taking into account not only visually impaired visitors, but also users who rely on keyboard navigation or screen readers. By focusing on accessibility, Joomla helps you reach a wider audience and provide a better user experience for everyone.

8. Menu-driven architecture for total control over navigation and links

In WordPress, menus are often seen as an afterthought. You create your pages and posts first, then add them to your menu. Joomla takes a fundamentally different approach - menus are the foundation of your site's structure.

• In Joomla, you create menu links to control the structure of your site. These menu links are not just links to pages; they can also link to articles, categories, extensions, contact forms, blog views or even external URLs.
• Each menu link can have its own individual settings, such as metadata, layout overrides and more, giving you complete control over how each page of your site is presented and functions.

This level of control makes Joomla much more powerful for Web sites with elaborate navigation structures.

In addition, Joomla uses relative URLs (e.g., image paths). This makes it easier to move your site from a development environment to a live server while keeping all links intact. This greatly simplifies migrating a site, a pain point for many WordPress users.

9. Template Overrides: Ultimate customization without affecting the basics

Many WordPress users experience frustration because customizations to themes and plugins are often lost after updates. Joomla has a solution for this: template overrides.

This means for you:

• Complete control over how your pages with articles, modules and components are displayed.
• Customizations that are future-proofed and retained during updates.
• A clear and efficient way to implement custom designs or functionalities on your site.

This flexibility makes Joomla attractive to developers and designers who like to create their own layouts, without the technical problems that can arise from changing the base files.

10. Security: Fewer plugins, fewer vulnerabilities

One of the main advantages of Joomla is that you are less dependent on external plugins to add essential features. In WordPress, the use of plugins is often indispensable to build in certain features, which increases the likelihood of security problems. Every extra piece of code you add to your website is a potential risk. In fact, many security vulnerabilities in WordPress stem from outdated or poorly maintained plugins. In fact, reports show that many vulnerabilities in WordPress websites stem from vulnerable plugins.

Joomla offers many of the necessary features by default, making you less dependent on additional extensions and thus less risk of security problems. Fewer plugins means fewer vulnerabilities and a lower chance of conflicts between extensions. Joomla's modular system also ensures that the security of your website is better to guarantee, without you constantly relying on updates from third-party developers.

Conclusion: Why switch to Joomla?

Joomla is a strong and powerful solution for anyone who wants to go beyond the limitations of WordPress. It offers a combination of flexibility, scalability and a strong focus on best practices. This allows users to achieve full customization without relying on plugins or hacks.

Whether you are a developer, designer or site administrator seeking more control over your website, Joomla may be the better choice. It is ideal for building more complex or larger websites that have high demands for performance, security and functionality. And are you used to working with pagebuilders to easily (and without knowledge of code) build your website. These are also plenty available for Joomla. My favorite pagebuilder is Yootheme PRO.

Are you an experienced WordPress user and interested in checking out the latest version of Joomla? I would love to show you what this CMS has to offer for you and your business. Please contact me for an appointment.

Source : https://www.phoca.cz/blog/1338-welcome-to-joomla-dear-wordpress-users-a-comprehensive-guide-to-joomlas-strengths