Picture this: Mid-2010s, I’m contracted to build an iOS app and a website for a Cable TV hardware company. The app’s a custom RF calculator - Joomla’s in my blood, so I know it’ll anchor the website too. I deliver the app, spot-on, and start asking about the site. Then the rug gets yanked. Investor politics kick in-some bigwig’s buddy gets the gig because the site needs to “pop” for their IPO. My Joomla pitch? Too serious, too technical for the vibe they wanted. They go WordPress. Weeks after launch, it’s hacked-tens of thousands of spam emails blast out, their domain’s blacklisted, and ahead of the IPO, they can’t email a soul. The IPO flops. Company’s dead in a year. I’m left shaking my head-Joomla could’ve saved them, but they chased that effortless “pop.”
Fast forward to 2026. I’ve been out of the Joomla loop after a tornado took out my roof, and I come back expecting to see what I remembered. In some ways I wasn’t disappointed-Joomla just snagged the 2025 CMS Critic Award for Best Open Source CMS (and repeated the win in 2026). Joomla 6 is slick, secure, a developer’s dream with automatic core updates and rock-solid architecture. But the forums? Still too quiet. The community? A shadow of its former self. If Joomla’s this good-strong user management, native multilingual support, and an API that actually respects developers-why does it feel so lonely?
Meanwhile, WordPress powers over 60% of all CMS-based websites. I catch myself scrolling through its massive ecosystem, watching the endless stream of themes, plugins, and success stories, and I feel it: that pang of jealousy. Damn, what I wouldn’t give for Joomla to have even a fraction of that effortless reach.
Joomla’s Quiet Triumph: The CMS I Can't Stop Rooting For
Let’s be honest: Joomla is a beast under the hood. Proper user management without needing a pile of plugins. Multilingual capabilities built in, not patched on later. An API that doesn’t make you fight the platform. It’s the kind of system built by people who deeply care about clean code and long-term maintainability.
The proof is in the awards-Joomla keeps earning recognition as the top open-source CMS. As of 2026, Joomla 6 delivers features that make me proud to have stuck with it. Yet WordPress just… wins. It’s everywhere. Easy to spin up, easy to hand off to clients who don’t want to think too hard. I’m jealous of how it lowered the barrier so dramatically that millions of people jumped in without hesitation. My old client picked that accessible energy-and paid a heavy price when things went wrong. Joomla was the stronger tool, but WordPress was the one that felt like magic to them.
The Golden Age: When Joomla’s Community Felt Unbeatable
Rewind to the late 2000s–early 2010s. Joomla’s forums were buzzing-hundreds of thousands of users swapping ideas, extensions, and war stories. The JED was a playground of creativity. JoomlaDays brought the tribe together in cities around the world. It wasn’t just software; it felt like a movement. That RF calculator project? Joomla would have made the website as reliable as the app itself.
I look back at that energy and feel a twinge of envy when I see how WordPress scaled that same communal spark into something global and self-sustaining.
Cracks in the Foundation: A Slow Drift
It wasn’t a dramatic collapse. WordPress didn’t “beat” Joomla in a fair fight on features-it simply became the default choice for non-technical users. It grew faster, looked flashier out of the box, and attracted the crowds Joomla never aggressively chased. Joomla stayed true to its more structured, developer-friendly roots… and the casual users drifted elsewhere.
Perception played a role too. Old security headlines lingered, even as the platform matured. Meanwhile, WordPress’s sheer size made it a bigger target, yet its ecosystem kept growing anyway. I’m a little jealous of that resilience-the way it absorbs criticism and still dominates dinner-table conversations about websites.
The community didn’t implode; it just quietly faded as life pulled people in different directions. Forums thinned out. Many extensions moved behind paywalls. The “share everything freely” spirit softened. My client’s story still stings because they bet on the popular choice and it bit them hard.
The Real Issue: Joomla Never Learned to Play the Popularity Game
Here’s what gets me: Joomla’s technical excellence is undeniable, yet it never quite cracked the marketing and accessibility code that WordPress mastered. WordPress made building sites feel fun and approachable for the masses. It pandered a bit to convenience, sure-but that convenience created an empire.
I’m jealous of that. Joomla asked users to invest a little more time upfront for better long-term results. The world, it turns out, often picks the path of least resistance. Forums moved to Stack Overflow and X. Talent followed the bigger paychecks and audiences on the WordPress side. It’s the classic story: quality vs. virality. And right now, virality is winning.
Where Joomla Stands Today (April 2026)
Joomla is still excellent. Joomla 6 is mature, secure, and getting better with every release. It continues to win “Best Open Source CMS” honors. But the community feels smaller-hundreds of thousands of registered forum members, yet far fewer active voices. WordPress, with its massive market share, keeps chugging along, vulnerabilities and all, because scale has its own momentum.
I look at those numbers and feel that mix of pride in Joomla’s engineering and envy for WordPress’s cultural dominance.
Why It Matters: A Cautionary (and Enviable) Tale
This isn’t just a CMS rivalry-it’s a lesson in how tech often rewards accessibility and marketing more than pure technical merit. Joomla represents the path of substance and thoughtful architecture. WordPress represents the path of reach and simplicity. One builds deeper solutions; the other builds empires.
My client learned the hard way that “pop” without solid foundations can be expensive. Open-source projects need more than great code-they need loud evangelists, approachable onboarding, and communities that pull in newcomers instead of only rewarding the already committed.
Wake Up or Walk Away
Joomla is still that diamond in the rough-technically brilliant, award-winning, and unfairly underappreciated. I’m jealous of what WordPress achieved in terms of sheer adoption and energy. But jealousy can be fuel.
I’ve put my money where my mouth is: I’ve made all my extensions completely free again, no paywalls, back to the open-source spirit that drew me in originally. Because that’s Joomla’s soul.
Devs, what if we channeled some of that WordPress-level hype and accessibility into Joomla without losing what makes it special? Rebuild the forums. Make onboarding smoother. Shout about the wins. I’m doing my part. Join me-or watch it stay the brilliant underdog forever.
Truth is, looking back, I probably should have done a deeper dive into WordPress years ago. Maybe swallowed my pride and really studied what made it spread like wildfire-the simplicity, the ecosystem, the way it just clicks for so many people. Part of me envies how effortlessly it won the hearts (and wallets) of millions while I was busy doubling down on technical excellence inside the comfort of a familiar API.
