The Best Joomla Al­ter­na­tives

Joomla is a widely used content man­age­ment solution, with which users can quickly design in­ex­pen­sive websites for their first Internet presence or create extensive, pro­fes­sion­al websites via the numerous extension options. A lack of customer support on the part of Joomla, sometimes unclear total costs, and the possibly over­whelm­ing range of available ex­ten­sions brings us to al­ter­na­tive providers, whose offers we would like to take a closer look at here.

We have clearly compiled the most important features of the various CMS solutions (Status: December 2021):

Joomla offers users as a free content man­age­ment system (CMS) a variety of functions paired with different extension options, with which users can create an in­di­vid­ual and pro­fes­sion­al website. At the heart of the CMS is the Joomla community, which serves as a central point of contact for all questions and replaces customer support. With hosting costs of around 5 dollars per month, users thus receive a cost-effective website, where, for example, an online store can also become part of the web presence. A big advantage of Joomla lies in the partly free Joomla templates and ex­ten­sions, which are tailored to very specific use cases. Thus, users get exactly the functions they need.

This advantage is at the same time a dis­ad­van­tage. If possible, users should know at the beginning of starting to configure the CMS what they will need at the end in the finished website and what range of functions should be in­te­grat­ed. Thus, Joomla is aimed more at ex­pe­ri­enced users than at complete newcomers, who may be over­whelmed by the scope of the numerous plugins and pos­si­bil­i­ties. They sometimes find it easier to get along with building block systems from other providers. Let’s take a closer look at these Joomla al­ter­na­tives with their re­spec­tive ad­van­tages and dis­ad­van­tages.

MyWebsite from IONOS is the first al­ter­na­tive to Joomla. The package solution relies on a powerful editor, where a suitable layout for the website is selected at the beginning. The layout is then cus­tomized step by step via drag-and-drop, for example with ad­di­tion­al photos, a special font, or ad­di­tion­al elements such as blog pages, image galleries, or even an online store. The ad­di­tion­al elements are usually added to the website simply by selecting them and are then in­te­grat­ed into the ap­pro­pri­ate place.

Ex­ten­sions with technical functions in the form of widgets are also gradually added to the website from a catalog. At the end of the con­fig­u­ra­tion, you simply click on confirm to put it online. Using the editor, ad­di­tion­al features can also be con­ve­nient­ly added later on. This way, you can, for example, integrate a blog or connect an online store to an existing website at a later stage.

Users have the choice between different plans with IONOS. The following applies: The higher the monthly plan price, the more features are available to website owners. The basic plan starts at 1 dollar per month and includes the most important functions such as an own domain, email address, and secure SSL en­cryp­tion. The most com­pre­hen­sive plan in the premium segment costs around 40 dollars per month, making it the most af­ford­able premium version in the provider com­par­i­son.

Thanks to the simple operation and the different plan solutions, MyWebsite is suitable for beginners as well as pro­fes­sion­als who want to quickly create pro­fes­sion­al and in­di­vid­ual websites via editor.

Suitable for: Beginners, advanced users, pro­fes­sion­als

Users get another option with WordPress, one of the most widely used content man­age­ment systems in the world. With WordPress, websites for different purposes can be created and cus­tomized with various ex­ten­sions. For this purpose, a variety of free layouts and paid premium variants are available, where users can make ad­just­ments to fonts, inserted photos, and many other details in an editor. The special feature: WordPress offers a live demo that can be used to customize and test potential designs in advance. The required content for the website is then entered via CMS interface, where numerous plugins, for example for search engine op­ti­miza­tion, can also be in­te­grat­ed and managed.

WordPress, just like MyWebsite by IONOS, organizes the provided functions in several plans of varying scope. Users receive a pro­fes­sion­al website for as little as 9 dollars per month, while companies go straight for the “Business” solution for just under 30 dollars per month, as plugins can also be in­te­grat­ed in this variant. If an online store is to be part of the website, the costs rise to 50 dollars per month.

For simpler websites, such as blogs, WordPress is also suitable for beginners; more pro­fes­sion­al and es­pe­cial­ly more extensive websites with many sub-nav­i­ga­tion points require a certain basic knowledge in the creation of websites. In any case, users are well advised to be clear about the functions they need in advance and to find out about the ex­ten­sions required for them.

Suitable for: Beginners (e.g. bloggers), advanced users, pro­fes­sion­als

Unlike the Joomla al­ter­na­tives presented so far, Drupal can be used as a free open-source CMS (WordPress basically falls into the same category, but users receive such a severely limited range of functions in the free variant that this is difficult to compare with Drupal). For hosting a ready-made website, Drupal can be found with various providers that offer different hosting options for a few dollars per month.

The special feature: Drupal relies on the use of “nodes” as building block software. Nodes are a set of related content, such as text content with a headline, as well as metadata and pub­li­ca­tion date. Websites are created by users from composite nodes to which ex­ten­sions are added, defining the content on the one hand and the func­tion­al­i­ty of the website on the other.

Due to this rather abstract func­tion­al­i­ty, Drupal is less suitable for beginners, as pro­gram­ming knowledge fa­cil­i­tates the creation of a website with the free CMS. Users who have gained ex­pe­ri­ence in this area and who are able to master the steep learning curve will be pleased with the wide range of cus­tomiza­tion options offered by the CMS.

Suitable for: Advanced users, pro­fes­sion­als

Con­tent­ful is not a content man­age­ment system in the classic sense: The ap­pli­ca­tion falls under the so-called Headless CMS. This means that the frontend and backend are not mono­lith­i­cal­ly linked. Thus, using a headless CMS allows content in the backend to be displayed in any number of media.

With Con­tent­ful, users get a powerful al­ter­na­tive to Joomla, where content is set once centrally in the backend and then dis­trib­uted to the various ap­pli­ca­tions such as websites or apps through an interface. With Con­tent­ful, users can post and manage content cloud-based, enabling a variety of pub­li­ca­tions in a quick and easy way. The software’s basic functions are free, but the pro­fes­sion­al version costs 489 dollars per month. More extensive functions for companies are priced according to the exact re­quire­ments and must be discussed in­di­vid­u­al­ly with the provider.

At the same time, the great advantage of the diverse pub­lish­ing options severely restricts the user base. The ap­pli­ca­tion is simply not suitable for beginners without sound pro­gram­ming knowledge. Companies with a large number of websites and apps, on the other hand, benefit from the provider’s man­age­ment options and extensive functions.

Suitable for: Advanced users, pro­fes­sion­als

The Joomla al­ter­na­tive Contao is an open source solution in the field of content man­age­ment systems and is, according to its own spec­i­fi­ca­tions, suitable for the creation of small and large websites. The structure of Contao follows so-called lists, with which content is arranged in the software. The lists and content are managed via a browser extension, which should enable editors to create websites quickly and easily. They are supported by Contao’s min­i­mal­is­tic design, so that even beginners should find their way around easily after a short training period.

Ad­di­tion­al functions can be in­te­grat­ed into the website through ex­ten­sions and are located in a separate area in the backend of Contao.

Costs arise with Contao, on the one hand, through the hosting of the website, for which an ad­di­tion­al provider is needed, and on the other hand through the pur­chas­ing of different themes that define the design of a website. Unlike other providers, there are currently no free themes in Contao’s catalog. However, the price range is in line with the provider average, ranging from 30 to around 120 dollars per theme.

Suitable for: Beginners, advanced users, pro­fes­sion­als