Joomla review 2026: Joomla 6, hosting costs and who it's for

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What Joomla is and who it’s for

Joomla is free, open-source software for building websites. Like WordPress and Drupal, it is a CMS (content management system) written in PHP that you install on your own web hosting. The project’s about page says Joomla is free, open and available to anyone under the GPL license. (The project writes its name with an exclamation mark at the end; we leave it out.)

Joomla organizes a site around articles, categories and menus. A menu item decides what loads on a page, and modules (small boxes such as a login form or a news list) sit around it. Two features that other free CMSs leave to add-ons are built in: multilingual sites, part of core since Joomla 1.6 in January 2011, and user groups with access levels.

Our verdict: Joomla is a solid, budget-friendly choice for multilingual sites, membership-style sites and anyone already running Joomla. For a brand-new small business site, WordPress usually wins on the size of its ecosystem: more themes, more plugins, more developers and more help.

Joomla is much smaller than WordPress. W3Techs, a web survey company, found Joomla on 1.1% of all websites on October 23, 2026, compared with 39.6% for WordPress and 0.6% for Drupal. Our Joomla encyclopedia entry covers its history since the 2005 split from Mambo.

Which version is current

Joomla 6.2 was released on October 13, 2026. According to the Joomla roadmap, Joomla 6 gets bug fixes until October 17, 2028 and security fixes until October 16, 2029. Joomla 5 stopped getting bug fixes on October 13, 2026 and gets security fixes only until October 12, 2027. Joomla says moving from 5.4 to 6.2 is “an upgrade, not a migration.”

Plans and what they really cost

Joomla itself costs $0. You pay for hosting, a domain and email, plus any paid extensions. Here are the options with published prices.

Joomla Launch is a free hosted Joomla site, provided to the public by CloudAccess.net. It includes FTP, phpMyAdmin and extensions. The catch: “You can keep it as long as you login and click a ‘renew’ button once every 30 days.” The page does not say what happens if you forget. It is a good way to try Joomla, not a home for a business site.

Hostinger’s Joomla hosting page lists a 1-click Joomla installer, and plans are paid up front for 48 months. Any PHP host that meets Joomla’s requirements will work, so these are examples, not the only choices.

A 3-year cost example

Here is a small business site on Joomla with a .com domain and one Google Workspace inbox, on Hostinger Premium.

How we got these numbers:

• Hosting. The 48-month payment also covers a fourth year. After that, Premium renews at $10.99 a month, or $131.88 a year.
• Domain. We use Namecheap’s listed .com prices as a stand-in: $18.48 a year to renew, so two renewal years cost $36.96.
• Email. Google Workspace Business Starter at $7 per user per month on the annual plan, or $252 over 3 years.

Extensions can add to this. For example, Akeeba Backup, a popular backup tool, is a free download, and its Professional version is listed at EUR 50 for the first year and EUR 30 a year to renew on its own, before any sales tax. We did not add it to the total because it is priced in euros and is optional. If you pay a developer for the build or for updates, that comes on top too.

What you can build

Content and menus

Joomla handles articles, categories, tags, contacts and custom fields. Category pages can show articles in blog or list layouts, so a news section or blog needs no add-on. Menus do more than list links: each menu item picks the content shown and which modules appear around it.

Multilingual sites

This is Joomla’s best-known strength. Multilingual support has been part of core since Joomla 1.6, and language packs add more languages. On WordPress, the same job usually takes a plugin.

Users and access

Joomla lets you set up user groups and access levels, so some content is visible only to members, staff or a paying group. That makes it a fit for clubs, associations and intranets.

Design and extensions

Templates set the design. Extensions add features, and Joomla sorts them into components, modules, plugins, templates and language packs. The Joomla Extensions Directory listed 4,998 extensions on October 23, 2026. WordPress.org’s directory lists over 76,000 free plugins, so you will find fewer ready-made options on Joomla.

Store, SEO and AI

Joomla has no store in core; shops are built with extensions from the directory. Joomla says it is “search engine optimized.” Check that any extension you add for a store or forms keeps your page titles and addresses under your control. We found no built-in AI features in the Joomla 6.2 announcement or on the about page.

Hosting needs

According to the Joomla manual, Joomla 6 needs PHP 8.3 or later (8.4 recommended), MySQL 8.0.13 or later, MariaDB or PostgreSQL, and at least 256MB of PHP memory is recommended. It runs on Apache, Nginx or Microsoft IIS. Most shared hosts meet that. Since Joomla 5.4 and 6.0, core updates can run automatically.

Keeping it updated

The roadmap lists maintenance releases about six weeks apart, with dates it calls tentative: 6.2.1 for November 24, 2026, 6.2.2 for January 5, 2027 and the next feature release, 6.3.0, for April 13, 2027. From Joomla 6.2, extension updates carry a security flag rated from None to Critical, so you can see which ones to install first. Updates are where most of the ongoing work sits, and they are the main reason to budget for a developer if you won’t do them yourself.

What happens when you leave

A Joomla site is two things: its files and its database. Joomla’s backup guide says, “If you do not backup your files and database, your backup is incomplete.” Its preferred method is Akeeba Backup, which packs both into one archive with an installer. You can also zip the files in your host’s file manager and export the database with phpMyAdmin. Back up first before you change hosts or versions. Our glossary explains website backups.

• Content and media: all articles, menus and images are in your database and files.
• Design and code: templates and extensions are files you own, under the GPL.
• Data: users, contacts and extension data are in your database.
• Domain: Joomla does not sell domains for self-hosted sites, so yours stays at your registrar.

Moving to a different CMS is a bigger job, a full website migration. The FG Joomla to WordPress plugin moves categories, articles and images in its free version; users, menus, SEO meta, tags and custom fields need its paid version. Our guide to leaving your website builder covers the steps.

Gotchas

• Joomla 5 is in its last year. Security fixes end on October 12, 2027. Plan the upgrade to Joomla 6.
• Joomla 3 is long unsupported. Official support ended August 17, 2023. Leaving Joomla 3 is a migration, not a simple update.
• Free Launch sites expire without a click. You must renew every 30 days, and the paid upgrade’s terms are not spelled out.
• Smaller ecosystem. Fewer extensions, templates and developers than WordPress.
• Keep PHP patched. Ask your host to confirm PHP was updated for the critical fixes released on October 21, 2026.
• Some add-ons are priced in euros. Akeeba’s paid plans are listed in EUR only.

Who should pick Joomla, and who should not

Pick Joomla if you need a site in several languages and want that handled in core rather than by a plugin, you want members-only areas with user groups, or you already run a Joomla site and want to stay on it. It runs well on cheap shared hosting.

Skip Joomla if you want the biggest choice of themes, plugins and developers, or you plan an online store. WordPress or a website builder will be easier to staff and extend.

Alternatives worth a look

• Drupal review: the other big open-source PHP CMS, built for large, structured sites.
• Drupal vs WordPress: how the two compare on cost, skill and exit.
• Ghost vs WordPress: if your site is mainly a blog or newsletter.