What is Joomla used for?

Joomla is a long-established open-source PHP content management system for building multilingual websites, with a large extension ecosystem. It is a good fit for corporate and small business websites, multilingual community portals, and agency-built client sites.

Is Joomla open source?

Yes. Joomla is open source under the GPL-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at joomla/joomla-cms and is written mainly in PHP.

Yes. Joomla is open source, so the software itself is free to use.

Can I self-host Joomla?

Yes. Joomla can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.

What is Joomla an alternative to?

Joomla is an open-source alternative to WordPress.com, HubSpot CMS Hub and Voog. Other open-source alternatives to WordPress.com include WordPress, Drupal and Halo.

Is Joomla actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to Joomla was on 2 October 2026, and the latest release is 6.1.4, published on 29 September 2026. The project has 5.1k stars on GitHub.

Joomla: open-source alternative to WordPress.com

About Joomla

Joomla is a free, open-source content management system written in PHP. It lets site owners and developers build, organize and publish websites and web applications through an administrator interface, and it is tagged as both a CMS and a website builder with multilingual capabilities.

This repository contains the source of the current Joomla CMS, with version history and detailed changelogs published on the project site and continuous integration status shown for PHP and Node. Joomla relies on a large community of extension developers and translators to extend the core, and the project promotes contributions through Hacktoberfest.

Joomla is licensed under GPL-2.0 and installed on your own web hosting with a database. It suits small business sites, community portals, publishers and agencies that want a mature, extensible PHP CMS with built-in support for multiple languages.

Key features

PHP content management system
Multilingual website support
Administrator back end for editors
Extensions and templates ecosystem
Published version history and changelogs
Active community development

Good fit for

→Corporate and small business websites
→Multilingual community portals
→Agency-built client sites

Built with: PHP
Tags: cms; php; website-builder; joomla; multilingual; content-management; self-hosted

Joomla: questions and answers

What is Joomla used for?: Joomla is a long-established open-source PHP content management system for building multilingual websites, with a large extension ecosystem. It is a good fit for corporate and small business websites, multilingual community portals, and agency-built client sites.
Is Joomla open source?: Yes. Joomla is open source under the GPL-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at joomla/joomla-cms and is written mainly in PHP.
Is Joomla free?: Yes. Joomla is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
Can I self-host Joomla?: Yes. Joomla can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
What is Joomla an alternative to?: Joomla is an open-source alternative to WordPress.com, HubSpot CMS Hub and Voog. Other open-source alternatives to WordPress.com include WordPress, Drupal and Halo.
Is Joomla actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to Joomla was on 2 October 2026, and the latest release is 6.1.4, published on 29 September 2026. The project has 5.1k stars on GitHub.