Joomla Development - A Comprehensive Guide to Creating a Dynamic Website
This guide will provide an overview of Joomla and its key features, as well as offer tips on how to optimize your Joomla site for improved search engine rankings.
Joomla 4 was released over a year ago and followup bug fixes have also been released as expected. It is now a very solid platform for live sites. So, should you upgrade to Joomla 4?
The Joomla 4 upgrade has brought many improvements in both user experience (UX), functionality and technology advances. In short, it is an outstanding cms, greatly improving the Joomla CMS that has won "Best Free CMS" every year since 2015. Joomla 4 is easier to use and Joomla 4 websites are faster than a Joomla 3 equivalent site.
Joomla 4 is referred to as a Major Release. Major releases are identified by the leading version number (ie. Version 1.xxx, 2.xxx, 3.xxx, 4.xxx) and indicate significant changes to the underlying code. These releases only happen every 5 years or so and allow the CMS to drop old outdated code and introduce new technologies.
CMS platform developers follow one of two philosophies in relation to software updates.
Some, like Wordpress, follow an "always backward compatible" philosophy that has the goal of ensuring all Wordpress websites can update to the latest version no matter how old they are. It has the advantage that a website built in 2005 using old software like Flash can keep running. The disadvantage is that the CMS has to maintain a lot of old code and is restricted in what new technologies can be introduced. This has lead to a lot of new technologies being introduced via third party plugins and themes, which has become a major security weakness for the platform. It also means that all that code continues to get loaded on new Wordpress sites, meaning greater load on hosting servers and potentially slower loading.
Joomla has taken a different approach of "backward compatible within major releases". It means that a Joomla 3 website will always be compatible with new releases that start with a 3, but major releases can drop outdated code that is no longer being used by modern websites and new technologies can be embraced, keeping the platform at the leading edge of website technology. The previous major release version of Joomla is still supported with bug fixes and security updates for 21 months after a new Major release to minimise disruption, so for most businesses the website review and update cycle (2 to 3 years) falls well within the CMS major update cycle. This approach has resulted in Joomla consistently winning awards.
While Joomla 3 was one of the fastest loading CMSs, the leaner Joomla 4 code offers even better performance plus a host of new features that make Joomla websites easier to maintain and a better experience for visitors. Its worth noting that a Joomla 3 website with no external plugins will update cleanly to a Joomla 4 site. It is the compatibility of third party plugins that needs to be checked before upgrading. Fortunately, the Joomla developers have made that task much easier by creating a report that will highlight any potential compatibility issues for your site.
As mentioned, Joomla 3 will easily upgrade to Joomla 4. That is not necessarily true of the third party extensions on your site. Most extension developers have updated the extensions so that the latest versions will run on Joomla 4. However, there are some exceptions.
For most Joomla websites there is no reason not to upgrade right now, and many reasons why they should. Issues 1 to 4 above should be addressed even if there was not a major Joomla release, they just make the process of upgrading a little more complex.
We have been upgrading Joomla websites since 2006 and offer an expert Joomla upgrade service at a great price. Contact us for a free quote today.
This guide will provide an overview of Joomla and its key features, as well as offer tips on how to optimize your Joomla site for improved search engine rankings.
Read more: Joomla Development - A Comprehensive Guide to Creating a Dynamic Website
Unlike the monthly security and bug fix upgrades for Joomla, the Joomla 4 upgrade is a major upgrade. This means that you may find some of your site plugins and even your site template may not be compatible. So do you really need to upgrade?