Joomla! Discussion Forums

I ran into Joomla when researching content management systems. I read up on Drupal and phpNuke etc too. I wanted a CMS for two reasons - to cuz my human resources budget in half (we were doing thousands of static webpages by hand in my media site), and to be able to offer website design for our clients that allowed them to update their sites on their own.

As soon as I saw Joomla and it's extensions, I was sold. I also read a ton of blogs comparing Joomla to other CMSs.

PROS
- I had my first site in ten minutes. Was playing with templates in twenty.
- The pure opportunities available through not just Joomla! core (it already does a lot) but all of the extensions out there... Wow. I'm still blown away.
- I live and breathe for the purpose of marketing companies and uniting groups together to effect a change of some sort. Joomla! offers everything I need to create a stellar social media site.
- If you know the right things or the right people, you can make a Joomla! site look unique.
- Compared to the cost of having a database-driven website custom programmed for you, there's no contest. Joomla rules!
- Has apps for everything from communities and social media sites to classified listings and online stores.

CONS
- I don't want my site to look like anyone's elses so I had to learn, do and pay for a fair amount of template work.
- The cost of styling templates and components or extensions isn't much at all until you realize you have to do that whenever there's an upgrade that significantly changes the way an extension/component runs or is displayed (jReviews is my favourite extension but I had just finished styling it when they came out with an upgrade big enough that I had to restyle it, basically right after finishing the last set!).
- I've been doing webdesign for over 10 years and I'd never got a virus on my website until Joomla!. Our development server was live. We got infected the day were supposed to launch. If it weren't for some amazing people all over the world that helped me (the Joomla! community), I think I would've gone back to the drawing board. That was one month of my life I'll never get back. BUT - Now I backup religiously and take proper precautions. I had been lazy on that end because we hadn't even technically launched yet. Won't make that mistake again! I take the responsibility of running a Joomla site much more seriously now.

On a side note :: I fully intend to continue offering to create Joomla sites for my clients but that said, I'm still trying to figure out how much I need to budget (and therefore charge the client) for ongoing maintenance, upgrades, extension and template renewals etc.