So many paid extensions

[GPixels]

I just did a quick search to see how many free vs paid extensions exist for Joomla.

Free Extensions = 331 pages
Paid Extensions = 375 pages

I remember long ago where the majority of the extensions were free. I'm not opposed to paid extensions, as long as they are quality extensions. I'm just amazed at how many paid versions have filled up the Extensions Directory.

[sozzled]

Why are you amazed? I wrote about this situation a while ago (see viewtopic.php?f=48&t=956257).

The point is pretty simple, really: no-one seems to care that the number of free-of-charge extensions is becoming a scarcer commodity because there are still enough free-of-charge extensions available that allow cheapskates—I wish I could think of a nicer term—who won't kick in a few dollars to offset the developers' costs.

I don't believe people understand what it actually costs the people who develop software for Joomla.

First of all, there's the actual cost of connecting to the internet. Then there's the cost of have a website (or sites) where the developer can provide software so that others can siphon it off and use it. This is real money (it's a couple of hundred dollars a year). Add to this, the cost of maintaining the equipment (and the electricity used to power it) and lighting and heating for the room. Then there's the time. So ... you write a piece of software and you test it. Then you write some documentation for it (well, it would be a nice idea if people did that, wouldn't it?). And then you write some notes for marketing purposes (perhaps a screenshot or two to demonstrate); maybe you also have a "demo site" (?)

Lastly, you have to make sure that the software meets the JED rules. After you've done this, you submit your product for listing on the JED and, if you're lucky, the product appears on the JED within a week or two (if you don't have to remind the JED staff a couple of times). All of this before people can even see that there's an extension that might come close to their needs.

And, of course, very few people take the trouble to say thanks or write a review (assuming that the review actually makes it to the JED). So, we don't even know how people actually feel about our products!

And you wonder why more developers are now charging people to download their products given the costs and hurdles that we have to overcome?

[GPixels]

lol, not sure if you are giving me a lecture or not and not calling me a cheapskate. It was just an observation of how the paid extensions have increased.

I haven't been around Joomla for a few years (just off-and-on) as I've been busy developing WordPress themes (although this is about to change as I am coming back to Joomla).

But the level of paid plugins even for WordPress has grown as well. As you talked about, there is time and effort involved in developing, maintaining, and providing support of course. On the WordPress side, I have a theme site where I fork out about $1000 per year for plugins. For previous Joomla site's I've had, I personally feel better with the paid extensions.

[sozzled]

@GPixels: I wasn't attempting to characterise you or your willingness to purchase software. I was, however, commenting on your "surprise" about why more extension developers are charging people to download software. It's a fact that the costs of developing, maintaining and offering software are rising and that some people—not everyone and not you, in particular—expect that software developers to provide more free software when the market mitigates against it.

The fact is that the costs of doing business (even providing free software via the JED) simply do not stack up against the costs of preparing that software in terms of the money that developers have to spend, the time it takes to build those products, the time involved in satisfying the JED rules in order to bring those products to market and the lack of appreciation from the community when those products are obtained by customers whether they were purchased or obtained for free. That's really my point.

You may be one of the good people who show some appreciation for the work of developers. I would say that for every person like you there are hundreds or thousands of others who don't.

"So many paid extensions"? Well, by the same token, there are so many ungrateful customers, too.

[GPixels]

No worries... all good.

As for my expense, one example is a package set of plugins from Easy Digital Downloads, so it's a $400 per year package that gets renewed annually. There are a few other paid plugins I used as well, but overall, I get quality, updates, and support....not things anyone should expect should be free. I know for myself when I design a theme/template, it's a lot of work involved, including providing support.

[Webdongle]

There are a lot of hobbiests that can not afford paid extensions ... especially as a lot of paid extens do not update free of charge.

There used to be a symbiotic relationship between the professionals and us amateurs but now Joomla appears to be more for the professional.

The coding in Joomla is becoming more complecated ... it is getting more difficult to write a Template than it was before. It is also more difficult to create a Template override.

[sozzled]

Thanks for the feedback, @Webdongle. Yes, I agree that (in times past) there was a more cosy relationship between extension developers and the wider community but that has all changed. Perhaps people are unfamiliar with the increased responsibilities that have been added to Joomla developers by the JED team? I invite people to look at the JED submission requirements to get a feel for what we developers have to deal with.

Joomla developers can no longer be mere hobbyists. We have to be diligent, too, and we're now operating under quasi consumer legislation conditions.

Couple this with the fact that most of the less-popular extensions on the JED are not reviewed (because people won't spend a few minutes writing reviews), that JED reviews are often not approved because the reviews fail to meet the standards set by the JED process, the fact that most people who obtain software (for free, that is) don't even say thanks, and the fact that JED software developers generally attract punishment rather than praise, it's a tough gig.

Money—the pittance that's involved—is a small tangible way to offset the development costs, the trials and delays that the JED is beset with, and, generally, being on a hiding to nothing.

[Webdongle]

It is a symptom of the expanding internet. Hackers are getting more advanced and providing more and more ways for the 'script kiddies' to hack. (methinks organised crime get the hacks written and supply them to the 'script kiddies' ... then utilise the site the 'script kiddies' hack).

Time is money to the professional and more complicated means more time.

[Chacapamac]

I have no problems paying few dollars (this is what we talking about here...) to developers to have good quality extensions. Joomla is absolutely stellar when you compare with the crap that you still have to pay on other platform like WP. Extensions that bug your site, get hacked, create errors where you get the silence treatment when asking for help, this is what you get over there.
With Joomla you will not see that kind of problems, plenty of EXCELLENT extension are totally free or have a bit less feature and still be free. Joomla Extensions devs are reliable, helpful and produce top notch extensions. Joomla community is the best CMS community around and we are helping each others.

[deleted user]

There are a lot of hobbiests that can not afford paid extensions ... especially as a lot of paid extens do not update free of charge.

There used to be a symbiotic relationship between the professionals and us amateurs but now Joomla appears to be more for the professional.

The coding in Joomla is becoming more complecated ... it is getting more difficult to write a Template than it was before. It is also more difficult to create a Template override.

Lots of people have this problem, you can't pay for what you need with no money, and that's a huge growing problem these days. Who knows what we've missed out on because the potential creator was economically dead more or less.

I'm just curious if some have considered that the volume of users and the popularity of J! would increase more if there were more free extensions. How many *new* free ones even exist? You would have more future sales potential from a pool of 10,000 than a pool of 1,000 i would think. This could be the way wordpress is looking at it, i don't know. Same with coding help, i get the feeling most of you want paid to write a piece of code, but if someone can't get that help then they'll just move to another cms that has the community they're looking for, which means that user is likely gone for a long time and is now promoting a probably lower quality product. It's basically capitalism 101, you kind of have to do things the way the consumers want things done or you fail no matter how great your product is.

[waarnemer]

Mmmh yes... all is sort of correct.. but what we forget something..

I cannot back this with statistics but it is my observation that the vast majority of extensions in the past where design features.. the most where modules that did not do anything more than change the looks of something that was already there. Also a huge lot just where scripts provided by other parties ([youtube], facebook and on) molded into a module or plugin.

These modules and plugins are still there (JED) but less than before since no one wants to build the same..
Another lot of these modules are easily recreated as alternative layouts in your template html folder.
Something much harder to do using anything other than Joomla! (Hip Hip Hurray for j! template override feature). Meaning, there is no need for all these extensions anymore.

Leaves us with the quality stuff. And sometimes we have to pay for these.

@Webdongle I don't realy agree template building became more complicated... it is easy, pretty consistent and if you know your CSS, hardly any override to the core is needed... build the blocks, drop the j! in the positions...

What I don't like however is the tie to bootstrap... that should be by choice....

[Webdongle]

The code in the Joomla Template is more difficult e.g. it calls the head so if you want to change a lot of the head code then you need to override the to change what displays with <jdoc:include type="head" /> or not use it. Overriding what displays with <jdoc:include type="head" /> was documented but now (for some reason) is more difficult. But I agree with what you said about the extensions

[sozzled]

Lots of people have this problem, you can't pay for what you need with no money, and that's a huge growing problem these days. Who knows what we've missed out on because the potential creator was economically dead more or less.

I think this is grossly unfair to imply that this community is somehow responsible for people not having money. I think you should give that argument a rest. If people don't have money to connect to the internet, to pay for webhosting, to buy equipment, etc., what makes them so special?

[Webdongle]

I think his point was that developers can not afford to work for nothing.

[deleted user]

No idea why you think i was implying anything of the sort. My point was it's a little more complicated than you want it to be. I would think the fact that someone is using your creation over all others would be thanks enough, what other validation do you need? Even if some people don't say thanks or pay you or whatever the action of interrelation is beneficial to you. That user could plant ideas into other users heads or otherwise spread creations to people that may do the things you want. Just saying there is more than one way to look it things, and no one likes condescension, it's a bad business tactic.

[sozzled]

I would think the fact that someone is using your creation over all others would be thanks enough ...

... and we don't need your pity.

[Chacapamac]

The last few years was extremely difficult for me on the business side for personal reasons. As a web site Dev, I always include some important Pro Extensions in my sites that I consider absolutly necessary, like:
— Admintools
— JCE Pro
— PWT ACL
— Nextend Smart Slider (if Necessary)
— Reglar Lab Cache Pro
— Reglar Lab Slider Pro
— Reglar Lab Tab Pro
— Reglar Lab Snippet Pro

On top of the price of the web site itself, I offer an annual service to maintain, upgrade and make security backup (Akeeba backup Free) of all my clients sites at the basic cost of $265 (Canadian dollar) to pay a bit for the work and the pro extensions.

Any other Pro extensions that are needed only for a specific client site need to be pay by the client itself, I just take care of the upgrades.

If you look at the alternatives, like WP, you need way more extensions to have a decent basic Site. And yes, you will have to pay for them. The bad parts are that the extensions and the support are absolutely horrendous, badly coded, disappearing support and buggy extensions even for the most downloaded and use.

Joomla extensions Dev and all the volunteers on the Joomla project work their ... off for Us. The right thing to do is to participate and help in any way we can. This is the base of any healthy community.

[kgw]

I want to kick this in here for a moment. I used Joomla quite a few years ago until they did a "Minor Update" and completely turned my site into crapola. I think it was 1.0.3 to 1.0.4
I finally settled on Wordpress. Now WP has it's own set of problems but I could get it to work. They then decided to go to this "Gutenberg". I tried it for a few days and said screw it. I tried quite a few other sites and quite a few I have messed with over the years.
I decided on Joomla once again. Don't get me wrong, I love Joomla but............
Coming back to it I have noticed a few things.
what 90% of other CMS's put in there core or for free, Joomla completely lacks. Spellcheck in Tinymce, Comments, Easy Documentation, etc.

Not a problem. I, for one, don't mind Forking out Cash to extend my website. So I got looking around for what I needed.
I tried some of the "Free" programs. I found out almost zero are free unless you want a complete bricked up extension, unless you pay for it.
OK, I have to Fork out cash. Since I am on a budget, I found what I wanted to see what it would cost me.

What I found out, even for my basic site, it would cost me more a year to run Joomla (Open Source) than just forking out a few hundred for a commercial CMS.

May I point out that Joomla extensions are usually twice to 4 times higher than other CMS's?

Joomla is great but to do anything outside of it's core, is quite expensive.

[Chacapamac]

About WP and Joomla extensions:
First, WP without extension is mostly useless compare to Joomla;
— No multilingual real system & possibility
— No two-factor authentication
— No SSL control
— No ACL
— and I can go on with the list...

With WP You need extensions for these basic functions.

I do not see any difference between what you paid for WP that you paid for Joomla?

The only big difference is the quality of the extensions and support that you get. It’s simple;
The reality about WP extensions (I will not talk about the core) is (I quote myself):

WP offers many plugins (extensions) and themes, but the overall quality, even for the most known and used extensions, is low. The support and help from the developers of these extensions are often mediocre, and the possibility of breaking your site during an update is high. The development of these plugins is sometimes abandoned, multiple branches of similar plugins are developed by low-level coders and may even contain malicious software.

The reality is that it cost me around $150 to $200 USD a year for a top notch (and I’m really demanding) Joomla web site with top notch extensions. As I have a Yearly Maintain Service for Upgrade, Security Backup and local copy for each of my sites costing $265 for basic sites, all my paying extensions are paid and my customer run pro sites.

I’m always trying newer CMS and I maintain and rebuilt WP sites (Only for friends and non profit organisations) and let me tell you that Joomla in 2019 is simply the best CMS solution on the planet.

[waarnemer]

@Chacapamac
Where is the like button when you need one...

[Chacapamac]

Joomla focus on the quality of his core and the ability to have a full flexible & pro website without relying on third party extensions as WP do.

You got a Like button in WP because WP is still a Blog based CMS and not flexible at all, if you compare to Joomla

You want a Like button, Facebook Comment, social bookmarking ?
Watch all these Good Free Extensions)
— https://extensions.joomla.org/extension ... or-joomla/

— https://extensions.joomla.org/extension ... ments-box/

— https://extensions.joomla.org/extension ... /social2s/

— https://extensions.joomla.org/extension ... ial-links/

— https://extensions.joomla.org/extension ... -comments/

and many more...

If the integrated blog system in Joomla is little light for you even with all the free extension out there ?
You can choose a more complete solution with all the the bell and whistle in one component for the serious blogger.

FREE
— https://extensions.joomla.org/extension ... og/cjblog/

— https://extensions.joomla.org/extension ... g-factory/

and others

ULTIMATE SOLUTION ( with Paying extensions) that do way much more then core WP
(And With the Top Notch Quality Seal of Joomla...)
Plenty of choice of well known solution
Price vary from $11.50 to $79 by Year subscription....