While considering the content management system (CMS) for your site, you want to choose something convenient and simple. And the Web-hosting on Joomla immediately comes to your mind.
Why not? It is really a very simple system. It is written in PHP and JavaScript, that are the most simple to understand programming languages. This means that the hosting on Joomla will be easy to install and configure. MySQL, the well-known DBMS, is used as the default storage.
What Joomla is capable of?
The first version was released back in 2005, and according to the statistics, Joomla was downloaded and installed over 94 million times! This figure indicates the huge popularity of CMS. There is a community of thousands of developers behind it, the system is actively developing. Joomla is one of the most popular CMS, existing today. It is free and chargeless software.
Taking into account the number of alterations in each new version of Joomla, it becomes immediately clear how rapidly CMS is developing. For example, the main innovation in version 3.8 was an improved routing system, in other words, nice and laconic URLs for the entire structure of the site. In addition, the support for the Sodium extension for the encryption has been implemented. It is also supported in PHP 7.2. In addition, the layer of the compatibility with the future version of Joomla 4 was added.
The Joomla hosting of the websites supports almost any hoster, so choosing a site for placement will not be a problem. Apache, Nginx are also supported. There is even the support for Microsoft IIS.
Creating sites in Joomla
Joomla was originally designed as an easy-to-use system, so that the development of websites was accessible even to a non-professional user who had never done anything like that before. On many hostings Joomla installation is performed by a simple click of a mouse or there are automatic installers. In other words, you can launch your website within just a few minutes.
This type of CMS is very convenient for developing sites not only for the personal use, but also for the commercial development. If you are a web designer or a developer, then you can fulfill customers’ orders quickly by using Joomla. And then they will be able to run their own sites easily.
Only in the official Joomla Extensions Directory there are more than 8,000 free and commercial extensions for this system, and there are even more in other sources. This means that on the Joomla hosting of the websites you can create almost any kind of website: from a personal blog to a corporate portal or an online shop. Most of the presented extensions are distributed under the free license GPL and they are completely chargeless.
Advanced developers will also like Joomla, because it allows the development and the simple adding of exclusive extensions, the possibilities of which are beyond the limits of the standard package. Are you looking for your own unique inventory management systems, reporting tools, modules for ensuring the joint operation of various kinds of software? Maybe a specific product catalog, an integrated e-commerce system, sophisticated business directories, booking systems or communication tools? All these modules are designed in PHP and MySQL. And even if the catalog does not have a suitable extension, its development will not become an impassable problem.
First website on Joomla
You can launch your first website on Joomla at the free demo hosting launch.joomla.org. Just think up your unique address in the domain * .joomla.com.
Having entered and confirmed the email address, you set a password for the access to the cloud control panel (CCP). The virtual server automatically sets up, the database configures and the Joomla CMS installs. Then, using the templates, you choose the look and the layout for the site. The templates are used as a framework for combining different elements of the site, such as articles, elements, menus / navigation, modules and extensions.
But, of course, the resource on * .joomla.com is just a free Joomla hosting of the websites for learning the basics and the examination of the system. For the permanent operation you need a normal hosting. How to choose a hosting? It depends on the characteristics of the hoster. The best hosting of the websites on Joomla is the one that provides the best prices and service, maximum uptime and minimum ping for your users.
Transfer of the Joomla website to another hoster
The migration to another hoster is a procedure in several stages, which are properly described in the official documentation and in the support forums.
To make a long story short, the essence is as follows:
- Copy the files to the computer including the dump of the database.
- Install Joomla on the new server.
- Import the dump into a new database.
- Overwrite all the important Joomla folders on the new server, in other words, copy the structure of the site.
- Check that everything is alright and change the configuration.php file in the root directory accordingly. Thanks to this file, we can easily move from one virtual Joomla hosting of the websites to another.