Joomla! vs. Square Online

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Joomla
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Joomla! is a free and open source content management system used to publish web content. Included features are page caching, RSS feeds, printable versions of pages, news flashes, blogs, polls, a search function, and support for language internationalization.N/A
Square Online
Score 7.4 out of 10
N/A
Square Online (formerly Weebly) is a basic content management system with blogging and eCommerce features. It can be utilized for building standard websites or specialized webpages for online stores.
$13
per month
Pricing
Joomla!Square Online
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Personal
$13
per month
Professional
$16
per month
Performance
$29
per month
Free
Free
Free
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
JoomlaSquare Online
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsPricing decreases when paid annually: Personal - $10/Month Professional - $12/Month Performance - $26/Month
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Joomla!Square Online
Considered Both Products
Joomla
Chose Joomla
Joomla is a very stable and secure CMS platform that ranks about in the middle of the pack with the other 'modern day' CMS systems out there. It's not as complex and frustrating as Magento, but it's also not as easy or robust to work on as WordPress. Thankfully when we do …
Chose Joomla
Joomla! is the #2 Open Source CMS behind WordPress, which we also use, and ahead of Drupal, which we have evaluated but decided not to pursue. Joomla! generally performs better than WP for clients that need more complexity to their websites, including flexibility in templating, …
Chose Joomla
Joomla and Concrete5 have about the same capability and similar issues. Purchasing a SAAS like Squarespace, Weebly or Wix would be worth the price to remove the hassle of Joomla. A more robust free CMS like WordPress or Drupal would be a better solution if you wanted to remain …
Chose Joomla
Joomla! is much easier than those products and with the strong support from Joomla! community and the availability of Joomla! plugins and extensions, then in my point of view, Joomla! is better. Also, Joomla! is very suitable for Portal and e-Commerce creation. Many features …
Chose Joomla

Before I settled in on using Joomla for the City of Pomona, I experimented with WordPress and Drupal, as being the right fit for the new website. Each time I went through the analysis, research and development, both WordPress and Drupal, came up short for quickly delivering a …

Square Online

No answer on this topic

Features
Joomla!Square Online
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Joomla!
9.6
Ratings
17% above category average
Square Online
5.3
Ratings
41% below category average
Role-based user permissions9.60 Ratings5.30 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Joomla!
7.8
Ratings
3% above category average
Square Online
6.3
Ratings
19% below category average
API6.10 Ratings6.30 Ratings
Internationalization / multi-language9.50 Ratings6.30 Ratings
Web Content Creation
Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Product A and Product B
Joomla!
9.0
Ratings
15% above category average
Square Online
7.5
Ratings
3% below category average
WYSIWYG editor9.50 Ratings8.70 Ratings
Code quality / cleanliness9.70 Ratings6.70 Ratings
Admin section10.00 Ratings7.30 Ratings
Page templates6.10 Ratings6.30 Ratings
Library of website themes8.10 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Mobile optimization / responsive design9.60 Ratings9.30 Ratings
Publishing workflow9.50 Ratings7.30 Ratings
Form generator9.50 Ratings7.30 Ratings
Web Content Management
Comparison of Web Content Management features of Product A and Product B
Joomla!
8.7
Ratings
17% above category average
Square Online
6.7
Ratings
9% below category average
Content taxonomy8.00 Ratings6.70 Ratings
SEO support9.60 Ratings7.70 Ratings
Bulk management9.20 Ratings7.30 Ratings
Availability / breadth of extensions7.10 Ratings5.70 Ratings
Community / comment management9.50 Ratings6.30 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Joomla!Square Online
Small Businesses
ManageWP
ManageWP
Score 10.0 out of 10
ManageWP
ManageWP
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
RWS Tridion Sites
RWS Tridion Sites
Score 9.0 out of 10
RWS Tridion Sites
RWS Tridion Sites
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
RWS Tridion Sites
RWS Tridion Sites
Score 9.0 out of 10
RWS Tridion Sites
RWS Tridion Sites
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Joomla!Square Online
Likelihood to Recommend
9.5
(0 ratings)
7.4
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(0 ratings)
6.0
(0 ratings)
Availability
9.9
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
7.8
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
8.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.7
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.9
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Joomla!Square Online
Likelihood to Recommend
It seems with the release of Joomla! 4 that the weak areas have all been covered. Its always been good for the mid-level small to large business, the blogging was WP, and the large-scale enterprise was probably bespoke. But the new interface is so simple it seems pointless using WP when Joomla! is as easy and can then grow as big as you like. The Workflows feature which allows you to set up work pipelines easily is going to be a boom to any larger enterprise sites. Couples with the new API which I got to see at one of their user groups, is amazing. They were creating articles on one site then another site was taking the feed directly for just certain categories. Really blows your mind what you could do with that and the new workflows.
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Weebly is a great platform if you need a brochure-ware website. It's got some great features and you can't beat how easy it is to use. On the downside, the blog and e-commerce functionality is limited. Although there are several fairly easy to use platforms out there, I use it for many of my clients that are just starting out or need one they can eventually manage and update themselves as their businesses evolve -- which is especially true in the beginning or at the startup of a business. However, it can also scale, since you can create almost any number of pages and add content like audio and video. Additional functionality may be added through embeds.
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Pros
  • We use Joomla to build our websites and web applications because of its incredible intuitiveness and tools to make everything more manageable.
  • Its working environment is quite comfortable for my development team, and its web design resources significantly speed up our work when carrying out web development projects.
  • It allows you to use blocks to create and visually manage websites and divide them into different categories without programming knowledge.
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  • Weebly makes it easy for users who are not very tech savvy to create a site that looks professional and well thought out.
  • Weebly provides users with a variety of templates for creating new pages quickly and efficiently.
  • The software allows users to make updates to their site and pages quickly and changes are published immediately.
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Cons
  • Updating was never as seamless/easy as it seems to be with Wordpress. Obviously we accounted for this with our own workflow/methods, but I remember whenever we did WordPress updates it always seemed a breeze compared to the time/energy involved with a Joomla update/upgrade.
  • For a while (I think this has changed some) Joomla left itself open to attacks when administrators were not as well versed as they should be. There were developer additions that did security checks/audits for you, but the CMS was the subject of a lot of attacks when left in the hands of our clients for a long time (who had changed permissions to make editing easier/convenient). Ideally the CMS would have been more restrictive on some of these things to prevent easy abuse. Obviously this is more the fault of the misinformed/human then the CMS, but it could have been more dummy-proof.
  • No native versioning. There are some community extensions that add this functionality, but they pale in comparison to the versioning plugins of other CMS's (WordPress specifically). Again this was some time ago and in our experience, it could have changed by now.
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  • Plugins leave a lot to be desired. Not a ton of custom options and many require additional subscriptions.
  • SEO options are also pretty elementary - if SEO if a focus for you, avoid Weebly
  • Overall templates are pretty boring compared to something you could create on WordPress
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Likelihood to Renew
I gave it a rating of 10 because I just love how Joomla! works, how it is set up and how it handles many users. Also it is very fast, and there is no overload on the MySQL database or servers ever.
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Weebly is consistently adding features that line up with our needs. The ease of use makes it the perfect program for us since we have users of multiple age brackets and knowledge of web design. We love that we can give users access to only the pages they are affiliated with
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Usability
The user experience and interface are good, but sometimes it is down. Delayed in the loading speed. Workflows can be simplified, and understanding templates needs much time. It is user-friendly and with multi-language support. Users can be added to the groups, which is easier. User controls can also be created based on role-based permission.
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Very easy to use and intuitive to design after all of our business needs. From the website and POS system to how we represent ourselves internally and to our customers... Square is second-to-none in helping our business and others in our same boat become the kind of businesses we want to be when it comes to our inventory and sales of these kinds of products.
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Performance
Today's Modern Joomla performs very well and is robust and durable. The pages load faster than they ever did in the past and Modern Joomla's integration into other software or systems has become seamless. Modern Joomla sites will last long and will stay running forever.
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No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Between the core Joomla developers who are excellent at answering questions and providing support, you have a whole community of developers who work with Joomla and are happy to help fellow developers out answering questions and supporting the Joomla project. Out of the many communities I am involved in for open-source software, Joomla's community is by far the best.
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No answers on this topic
Online Training
It is good if you know Joomla! if not it can get a bit confusing
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No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Make sure that PHP.ini is set to at least 60 ms for computer priority, 60MB for maximum downloads and 128MB for uploads. This is the minimum. It is best to run Joomla on a business host if you are using a shared hosting environment so that there are fewer accounts on the server. Make sure you have access to the root on CPanel. Be sure to point the DNS to the host and set up all zones prior to implementation and run your new version in a sub-domain hidden from the live version until you are ready to cut over.
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Joomla is a very stable and secure CMS platform that ranks about in the middle of the pack with the other 'modern day' CMS systems out there. It's not as complex and frustrating as Magento, but it's also not as easy or robust to work on as WordPress. Thankfully when we do utilize it, there's still an online community our we can bounce issues and ideas off of.
Read full review
Overall, Weebly is a fantastic app to integrate into the classroom or school setting. I usually give students an option when designing web pages/websites and Weebly is often the choice. However, when it comes to pure blogging and older students learning how to track their digital footprint, I usually lean toward having them use WordPress. But Weebly is simpler with less time needed to get started as opposed to WordPress. Students need to understand simple HTML, embedding other tools/apps, and the basics of web design without the coding/HTML background and Weebly helps support this.
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Return on Investment
  • Deploying Joomla! for clients has helped them discover the benefits of using Open Source software while helping them appreciate our expertise.
  • Because the Joomla! community is smaller than the WP community, we are able to reach a wide range of clients looking for experts in the software, boosting our bottom line.
  • Occasionally a client will find Joomla! too complicated and wish to move to a proprietary DIY CMS, which we do not support, so we have lost clients looking for that level of flexibility.
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  • Weebly has saved us a lot of time with site maintenance - if we need to make a change, it's easy to get in and out without spending a lot of time trying to code.
  • Weebly is cost effective, and right now we're getting just about everything we need from the tool so we're saving money (compared to other products).
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ScreenShots