As a Joomla user, you might have heard some big news in the Joomla community lately. Joomla 3, the most widely used version of the popular CMS, has reached its end of life and will no longer receive any updates or bug fixes from the Joomla project team. Meanwhile, Joomla 5, the next major version of Joomla, is already in beta and promises to bring many new features and improvements to the platform.
But what does this mean for you and your Joomla 3 sites? How can you prepare for the upcoming changes and ensure a smooth transition to the future versions of Joomla? In this blog post, we will answer these questions and explain how we, as an extension developer, are planning to support you along the way.
Why You Should Migrate from Joomla 3
Joomla 3 was released in September 2012 and has been the main version of Joomla for almost a decade. It has received many updates and enhancements over the years, but it also has some limitations and drawbacks that prevent it from keeping up with the latest web standards and technologies.
Some of the reasons why you should migrate from Joomla 3 are:
- You will no longer get any security updates or bug fixes for Joomla 3. This means that your sites will be vulnerable to potential attacks and errors that could compromise your data and functionality.
- You will miss out on the new features and improvements that Joomla 4 and 5 offer. Joomla 4 and 5 introduce many changes and innovations that make Joomla faster, more secure, more user-friendly, more accessible, and more compatible with modern web development practices.
- You will face compatibility issues with extensions and templates that are developed for newer versions of Joomla. As Joomla evolves, so do the extensions and templates that extend its functionality and design. Many developers will stop supporting Joomla 3 and focus on the newer versions, which means that you will have fewer options and more problems with your site’s components.
- You will have a harder time upgrading to newer versions of Joomla in the future. The longer you wait to migrate from Joomla 3, the more difficult it will be to upgrade to Joomla 4 or 5 later on. You will have to deal with more changes and differences between the versions, which could result in more errors and conflicts.
How to Migrate from Joomla 3
The best way to migrate from Joomla 3 is to use the official migration tool that is available in the Joomla update component. This tool will guide you through the steps of checking your site’s compatibility, backing up your data, installing Joomla 4, and updating your extensions and templates.
However, before you start the migration process, there are some things that you should do to prepare your site and avoid any issues:
- Update your site to the latest version of Joomla 3. This will ensure that your site has all the latest fixes and patches that are required for a successful migration.
- Update your PHP version to at least 7.4. This is the minimum PHP version that is supported by Joomla 4. If your server is running an older version of PHP, you will need to upgrade it or switch to a different hosting provider that offers a newer version.
- Check your extensions and templates for compatibility with Joomla 4. Not all extensions and templates that work with Joomla 3 will work with Joomla 4. You will need to check with the developers of your site’s components if they have released compatible versions or plan to do so in the near future. If not, you will need to find alternative solutions or disable them before migrating.
- Test your migration on a staging site first. Before you migrate your live site, it is recommended that you create a copy of your site on a separate environment and test the migration there first. This will allow you to identify any issues or errors that might occur during the migration and fix them before they affect your live site.
How We Will Support You
As an extension developer, we understand how important it is for you to keep your sites up-to-date and secure. That is why we are committed to providing you with the best support and service for our extensions. Here is how we will do that:
- We will discontinue support for Joomla 3 starting November 1, 2023. After this date, we will no longer provide any updates or bug fixes for our extensions that are compatible with Joomla 3. We will also remove the download links and documentation for these extensions from our website. This will allow us to focus on developing and improving our extensions for the newer versions of Joomla.
- We will support only Bootstrap 5 for our extensions. Bootstrap is a popular framework that provides the design and layout for many Joomla templates and extensions. Joomla 4 and 5 use Bootstrap 5, which is the latest version of the framework and has many advantages over the older versions. However, Bootstrap 5 is not compatible with Bootstrap 2, 3, or 4, which means that templates and extensions that use these versions will not work properly with Joomla 4 or 5. Therefore, we have decided to support only Bootstrap 5 for our extensions and drop support for the older versions. If you are still using a template that is based on Bootstrap 2, 3, or 4, you will need to upgrade it or switch to a different template that uses Bootstrap 5.
- We will provide support for Joomla 5 in the coming months. Joomla 5 is still in beta and not ready for production use. However, we are already working on making our extensions compatible with Joomla 5 and testing them on the beta version. We will release these versions as soon as Joomla 5 becomes stable and available for general use. However, please note that these versions are meant for testing purposes only and not for live sites.
Update 24/09/2023: All our extensions now support Joomla 5.
We hope that this blog post has clarified some of the questions and concerns that you might have regarding the end of Joomla 3 support and the upcoming changes in Joomla. We are looking forward to your feedback and suggestions on how we can improve our extensions and service for you. Thank you for choosing us as your extension provider!