Comparison

Contensio vs. Joomla

Joomla has been around since 2005 and powers millions of sites. But it carries two decades of accumulated complexity. Contensio starts from a modern foundation — Laravel — and builds a CMS that's easier to develop for and easier for editors to use.

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Different generations, different assumptions

Joomla was designed in an era before Composer, before Eloquent, before modern PHP had mature conventions. Its extension system, template engine, and database abstraction layer are all custom — a parallel world that predates the PSR standards most PHP developers now work with.

Contensio is built on Laravel. That means Eloquent for database queries, Blade for templates, Artisan for CLI tasks, and the entire Laravel package ecosystem. If you know Laravel, you know how Contensio plugins are built. If you know Blade, you know how themes work.

For editors, the difference is visible in the admin panel. Joomla's admin is powerful but notorious for its steep learning curve. Contensio's admin is opinionated in the other direction — simpler menus, fewer options per screen, and a clear hierarchy between content, media, and configuration.

Feature-by-feature

Feature	Joomla	Contensio	Notes
Developer stack	— Custom Joomla APIs — JFactory, JDatabase, JHTML	✓ Available Laravel — Eloquent, Blade, Artisan, service providers	Contensio uses the same tooling any Laravel developer already knows.
License	— GPL-2.0 (open source)	— AGPL-3.0 (open source)	Both are fully open source.
Custom fields	— Built in since Joomla 3.7	Built into core 12 field types, translatable, repeaters, relationships	Joomla has fields in core but fewer types and no translatable flag per field.
Multilingual	Partial / complex Built in, but complex configuration	Built into core Simple — add languages in settings, tabs appear in editor	Joomla multilingual works, but the setup involves content associations, language modules, and language-specific menus.
Admin UX	Partial / complex Powerful but steep learning curve for editors	✓ Available Clean, editor-focused admin
Editorial workflow	Extension required Content Workflow (Joomla 4+) — basic stages	Built into core Submit → approve / soft-reject / hard-reject + emails + audit log	Joomla 4 added workflow stages but no email notifications or reject types.
Content approval emails	Not available Not available	Built into core Reviewers and authors notified automatically
SEO metadata	— Per-article title and description	Built into core Meta title, description, OG image per item per language
XML sitemap	Extension required Xmap or similar extension required	Built into core Auto-generated per content type and per language
Redirects manager	— Built-in redirect manager	Built into core 301/302 redirects with hit counter	Both have it in core.
Extension discovery	— Joomla Extension Directory (JED)	— Composer packages + admin marketplace	JED is a large, mature directory. Contensio ecosystem is newer.
Template system	— Joomla template overrides	— Laravel Blade with template hierarchy
Installation	— Web-based installer	— Composer + browser-based installer
Hosting	— Any PHP 7.4+ host	— Any PHP 8.2+ host with Composer

In practice

Building a custom extension

Joomla: XML manifest files, JFactory::getApplication(), MVC pattern with Joomla-specific base classes. Unique to Joomla — doesn't transfer to other frameworks.

Contensio: a Composer package with a service provider. Routes, views, migrations, Eloquent models — standard Laravel. Skills transfer completely.

Training a new editor

Joomla: articles, categories, content items, menu items, modules, and component views. Editors need to understand how these relate before they can publish a simple page.

Contensio: content types, content items, media. The concepts map to what editors already understand from WordPress or any other CMS.

FAQ

Is Joomla's multilingual really that complicated?

In practice, yes. Setting it up requires installing language packs, creating language-specific category trees, associating content across languages, setting up language-specific menus, and installing a language switcher module. It works, but it takes a full afternoon to configure correctly. Contensio: go to Settings → Languages, add a language, done.

Can I migrate a Joomla site to Contensio?

No automated importer exists yet. Joomla stores articles in a relational database, so the content is accessible via SQL. A migration script is feasible to write for your specific site structure, but it requires manual work.

Does Contensio have a module system like Joomla?

Contensio has a widget system — widgets are registered by plugins and placed in widget areas defined by the theme. The concept is similar to Joomla modules, but lighter: widgets are PHP classes, areas are named slots in Blade templates.

Joomla has a huge extension directory. Does Contensio have anything comparable?

Not yet. The Contensio plugin marketplace is newer than Joomla's 20-year ecosystem. The approach is to reduce plugin dependency by shipping more in core — so the bar for "I need a plugin for that" is higher. For specialised needs, custom plugins are straightforward to build with standard Laravel skills.

Modern stack. Clean admin. Open source.

Contensio is built on Laravel — familiar to any PHP developer, approachable for any editor.

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