Over the last twenty years, the Italian Joomla community has undergone a period of radical transformation, with significant changes in many areas.
A changing community
The historical role of Joomla.it, long one of the main gathering places for Italian users, has changed over time. The current site is often considered a historical archive of discussions and materials; community support, discussion, and coordination activities have gradually been led by other channels and initiatives, spreading through official international documentation, local groups, and social channels.
JUG Italia is born
In this evolving scenario, the seeds of JUG Italia, one of the new organizational reference points for the Italian Joomla community, have sprouted.
We have all grown organically within the Joomla model and, as a group, we are an official Joomla User Group on the international scene.
Not to “do too much”, but to:
- Coordinate the activities of the national community;
- Facilitate communication between users and professionals;
- Facilitate opportunities for meeting and collaboration;
- Strengthen ties with the Joomla project on the international front as much as possible.
- JUG Italia represents a change in the community, which has gone from being fragmented to being much more structured in terms of organization, like JUGs, focused on a strong participatory process, cooperative efforts, and group projects.
Joomla today in Italy
The Italian community is now more organized and aware than in the past. Users, developers, and professionals share their skills, create and share projects with each other through JUG Italia.
This is a clear sign that the Joomla community is alive and well in Italy.
A project of people
We are people united by our love for Joomla and the value of sharing.
So, after years of changes and transformations on the Italian scene, we found ourselves saying:
“We have to do something!”
Some friends, developers, professionals, and Joomla enthusiasts decided to get back in the game because they wanted to take this CMS to the next level and help create a positive, healthy, and collective community. NOT because anyone could forget.
The motivation here is not even nostalgia for the past, but the desire to maintain the spirit of Joomla (from the Swahili “jumla,” which we can translate as ‘totality’ or “all together”).
We believe that a community is not just code, but above all people: dialogue, teamwork, energy, and the desire to grow together.
That's why we are committed to offering opportunities to meet, high-quality content, and a comfortable atmosphere for both those who know Joomla well and those who have just started using it.
We also feel that we can bring the Italian Joomla community back to life. This is not a project for us, but just a way to prove it, one step at a time, “together”.
Joomla in Italy
Development (2005-2008)
With the spread of CMS, informal communities developed in Italy around forums and niche sites where technical support, extensions, and translations were exchanged.
Much of the work was done on a voluntary basis, and it was mainly the translations of the interface and documentation that made Joomla an easy choice for many people.
The years of growth (2008-2013)
Joomla.it was the first website to provide discussion forums, news, and documentation in Italian, stimulating the development of an active and popular local community of beginner and advanced users.
Events, meetings, and JoomlaDay
Starting in 2008, JoomlaDay events dedicated to the CMS and its community also spread throughout Italy. These meetings have encouraged the sharing of experiences, technical insights, and direct interaction between developers, designers, and end users.
JoomlaDay events have contributed (and will continue to contribute) to the creation of bonds within the Italian community and to the Joomla project at an international level.
The evolution of the Italian community and the birth of JUG Italia (2013-present)
Joomla, as mentioned at the beginning, has had to go through a phase of profound change: technical with the evolution of web development and PHP technology, and now security, architecture, and code quality are also improving.
In addition, Italy has also seen a transformation of the community through a different distribution of activities and presence towards other global resources, new digital and social channels.
This evolutionary phase also saw the birth of JUG Italia, which today hopes to become one of the main organizational reference points for the Italian Joomla community.
The CMS is constantly evolving with new features. Joomla 4, Joomla 5, and Joomla 6 has improved accessibility, performance, and code modernization.
For this reason, Joomla is still a good choice in Italy for projects that require content management with a clear structure, supported by a smaller but active and competent user base.
Website: joomlaitalia.it
About Gioacchino Cipriano
I started using WordPress in 2005, but soon after the release of the first version of Joomla! I abandoned WordPress (and I don't regret it). During those years, I was also a member of IWA, which led to the Stanca Law for accessibility in Italy. Within IWA, I was the Chapter for the province of Milan.