Community Magazine 
Joomla! 8 - The future is planned now
Wait, what? Joomla 8? Surely that can't be right?
Do you remember Joomla 4? It’s nearly 4 years ago when we had the first major release after 9 years of Joomla 3. Since then a lot of infrastructural changes happened:
- We have a new release cycle
- We rebuilt the release process to increase security via TUF
- Starting with Joomla 5.4 we will have automated updates included
- Hundreds of new features were included since then
But to be honest, the overall vision, strategy and plan is missing. What is Joomla’s identity? What should Joomla stand for? For whom should Joomla be? How should Joomla look in the next few years? What upcoming challenges are we facing, and are we ready for them?
We need a mid- and long-term plan!
So Joomla would like to organise a sprint to define a plan and strategy for Joomla’s future and find an answer for the questions mentioned above. The idea is to meet with around 10-15 people from different areas to discuss the challenges and find solutions together. The sprint will be held in Germany 4th - 7th September 2025.
During the sprint we’re planning to have some public online meetings to communicate the updates and collect feedback/ideas. The final results will be shared and we would like to include the community to determine our focus.
Do you think you should be part of that sprint? Please click the button below and fill out the form. The deadline for application is the 31st of July 2025.
If you get selected, OSM would provide board and lodging and, if budget is left, help with traveling costs.
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Comments 11
Joomla 8? Come on, to much upgrades last 5 years. Can't sell that to my clients. Become more stable like **.
The two-year cycle actually helps to keep transitions smoother: small, regular upgrades instead of a massive overhaul. Waiting longer between major versions would mean bigger jumps.
Each upgrade ensures better security, performance, and compatibility (like keeping up with PHP updates), so your clients get a stable and future-proof site without surprises. And because the steps are smaller, we can make upgrades as painless as possible.
As said, 3.5 to 4 took 9 years.
and 5 two years after : so 2 majors versions in 11 years .
I do not think it is too much.
And others CMS ?
Now Joomla is alive and kicking! You can't blame it for being in great shape, with an active team driving it forward.
I have to agree, I am still on Joomla 3. The constant updates, talks of new versions of Joomla and then large changes to the codebase that breaks stuff. This mindset is why a lot of developers have stopped working with Joomla. Joomla 5 looming is enough for me to send me up the wall.
Web developers do not always need the newest technologies that require changing all of their plugins but with the Joomla Team, it seems to be anything new we will change everything and use it.
The only think the Joomla Team need to do if change the awful admin template. This is one of the biggest reasons I am stuck on Joomla 3.
Hello @shoulders,
I understand that you might feel that Joomla is constantly updating as that is a majority of the communication that is sent out around Joomla! - depending on which communication channel you happen to follow... however, the perception may not be reality as often is the case...
Of the 4 CMS typically mentioned: Wordpress, Typo3, Drupal, Joomla when looking in the period of 2020-2025, ironically, Joomla is one of the CMS with the least number of updates (42 for J4! & 18 for J5! point releases) and major versions (2 major releases J4! and J5!).
And as long as an extension is coded following the guidelines, an extension that works with Joomla 4, works perfectly fine with Joomla 5 and possibly beyond (in part thanks to Joomla's Backward Compatibility plugin giving developers the time to update their extensions, templates etc up to the next major release so that it no longer needs the backward compatibility plugin).
If you want to change or influence how Joomla distributes or operates as a CMS, there is a very easy solution:
volunteer ! You don't have to be a developer to help - there are many teams (documentation, marketing, social media, etc) that would be happy to have your constructive help!
Joomla! is built, maintained, documented, marketed "all together" but that takes a bit of time from a lot of people, join us to make it as awesome as you want it to be!
To get started is easy: join us on Mattermost!
It doesn't give a timescale for Joomla 8.
But Joomla 5 is so much quicker than 3 I haven't looked back.
I like the new admin template but you can change it to s top bar menu if you prefer.
It would be worth publishing where people can send feedback if they don't want to be part of the main feedback..
This is a great idea to give the community an oppurtinity to participate on the long-term vision.
Beyond what is mentioned above, another important thing to remember is that Joomla! today (since 4.0 even) is not a major migration or ordeal to get your site to the next version.
Back in the Joomla! 2.5 era (release: January 2012), or Joomla! 3.0 era (release: September 2012) or even to get to Joomla! 4.0 depending on how you built your website, the process could be lengthy and not as smooth as today...
but it has been years since that's been the case...
Upgrading 50+ sites from 3.x to 4.x took me 5-7 weeks,
Upgrading 50+ sites from 4.x to 5.x took me 4-6 days.
With everything positive that is going on with Joomla and the future is bright! I can't wait.
Because of problems with migrating from Joomla 3 to Joomla 4/5 i'm now stuck in Joomla 3 with few of my projects
New projects luckily I start with Joomla 5 .... hope migration will let me upgrade them in the future.
I'm very interested in what makes you stuck in Joomla 3.
Any information why people are stuck on Joomla 3 is very much appreciated. You can also reach me on Mattermost or send me a private mail ([email protected]).
The migration from J3 to J4 was definitely a major issue for a lot of Joomla users as mentioned from others above.
The good news is, the updates from J4 to J5 to J6 alpha for most of my test sites were mostly just one-click-updates. So this huge concern about major version migration is just gone since Joomla 4. The new policy, major versions every two years, makes an end to those hardcore migrations that give you grey hair.
I am pretty sure there will be some backward compatibility issues now and then, but no one stops you from using the previous version for two more years within the security update period until the extension developers have fix those minor issues, compared to what had to be done from J3 to J4.
Yes, the admin template, holy grail, I am also sad that in the new admin template you have to click a little more often than in the old one sometimes, that could have been done a bit better in some cases. But it's not that bad, that someone would have come up with better suggestions or even open a good PR to change anything. Probably because: once you are used to it, it has more advantages than disadvantages. Use it for a couple of days and have an open mind, and all of a sudden it works naturally.
If there are really areas that you access often and that need a click more, add a custom admin menu entry. And all troubles are gone.
Or add a quick icon in the dashboard, my customers love those.
Quickicon:
- Backend opens, click and you are where you want to be.
- You are somewhere else in the backend, click dashboard, click your quickicon, done.
I am pretty happy someone took the lead in painting the road map for J8.