Joomla! is an award-winning Content Management System (CMS) that helps build powerful websites and other online applications.

As an Open Source solution that is freely available to everybody. Joomla benefits from a huge development and user community (over 140,000 registered users at forum.joomla.org !) - making it the most versatile platform for building scalable websites.

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Here is the best, one page description of what Joomla does and can do for you.
Be sure to read this one!  It's an ad for a Joomla training company, but it's a great ad and a great explanation of why Joomla might be a good web solution for you!

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Applications

Joomla! is used all over the world to power everything from simple, personal homepages to complex corporate web applications. Here are just some of the ways people use it:

* Corporate websites or portals
* Online commerce
* Small business websites
* Non-profit and organizational websites
* Government applications
* Corporate intranets and extranets
* School and church websites
* Personal or family homepages
* Community-based portals
* Magazines and newspapers
* the possibilities are limitless…

Joomla! can be used to easily manage every aspect of your website - from adding text and image content to updating a product catalog or taking online reservations.
Making website management simple.

The basic Joomla! package is designed to be easy to install, even for non-programmers. Most people have no trouble getting the software running, and there is plenty of support available for newbies. We have a growing, active community including 1,000s of friendly users and developers eager to help and learn from each other.

One of the best things about Joomla! is how easy it makes adding or editing content, updating images and multimedia, and managing critical data that makes your company or organization operate. Anybody with basic word processing skills can easily learn to manage a Joomla! site! Via a simple, browser-based interface you will be able to easily add new press releases or news items, manage staff pages, job listings, product images, and create an unlimited amount of sections or content pages on your site.

For many people, the true power of Joomla! lies in the application framework that makes it possible for thousands of developers around the world to create powerful add-ons and extensions to this robust content management system. Here are just some examples of the hundreds of available extensions:

* Dynamic form builders
* Business/organizational directories
* Document management
* Image and multimedia galleries
* E-commerce and shopping cart engines
* Forums and chat software
* Calendars
* Blogging software
* Directory services
* Email newsletters
* Data collection and reporting tools
* Banner advertising systems
* Subscription services
* & many, many more…

You can find more examples over at the ever-growing Joomla! Extensions Directory .

Joomla! for Developers

Many organisations, including NGOs as well as for-profit companies, have requirements that go beyond what is available in the basic Joomla! package. Extending the power of Joomla! into virtually unlimited directions, developers are constantly undertaking new projects involving:

* Integrated e-commerce systems
* Inventory control systems
* Data reporting tools
* Custom product catalogs
* Complex business directories
* Reservation systems
* Communication tools
* Application bridges
* any kind of application to suit a unique need ;) …

If your organization hires a third party Joomla! developer or builds in-house software using the Joomla! framework, you are building on an open platform that does not tie you to any one developer or to a proprietary, closed application. You can learn more about developing on the Joomla! framework over at the official developer’s network.

The beauty of Joomla! is that you can leverage its framework and user interface to deliver applications to your end users in a familiar, powerful environment.
There is no catch!

Joomla! is free, open, and available to all under the GPL license. We don’t claim to be perfect, and can’t promise to meet every requirement in the world. But for many web applications, our software is perfectly suited for the job. We are adding great new features with each release, and with the help and advice of our incredible user community we plan on delivering award-winning software for years to come.

Remember, the official site for all things joomla is at http://www.joomla.org - we highly recommend reading through their discussion forums!