Is Joomla 1.0 dead? Joomla 1.0 vs 1.5

Now that joomla.org has announced that it will discontinue support for the aging Joomla 1.0.15 this summer, many businesses are thinking if they should build their new website using this "dead" Joomla 1.0 technology or what to do next about their nice looking and well working Joomla 1.0.15 website if they already have one. 

For the future website projects that OGO Sense starts in 2009, we are going to use the following criteria when determining if Joomla 1.0 or Joomla 1.5 should be used:

• Big projects with completely custom component integration and/or few existing Joomla extensions.
• Small projects with few 3rd party extensions.
• Projects for which critical 1.5 components exist and Joomla 1.0 extensions do not.
• Available budget is big enough for fixing bugs in existing Joomla 1.5 core and extensions. Additional required testing, maintenance and human resources would not represent an issue.

• Big projects with many 3rd party extensions.
• Small Businesses and Organizations with a need of a very stable site for a fairly small or fixed budget.
• Large projects where there are many customizations and where fewer upgrades are desirable to keep the maintenance expenses fairly low. 

I know hard core supporters of Joomla 1.5 may challenge this article below in the comments but I would  certainly be happy to point them in a direction of small business owners who are frustrated and lost sales and profits because of their initial love as well with Joomla 1.5 and its extensions. Obviously, if a larger budget is available for testing and troubleshooting, I have no problem with using Joomla 1.5 except most businesses and organizations do care about their budget and ROI.

Our recommendations and decisions were based on:

• Designing Joomla websites completed over the past 2 years.
• Maintaining and upgrading Joomla 1.0 and more recently 1.5 sites over the past 2 years.
• Joomla site migrations completed from 1.0 to 1.5
• Joomla security and hosting.
• Website budget and best ROI for our clients.

From the business perspective, many business users or I do not see enough functional or financial incentive to migrate to or even build sites in Joomla 1.5. Therefore, I have decided that OGO Sense will continue to support any Joomla 1.0.15 website for up to 3 years after the official Joomla.org support for 1.0.15 is discontinued.

Then within the following 3 years, as businesses and organizations need to make major changes to their website (design, functional or seo), we'll offer to migrate it to Joomla 1.5 when we find it cost effective and when Joomla 1.6 is already out at least in beta form. So while Joomla 1.0 is officially discontinued in summer 2009, you should continue maintaining your Joomla 1.0.15 website with OGO Sense.

For a new website design with OGO Sense or maintenance of your existing Joomla website, please contact us.
--
Ogy Nikolic | Managing Director | OGO Sense | www.ogosense.com
US tel.+1 (617) 418-4646 | UK tel. + 44 20 7617 7508 | US fax +1 (617) 446-1468 | skype: ogosense