Joomla! is a PHP based Content Management System which makes use of MySQL databases for publishing content on the Web and intranets. The Joomla! system includes numerous features and extensions such as RSS feeds, printable versions, news flashes, blogs, polls and extensive search optimisation along with page caching to improve performance.

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In addition to our tutorials the Joomla! website and community forums contain a wealth of information and users sharing knowledge and support for everything from the most basic to more advanced needs.

The Joomla! system contains many different parts, and allows for modular extensions and integrations to be made easily. An example of such are extensions called "Plugins" (Also known as "Mambots" in the Joomla! world). Plugins are background extensions which extend the functionality of Joomla!. The WikiBot plugin, for example, allows the author of Joomla! content to use "Wikitags" in their Joomla! articles which will auto-create dynamic hyperlinks to relevant Wikipedia articles when displayed. There are currently over 4,000 extensions for Joomla! available via the Extensions Directory.

In addition to Plugins, more comprehensive extensions are available. "Components" allow webmasters to perform such tasks as build a community by expanding user features, backup of a website, translate content and create URLs which are search engine optimized. "Modules" perform such tasks as displaying a calendar or allowing custom code like Google AdSense etc., to be easily inserted within the base Joomla! code.

Since it has been around for much longer, there are more extensions available for Joomla! 1.0 than for Joomla! 1.5, however native 1.5 extensions are becoming increasingly available. Some of the older 1.0 extensions can be used with version 1.5 if set to legacy mode.

Joomla! allows for extensive administrator and user group control. Administrators to set global configuration parameters which affect every article. Every page conforms to these parameters by default, but a page can have its own individual setting for each parameter. For example, you can select to show or hide the article author or simply go with the global "show author" parameter.