In my travels I have used
hundreds of free Joomla extensions for various commercial projects. While there
are many great Joomla components and modules out there, only a handfull deserve
a special place at the top! Following is a list of GPL extensions (yes, I enjoy
several commercial addons too, but they should get their own list). Don't beat
me up on this list too bad, as they are simply reccomended tools that I have
found invalueble to the vast range of Joomla projects I have developed, and are
sure to be incorporated into any future sites I contribute to.
1. JoomlaXplorer
This Joomla component is a robust file manager that works within
Joomla. Sure, you can work a little more efficiently with an external FTP
program (I recommend Filezilla), but for the feature list and price, nothing
comes close to JoomlaXplorer. I would anticipate that this extension become
fully integrated into Joomla at some point since it works as well as it does.
I've uploaded this one on many commercial sites and nearly blew my clients
away. "Wow" best describes this component..
Pros: Amount of features,
ease of use, quality, integration with Joomla.
Cons: Potentially enables an unknowledgable super administrator to damage your Joomla install
Cons: Potentially enables an unknowledgable super administrator to damage your Joomla install
2. sh404SEF
This Joomla component helps you incorporate SEO and into your
Joomla site. If you don't know why you need SEO, please read this free Joomla SEO tutorial.
What makes this particular SEO component better than most, is its support of
most popular extensions and relatively ease of use. I think most will agree,
this is the best Joomla SEO
component.
Pro: Relatively easy
setup, great support among other extensions, many options
Cons: The amount of options and setup may be overwhelming to the novice.
Cons: The amount of options and setup may be overwhelming to the novice.
3. Fireboard
Fireboard may be one of the most exciting Joomla components to
hit the market in the last 6 months. Before this one came along, if you wanted
a rock solid forum, you used SMF with a bridge which often caused problems (not
to mention it was a bit of a hassle). If you wanted something that worked well
with Joomla, you were forced to use Joomlaboard. Lucky us, now we have the best
of both! Hand down, the best forum component for Joomla.
Pros: Easy to setup and
maintain, lots of features, clean appearance, speedy
Cons: Not as many themes available for it as SMF has, uses a CSS/Table layout combination as apposed to a fully CSS layout
Cons: Not as many themes available for it as SMF has, uses a CSS/Table layout combination as apposed to a fully CSS layout
4. Smoothgallery
+ Lightbox
This Joomla mambot is worth its weight in gold! Believe me, I
have used my fair share of Joomla galleries and slide shows - but this is the
primary gallery extension I offer to my clients. It looks fabulous, works well
and once setup, it works in a variety of custom situations. Note that this
extension uses AJAX libraries and I have had issues with it in conjunction with
other AJAX extensions installed on the same site - but there are workarounds
for such issues. The benefits far outweight these minor issues.
Pros: Easily integrates
within your Joomla content, lots of options, superb Mootools transitioning
effect, uses AJAX so the images load asynchronously, great developer support
Cons: May interfere with other AJAX extensions, has issues with displaying on frontpage (workaround provided), sometimes difficult for a client to get working (depending on Joomla experience level)
Cons: May interfere with other AJAX extensions, has issues with displaying on frontpage (workaround provided), sometimes difficult for a client to get working (depending on Joomla experience level)
5. Community
Builder
This Joomla extension is a must for any type of social network,
yet has uses beyond that purpose. Nothing comes close to the amount of features
this one provides. There are some setup steps involved, so it does take some
time to get setup..but once its going, nothing does with this free Joomla
component does. There are also many various extensions specifically for
Community Builder which extend it far past the basic setup.
Pros: Provides much more
control over Joomla's user management, lots of support from other extensions,
lots of options and uses
Cons: Tends to be a bit overwhelming to novice Joomla users, currently there are some compatibility issues with CB and Joomla version 1.0.13
Cons: Tends to be a bit overwhelming to novice Joomla users, currently there are some compatibility issues with CB and Joomla version 1.0.13
6. MiniFrontPage
I recently discovered this free Joomla module and simply love
it. I call this one the Cadillac of latest news modules, since it does an
excellent job of displaying your latest content additions in a module position.
Easily display a snippet of your latest content, with an auto-generated image +
offers a customizable read more link. -- even gives you links to related
content! What more could you want?
Pros: Easily integrates
custom content into a module position, lots of layout options, lots of features
Cons: Minor setup involved
Cons: Minor setup involved
7. JoomlaStats
This is an awesome Joomla component for tracking statistics. Its
not nearly as thorough as something like Google Analytics, but for a fully
Joomla integrated statistical component, this one cant be beat. Definitely
worth using if your interested in tracking visitors and referrals.
Pros: Works great, easily
installed and used, great add-on modules available
Cons: Adds weight to your MySQL queries and page loads (typically not noticeable), adds a bit to your database (customizable)
Cons: Adds weight to your MySQL queries and page loads (typically not noticeable), adds a bit to your database (customizable)
8. Jombackup
This little database backup mambot does what its supposed to!
Its basically a simple database backup bot that, once setup, will automatically
backup your Joomla database and email it to you. What else can I say, it doesn't
get any easier than this!
Pros: Easily automates
Joomla database backups, convenience
Cons: None (unless you have a lot of mambots running on a slow site, you may forgo this one for a manual backup)
Cons: None (unless you have a lot of mambots running on a slow site, you may forgo this one for a manual backup)
9. Virtuemart
This set of free Joomla extensions makes you realize how great
Joomla really is. If your selling anything and need a Joomla integrated
shopping cart solution, you need to know about Virtuemart. Works out of the
box, has some great documentation available on their site, and an overall great
extension. While this component has its problems, I felt it was a notable
addition to this list due to the fact that it is the best general purpose
Joomla E-Commerce solution.
Pros: Free Joomla
shopping cart solution, great documentation available
Cons: Many experience unresolved issues, limited developer support
Cons: Many experience unresolved issues, limited developer support
10. Extended
Menu
This powerfull Joomla module allows you to display CSS dropdown
menus (AKA Suckerfish). There are a handful of CSS drop down menus available to
Joomla, I typically prefer this one over others due to its raw power and
functionality. If you are somewhat of a Joomla novice, I do not recommend this
module as it tends to be difficult to setup if you are unfamiliar with CSS. If
you are a developer, this module will offer you a solid base in which to build
a totally customizable menu system that fully integrates with existing Joomla
menus.
Pros: Power, versatility,
customization options
Cons: Advanced usage parameters, difficult to setup for many
Cons: Advanced usage parameters, difficult to setup for many
Extended Menu
Homepage
XmapXmap is a component based on the popular Joomap component. Xmap allows you to create a map of your site using the structure of your menus. This component adds new powerful options to Joomap and fixes several bugs reported by many users of Joomap.Get it hereMultiAds
This plugin allows you insert at most four area(Google adsense, other ads, even any html code) into different area of the article. You can dispay your ads in any of the following areas: 1.Before the content, that is between the title and the content. 2.At the top of the content. 3.At the bottom of the content. 4.After all content has been shown.Get it hereSmartsef
Smartsef BETA 1.0 is out. The smartsef component is an url rewriting component for Joomla 1.5. With Smartsef you can turnJoomla 1.5 into real SEF url's without numbers or other logic within the URL's. Smartsef gives you full control over the Joomla1.5. generated URLs and the order how they must displayed.Get it hereSectionEx
SectionEx (com_sectionex) will list all articles within a section, grouped by categories. It combines and extends Joomla!'s build in "Section Layout" and "Category List Layout". SectionEx is written for Joomla! 1.5 using its model-view-controller architecture.Get it herePhoca Gallery with Slideshow
Phoca Gallery is a Joomla! component. It is a simple image gallery with slideshow. The slideshow is based on Dynamic Drive's Ultimate Fade-In Slideshow v1.51 (http://www.dynamicdrive.com/ ). Requirements: * Joomla!1.5 (stable or any later version) * PHP 4.4.1 (or any later version) with GD library (graphics library for thumbnails creation).Get it heremod_latestByCategoryOrSection
If the current menu using com_content, this mod will display latestly Contents of the category or section selected by the menu. For frontpage and some other cases(the active is not using com_content), it will display the latest contents just as mod_latest does.It works properly in Joomla 1.5 version nativelyGet it hereMissing Metadata module
The Missing Metadata module adds a panel to the Control Panel of the Joomla Administrator interface that lists any published articles that have empty metadescription or metakeys fields. Search engines (particularly Google) use the metadescription text as the summary text for site-listings displayed in search results. Any articles that fails to include this metadata will suffer in their web presence and search engine ranking. After installation, be sure to active the module in the Module Manager > Administrator modules pane and set the position to CPanel so the module will appear properly.Get it hereLinkr Extension for linking articles
This extension lets you quickly link to articles in your Joomla! site when you are creating content. You can either search for your article with the search box, or find it by selecting the section and category. Finally, the link class, title, rel and url are completely customizable, making Linkr the perfect linking extension for Joomla!Get it hereContent static
Do you want your Joomla site much faster and more scalable? You can just make your site static with Content static plugin. After making the article content static, you will never need a lot of SQL to load a page from the database, load a lot of module's and plugins. You can just access the static page with the url. The plugin will generate the static content when the user first access the article, from then on, it will have nothing to with Joomla, it just like a static html web.Get it hereAttachments for content articles
The 'Attachments' extension for Joomla! allows files to be uploaded and attached to content articles. 'Attachments' includes a plugin to display attachments at the end of articles and a component for uploading and managing attachments. There are options to control who can see the attachments and who can upload them, along with many other options to increase its flexibility and usefulness. To install 'Attachments', unzip the download file and install the two plugins and the component.Get it here
