When we first wrote this in 2011, the question was about moving off Joomla 1.5. The versions have changed, but the question hasn't. Today, Joomla 4 no longer gets security fixes (they ended October 14, 2025), and Joomla 5 gets security fixes only until October 12, 2027. Joomla 6 is the current version. We often get asked 'why should I have to upgrade my site? After all, it's working just fine.' And it may be, for the moment, but the sea is changing around it. When a piece of software reaches end-of-life, the developers quit maintaining it. This includes bug-fixes and security patches. Unfortunately, the bad guys don't lose interest in end-of-life software. In fact they actively start looking for vulnerabilities in older software, because they know the security holes won't be fixed. Along with this is
the changing landscape of everything around the site. We update servers regularly with the latest upgrades. This updates:
- the operating system
- the webserver
- the PHP programming language
- auxiliary programs like email
PHP, the language Joomla runs on, keeps moving too. Joomla 6, for example, requires PHP 8.3 or newer. At some point, these upgrades deprecate old features in ways that slow down or even break older versions of Joomla. We'll be sad if that happens, but we have to do this maintenance to patch security issues and correct bugs.
Site degradation can come from other sources as well. Years ago, one of our clients' Joomla 1.0 sites had its Google map quit working. This is because Google has changed their mapping software from version 2 that the site was using to version 3. Since it's a Joomla 1.0 site, there are no new Google maps version 3 components for it, so the site lost that functionality.
We've said it before, but it bears repeating: your website isn't like a picture that you hang on the wall and look at, it's more like a car that needs tune-ups and maintenance, or maybe more like an airplane that has to have its engine overhauled every so often. The major Joomla upgrades are like these engine overhauls: necessary for your site to keep running without unexpected breakdowns. Planning a move? Read our guide to upgrading to Joomla 6. Need help? See our Website Development and Website Care & Hosting services.