The recent conflict between WordPress.com and WP Engine has sparked plenty of debates about the future of open-source platforms and who controls access to their resources. For someone who believes strongly in the principles of open-source, this situation feels like a step in the wrong direction. As I’ve already discussed, blocking access to open-source resources based on business disputes undermines the values that have made platforms like WordPress so successful.
With all this drama unfolding, it got me thinking—if WordPress.com starts tightening access to its resources, what other content management systems (CMS) are out there? Could another platform rise up to challenge WordPress’s dominance? Enter Joomla, one of the most popular CMS alternatives to WordPress, and a well-established open-source project in its own right.
As someone who’s not particularly fond of CMS platforms in general (my personal site is hand-coded in HTML, after all), I decided to give Joomla a try. Could it be a viable competitor to WordPress, especially for those looking for a reliable, open-source solution that stays true to the principles of openness and accessibility?