It feels strange to write that title. But yes, Joomlashack is 15 years old this week.
This site was launched on September 2nd, 2005.
That's a long time for any software company to survive, particularly in the open-source world. In fact, this site could count as being older as it had a previous life as "Mamboshack.com".
We've celebrated 5 years, 10 years, and now here we are at 15.
I say "we", but the company has had 3 major owners in that time, with each team lasting about 5 years. The current team took over in 2016. Hopefully, we'll last more than 5 years. If we don't, then our time is nearly up!
Thanks to the awesome archive.org, we can see how Joomlashack has 5 major designs over the years. Each one marks a key point in the site's history.
Joomlashack in 2006
In the early days, Joomlashack focused on templates. That was the biggest business in the Joomla world. Most template sites created a new design every single month! Many of them created template frameworks so they could keep up with such a rapid pace. That led to the Wright framework, Gantry, T4, and others. Eventually, the template industry became saturated and far less profitable.
Joomlashack in 2010
Around the 5 year mark, Joomlashack started experimenting with WordPress themes and Drupal themes. This was inspired by Rockettheme who also tested several platforms. Those new ideas didn't take off, but the Joomlashack University did and it's still running successfully today.
Joomlashack in 2014
The biggest design change in Joomlashack's history was thanks to the talented Chiara Aliotta. She wrote about her approach where the idea was that you feel "welcomed to a beautiful, colorful and radiant page: the Jooomlashack world."
Joomlashack in 2017
This was our first redesign as Joomlashack's new owners. The aim was to keep Joomlashack's color palette while "making the new design as minimalistic as we possibly could." Valentin was the designer of this version and he wrote about the changes. This marked a move toward extensions as the driving force behind Joomlashack. We acquired or launched nearly 30 extensions between 2016 and 2020. They are now responsible for over 90% of our revenue.
Joomlashack in 2020
The current version of the site uses the Wright framework and a new logo. The site also runs entirely on our own extensions:
- Simple Renew for subscriptions.
- Shack HelpScout for customer support.
- Shack Forms for contact forms.
- Shack Analytics, OSMap, OSMeta, and Shack Open Graph for SEO.
- OSDownloads for file downloads.
- OSCampus for the training videos.
- Shack Error Notify and Shack User Switching for debugging.
- OSpam-a-not for spam blocking.
A request from the Joomlashack team
As we get ready for Joomla 4, we're working to upgrade all the templates and extensions. This will be one of the biggest efforts in our 15-year history. For one thing, we now have 10 times as many extensions. Along with these new improvements, you'll also see a 6th new site redesign. This will be an expensive and time-consuming project. If you value the work being done at Joomlashack, please click here and join us.
15 years ... wow! That still doesn't seem quite real.
Here's to Joomla and all you Joomla users! Thanks to everyone who has kept this site going since that day back in September 2005.
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