Joomla Version History
The Project Joomla is the result of a heated discussion between the Mambo Foundation, which was founded in August 2005, and its then-development team.
Joomla is a development of the successful system Mambo. Mambo CMS was developed by an Australian company in 2001.
Joomla is used all over the world for creating simple web pages and for complex websites as well. It is easy to install, easy to manage, secure and very reliable.
Background
Joomla was the result of a fork of Mambo that name was trademarked by Miro International Pvt. Ltd., who formed a non-profit foundation with the stated purpose of funding the project and protecting it from lawsuits.
However, the Joomla development team claimed that many of the provisions of the foundation structure went against previous agreements made by the elected Mambo Steering Committee, lacked the necessary consultation with key stakeholders and included provisions that violated core open source values.
Version Naming & Release System
The strategies have been modified to not lock in a specific release as the LTS release of a series. Under the revised strategy, unless superseded with a newer minor release, there will be at least two years of support for the last minor release of a series. The concept of an LTS release has being eliminated. For example, if 3.4 were to be the final minor release of the 3.x series, it would be supported for at least two years after its release.
The version identifiers for Joomla follow a three level numerical convention where the levels are defined by change significance -
Joomla 1.x Series
Joomla 1.0 was released on 22nd September, 2005. It was a re-branded release of Mambo 4.5.2.3.
Joomla 1.5 was released on 22nd January, 2008. The last release of this version (on 27th March, 2012) was 1.5.26. This version was the first to attain long term support (LTS).
April 2012 marked the official end-of-life of Joomla 1.5; with Joomla 3.0 released, support for Joomla 1.5 faded away in April 2013.
Joomla 1.6.0 was released on 10th January, 2011. This version added a full access control list functionality plus, user-defined category hierarchy, and admin interface improvements.
Joomla 1.7.0 was released on 19th July, 2011; six months after 1.6.0. This version added enhanced security and improved migration tools.
Joomla 2.x Series
Joomla 2.5.0 was released on 24th January, 2012 (six months after 1.7.0). This version is a long term support (LTS) release. Joomla! 2.5 support is planned to cease in December of 2014.
Joomla 3.x Series
Joomla 3.0 stable version was released in September 2012.
Joomla 3.1: This version included new tagging feature.
Joomla 3.7: This version included custom fields to articles, users, and contacts.
Joomla 3.8: This version included New Routing System, Joomla! 4 Compatibility Layer, Improved Sample Data Installation.
Joomla 3.9 included the privacy tool suite.
Joomla 4.x Series
Joomla 4.0 was a major version with plenty of new features. Everything was redesigned, rethought and with great new features.
Joomla 4.1: This version included tasks scheduler, child templates, accessibility checker, syntax highlighting in TinyMCE editor, inline help.
Joomla 4.2: This version included keyboard shortcuts, multi-factor authentication.
Joomla 4.3: The main feature of this release is Guided Tours.
Joomla 5.x Series
Joomla 5.0 included many new features like dark mode in administrator, Schema.org Integration, PHP & Bootstrap Updates, AVIF support in the media manager.
Joomla 5.1 included many improvements in code-base.
Joomla 5.2: This version included Guided Tour Enhancements, Multilingual Menu Management, New Articles Module, Customizable Email Templates, Conditional Fields for Forms, Improved Password Security.
Joomla 5.3: This version included Enhanced HTML email templates, Improved media file management, Execution History for scheduled tasks, Improved accessibility and routing, PHP 8.4 compatibility.
Joomla 6.x Series
Joomla 6.0 is a new major version. This version included new features like Automatic core Joomla updates, Cassiopeia child template with extended customisation options, Advanced versioning to include custom fields, New custom fields (notes and numbers with currency).
Joomla 6.1: This version included Proof-of-Work Captcha Plugin, Visual Workflow Editor, Media Custom Fields (Audio, Video & Documents).
Joomla 6.2: The TinyMCE editor received many improvements to facilitate integration with Joomla! - Media Manager integration, Link selector modal, Read More integration, and others.
Joomla Version Release Table
| Version | Release Year, Month |
| 1.0 | 2005, September |
| 1.5 | 2008, January |
| 1.6 | 2011, January |
| 1.7 | 2011, July |
| 2.5 | 2012, January |
| 3.0 | 2012, September |
| 3.1 | 2013, April |
| 3.2 | 2013, November |
| 3.3 | 2014, April |
| 3.4 | 2015, February |
| 3.5 | 2016, March |
| 3.6 | 2016, July |
| 3.7 | 2017, April |
| 3.8 | 2017, September |
| 3.9 | 2018, October |
| 4.0 | 2021, August |
| 4.1 | 2022, February |
| 4.2 | 2022, August |
| 4.3 | 2023, April |
| 5.0 | 2023, October |
| 5.1 | 2024, April |
| 5.2 | 2024, October |
| 5.3 | 2025, April |
| 6.0 | 2025, October |
| 6.1 | 2026, April |
| 6.2 | 2026, October |
| 6.3 | 2027, April |