Joomla 6 won’t grab any headlines with flashy design changes, but it promises a smarter, faster and more secure foundation for Joomla projects. The first alpha landed mid‑April 2025 and betas are planned for late summer with a stable release pencilled in for mid‑October.
For Joomla site owners thinking about the upgrade, we urge a little patience: in our experience the best approach is to wait a couple of months after the stable release to see how things settle and give extension developers time to catch up. There’s no immediate urgency to upgrade from Joomla 5, but if you’re still on Joomla 3 or 4 you’re running on outdated servers and stacking up security risks – leaving those older versions behind should be high on your to‑do list.
What’s new in Joomla 6?
Under the bonnet, Joomla 6 focuses on cleaning house and modernising the core rather than introducing eye‑catching bells and whistles. Here are some highlights you and your clients will notice:
For site owners
- Smarter menu management – a new nested menu manager makes it easier to organise complex navigation and simplifies configuration.
- Enhanced accessibility & multilingual tools – meeting WCAG 2.2 AA standards with better keyboard navigation, focus management and multilingual handling.
- Health checker & migration helper – built‑in tools check the overall health of your site and smooth the upgrade path from older versions.
- New admin UI enhancements – a cleaner dashboard layout, dark mode support and tidier typography help administrators get work done more comfortably.
- Revamped media manager – drag‑and‑drop uploads, folder previews and in‑browser editing (crop, resize, rotate) save you reaching for external tools.
- Flexible workflows and layout overrides – custom approval processes, easier template overrides and granular permissions give editorial teams more control without the headaches.
For developers
- A leaner codebase – old PHP/MySQL code is stripped away and the core is refactored to be faster and easier to maintain. Developers benefit from PSR‑12 compliant coding and improved CLI tools.
- Upgraded package and API handling – a cleaner package manager and modern API integration make installing and updating extensions less painful.
- Developer & performance improvements – support for PHP 8.2 features, Composer refinements, lazy loading by default and improved caching result in faster load times and better SEO.
How we’re preparing (and why you shouldn’t rush)
Major upgrades can be nerve‑racking. Our golden rule is to let the dust settle: wait a month or two after the stable release so that early bugs can be fixed and third‑party developers can update their code. There is no prize for being first, but there is additional pressure to leave Joomla 3 and 4 behind because they rely on outdated servers that compound security risks.
- Audit your current site. Identify any legacy extensions, old templates or custom hacks that might not survive the jump to Joomla 6. Document what needs replacing or refactoring.
- Upgrade to Joomla 5 first. Joomla 5.x is the supported upgrade base for 6.0 – you can’t safely skip a major version. Upgrading now gives you a stable platform for testing.
- Create a staging environment. Never test on your live site. Clone your production site to a sandbox and experiment with the latest beta to spot issues before they become emergencies.
- Watch for updates from extension vendors. Reputable template clubs and extension developers (including ours) will announce Joomla 6‑compatible releases as they become available. Plan to update all third‑party code.
- Lean on experts if you need to. Complex migrations are best handled with experienced hands. Our agency can prepare a detailed upgrade plan, refactor custom code and provide training to your team.
Some legacy themes and plugins won’t be updated for Joomla 6. If you’re still running components like Shape5, Joomlabamboo or other retired products, it’s time to consider replacing them.
Our agency’s view
As an agency, we always look for visible and tangible benefits before recommending an upgrade that costs our clients time and money. Joomla 6 doesn’t represent a huge overhaul, but the improvements to stability, performance and editorial tools are worthwhile.
We appreciate the Joomla team’s shift to a more frequent and considered release cycle – it may feel like yet another major release so soon after Joomla 4, but the increased cadence marks a change in release strategy that will bring predictability and will keep the codebase modern.
We plan to reach out to all of our Joomla clients a month or two after Joomla 6 rolls out with a proposed upgrade timeline. In the meantime, if you have any concerns about staying secure on older versions or want help planning your move, get in touch!
