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Home / Joomla Blogs / Joomla Blogging Options

Apr

2007

Joomla Blogging Options

Update: This review is out-of-date. Try Joomlify.com for a great Wordpress and Joomla integration.

Joomla Wordpress Last week talked about how having a blog hosted on your site can be a important SEO tool for your Joomla site.

This week, we've gone on to talk about blogging with a default Joomla set-up and with the commercial MyBlog component. Both of them are strong options.

Today, we're going to look at a third useful way to blog with Joomla - OpenWP from J-Prosolution.com.

Introduction

Marko Schmuck, who also develops the Open SEF Component, has integrated Wordpress 2.0 with Joomla. This is not a bridge, but a fully-loaded, plug-and-play component.

Advantages

Wordpress is the best blogging solution on the net today. Integrating it with Joomla can utilize the best of both setups.
Wide range of blog features not available with default Joomla blogging, including RSS, tags, pings, archives and trackbacks.
Its free!
Powerful comment functionality is built in, without needing to rely on another component.
It has the approval of the Joomla core developers who use it for their blog.
It is 99% compatible with SEF URLs.

Disadvantages

Development is currently stopped. Wordpress has now moved on to 2.1.
It doesn't integrate easily with other key Joomla components such as Community Builder.
Unlike the MyBlog component for Joomla, this doesn't allow you to add content within the regular Joomla Section/Category heirarchy.
Because it is integrated with Joomla, not all of the Wordpress plugins will work.
SEF URLs produce just one or two bugs in the setup, depending on which SEF component you're using.

Overall

OpenWP is a good blogging choice. It doesn't bring 100% of the power of Wordpress to Joomla, but it brings enough to make it a very solid blogging tool.

Its not easy to levarage the power of this component for too many people, because only the main administrator account has access the Control Panel. Therefore, OpenWP is recommended for people looking to a single-author blog with more power and options than are available through a default Joomla setup.

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Your Comments (19)

Klaus Nitsche

April 19, 2007

There is a major and very basic problem with the approach to integrate foreign code into Joomla components, and that problem has strictly kept me away from using them so far:

You might not get updates and critical fixes.

When the 3rd party app is updated (as has happened quite frequently with Wordpress in the past months), you may be stuck with legacy / insecure code if the dev who did the Joomla integration doesn't follow up quickly in releasing a new version.

This goes for components such as OpenWP and OpenWiki, and it went for the ancient phpBB component too, may it rest in peace.

If you're using integrated 3rd party apps, you're running a general security risk you need to be aware of. Either that, or you are that much of a coder that you can fix issues yourself, but then you're moving away from the "golden" code and have to maintain it for yourself.

My 2 cents ... as always, kind regards.
Zorro

aravot aravot

April 19, 2007

I would like to see review of Mamblog, please.

Steve Burge

April 19, 2007

Hi Zorro - thats a really smart way to look at it. Even with a mature application such as Wordpress, there are still essential security fixes released regularly.

For example, I think it was a wise choice by Joomla.org to go with a standalone version of Simple Machines, rather than a bridge. Because of this, the main Joomla forums are safe and update to date, whereas the developers blog is already out of date.

Hi Aravot - I'm not a big fan of Mamblog, but sure... look for Part 4 of Joomla Blogging, perhaps next week

Choudhury

October 30, 2007

Hi,
I am using the mambo blog in my site softestclub.com. I am not fully satisfied to it..so I would urge everyone to be careful about it. Thanks

Praveen Ratna Deepak

September 15, 2008

I use a Joomla component built on Wordpress called "mojoBlog" and its quite effective. Most WP plugins are supported as well. Only problem is it is not yet J!1.5 compatible. Only works for J!1.0. A new stable version is on the production roll.

Its still being supported and has a great forum as well. check it out.

My 2 cents,
Deepak.

Azman

December 08, 2008

Website is dead....

Where the ** is the plugin. >_

Steve Burge

December 08, 2008

Hi Azman - see top of the review:

Update: This review is out-of-date. Try Joomlify.com for a great Wordpress and Joomla integration.

Erlend Heggen

December 16, 2008

What about using JFusion? As there are no core hacks involved I think that should solve the concerns expressed about problems with updates or additional extensions

I've requested that a WordPress plug-in for JFusion be made, which you can read more about here.

Professional Joomla Services

January 24, 2009

MyBlog works great for me... I have been working with Joomla since 3 years and found MyBlog very interesting.

February 14, 2009

I tried it two months ago, but I ended up with the Zoro-problem. Now I'm straight.

Kinds,

Palash

April 24, 2009

Hi,all,
I am totally new to joomla.I want to integrate wordpress in joomla.But i am nt getting this source.Pls provide me the link.Help!!!!!!

mubashar

April 29, 2009

Hi all
i am also new to use joomla. I have no idea of how to integrate wordpress with joomla.Is there any who can help me. I am very upset Please help me.

azzam

May 08, 2009

Joomlaworks has released the k2 component and joomlashack are selling compatible joomla 1.5 template. You can literally build a blog interface

azzam

May 08, 2009

Joomlaworks has released the k2 component and joomlashack are selling compatible joomla 1.5 template. You can literally build a blog interface

Joomla Themes

June 04, 2009

I tried joomla and wordpress too. In final I decide to use Joomla and I made some cool joomla themes http://joomlartwork.com. I recommend for everyone to use joomla.

Kenneth

July 22, 2009

I bought their component WordPress MU and was looking forward to getting it up and running. I encountered error after error and did nomerous things to try to get around it. I sent them a mail and they asked for my password to the site and the ftp and they tried to do it for me. I got a mail saying it's installed. It was installed but still not working. I sent a response to that and got nothing back. So i mailed for a refund and this is what i got back:
Kenneth,

If fixed the problem with the template.
It seems you uninstalled the extension so I can't test it out myself.

As for the refund, we only do refund if you haven't used the extension at all, which you have.

Please let me know if you need any other help.

Kindest regards,
Rafael Corral
Lead Developer

I bought, tried to install it and got help to install it but it NEVER worked. And this is just a couple of days ago. And I wont get no refund.

This isn't business. This is a scam. Charging so high prices for things that dont work.

Lando Griffin

September 01, 2009

thanks Ken. That's good to know. Sometimes is better to do your own interface. I am working on an OpenSource interface wordpress-joomla and will be better than whatever all these fools are doing adn charging for it. It will be for everybody. Just wait.

Liz Dayle

September 10, 2009

Thanks for this info and I'll be checking out for new bridges for wordpress & joomla together.

Rod

November 01, 2009

I was looking for a good blog to work with Joomla 1.5.

Thanks for all that provided updated informations.