In the world of CMS solutions there are three Open-Source giants: Wordpress, Joomla and Drupal. I have worked with all three solutions over the past eight years and although all three have their own redeeming qualities, only one of them stands alone with overall superiority.

The response to “3 Site Trends to Trash” got me thinking about the differences between how web developers see websites and how the average internet user does. For example, can you remember the first time you went on Facebook? I remember my first time a few years back, I thought it was boring, bland, and ended up lost on several occasions. It was enough to put me off getting my own account for a full year. Now that I’ve become a veteran I see it as clean and organized, and I can easily find my way around profiles of ex-boyfriends to beating high scores on snake. The difference in viewpoint changes with how familiar and experienced you become.

If you have a professional Joomla site, you no doubt have a handful of components installed on your site to give it a little extra something. Maybe you have a slick Chronoforms form, a product catalog managed by Zoo, or even a pretty robust directory of businesses using JReviews. But what happens when you finish all the directions on the box?

A mandatory part of any Joomla site worth its salt is SEF URLs. Sure, you could go with the default Joomla SEF settings. Flip a couple radio switches, put together a .htaccess file, and you’re good to go. But the hard-core Joomlans know that a beefed up Joomla SEF component is what’s really going to get you results in the search engines and give you full control over your shiny, pretty, search engine friendly urls. Our two SEF competitors in the ring are Joomsef by Artio and SH404sef by dev.anything-digital.com. Let’s see how they stack up:

As someone who develops Joomla web sites every day, I would say one of the most useful extensions out there is Chronoforms by ChronoEngine.

Chronoforms is the best Joomla contact form component, plugin, and module. It simplifies the management of online forms and automated emails (auto-responders).