The 30 Best Joomla Extensions Your Website Shouldn't Be Without

We feature 30 of the very best Joomla extensions that every website shouldnt be without, along with what they are and where to get them.

There are over 8000 Joomla extensions available

There are over 8000 Joomla extensions to date making Joomla by far the most expandable Content Management System available. But out of them all, how do you know which ones are the best for your website, and where do you find them?  We've put together a list of the very best Joomla extensions to help get you up and running in the best way possible.
Akeeba Backup
About Akeeba Backup
Akeeba Backup (formerly JoomlaPack) is an open-source backup component for Joomla, allowing you to create a site backup that can be restored on any Joomla compatible server. It creates a full backup of your site in a single archive. Learn more about Akeeba Backup.

Akeeba Backup Features
Akeeba Backup can create a full backup of your site in a single archive. The archive contains all the files, a database snapshot and a restoration script (derived from the standard Joomla! installer). The backup and restore process is AJAX powered, designed to avoid server timeouts, even with very large sites. Also options to make a backup of your database itself or just your files.

Highlights: • Joomla Version: Joomla 1.5 / 1.7 Native • License: GPL • Price: Freemium Visit Akeeba

Akeeba Admin Tools
About Akeeba Admin Tools
Akeeba Admin Tools is a Joomla extension that helps make your website administration easier, while helping to enhance your website's security.

Akeeba Admin Tools Features
Akeeba Admin Tools notifies you when there are new updates available for Joomla and also helps quickly install them with a one-click installer, taking the hassle out of updating your Joomla installation.  Akeeba Admin tools also helps, fix your file and directory permissions, performs database maintenance, handles custom URL redirections, helps create a secure .htaccess file for enhanced security and even includes an advanced Web Application Firewall to prevent most common attacks against your website.

Highlights: • Joomla Version: Joomla 1.5 / 1.7 Native • License: GPL • Price: Freemium Visit Akeeba
 
AcyMailing
About AcyMailing
AcyMailing is a Joomla extension that allows you to keep your website visitors up-to-date via e-mail marketing, newsletters, follow-up autoresponders and marketing campaigns.

It is seamlessly incorporated into Joomla and provides professional features enabling you to keep you in permanent contact with your subscribers.

  

Highlights: • Joomla Version: Joomla 1.5 / 1.7 Native • License: GPL • Price: Freemium Visit Acyba.com
 
AceSEF
About AceSEF
AceSEF is a very powerful Joomla Search Engine Friendly URLs generator, that also helps to automatically create Metadata, Sitemap and Tags with an easy to use interface that simplifies the management of your website's Search Engine Optimization and offers all that you need for helping with your SEO.

AceSEF Features
Features include: Keywords-rich SEF URLs, Sitemap Generator, Automatic Internal Links Generator, easy to use interface and much more.

Highlights: • Joomla Version: Joomla 1.5 / 1.7 Native • License: GPL • Price: Freemium Visit Joomace.com
 
CQI - Custom Quick Icons
About CQI
CQI (Custom Quick Icons) is a Joomla extension that allows for the replacement of the standard admin module 'quick icons' with quick shortcusts to the areas of your Joomla admin site for faster, more efficient working.

CQI Features
Installation and configuration is simple.  Just simply choose which component, module, plugin etc that you would like quick access to, assign an icon and your done. Makes working within the Joomla admin panel much quicker.

Highlights: • Joomla Version: Joomla 1.5 Native • License: GPL • Price: Free Download CQI
 
Easybook Reloaded
About Easybook Reloaded
Easybook reloaded is a great looking, full featured and easy to use guestbook extension for Joomla! with many great and useful features.

Easybook Reloaded Features
Full administration from the Front-end, E-Mail notification, GeSHi Syntax Highlighting, BBCode, Smilies, Automatic Word-wrap, Ratings, Options to fill in various direct messaging services, Bad word filter.

Highlights: • Joomla Version: Joomla 1.5 / 1.7 Native • License: GPL • Price: Freemium Visit Easybook Reloaded
 
eXtplorer
About eXtplorer
eXtplorer is File Management extension that builds itself into Joomla!, using a web-based interface that allows drag and drop to access and modify the files and directories on your web server via FTP, the beauty being that you can have FTP like access to the files and directories on your web server but via a web-based interface anywhere in the world.

eXtplorer Features
Copy & Move Files and Directories via easy to use Drag & Drop interface, Dynamic Directory Tree with on-demand loading of subdirectories, Edit Files, Rename, Delete or Create new Files and Directories, Access Files through ''FTP'' or directly (using PHP) to totally overcome permission and file ownership issues, Upload or Download files just as you like, Create and Extract Archives (ZIP, Tar, Tar/GZ, Tar/BZ), User Management with different permission levels like "View only" or "Edit" and "Admin".

Highlights: • Joomla Version: Joomla 1.5 / 1.7 Native • License: GPL • Price: Free Visit eXtplorer
 
JCE Editor
About JCE Editor
JCE is probably the best and most popular WYSIWYG editor for Joomla! and it helps make the job of creating or editing content easy.

JCE Editor Features
Office-like functions and familiar buttons make formatting simple, upload, rename, delete, cut/copy/paste images and insert them into your articles using an intuitive and familiar interface, create Links to other Sections, Categories, Articles, Web links and Contacts in your site using a unique and practical Link Browser, take control of your code with syntax highlighting in the Advanced Code editor and advanced style and element attribute editing, integrated spellchecking using Google™ Spellchecker .

Highlights: • Joomla Version: Joomla 1.5 / 1.7 Native • License: GPL • Price: Free Visit JCE
 
JEvents
About JEvents
JEvents is a very popular and well known Events Calendar extension for Joomla! that combines great looks with lots of great features, making the job of creating and displaying events on your website an easy one.



Highlights: • Joomla Version: Joomla 1.5 / 1.7 Native • License: GPL • Price: Free Visit JEvents
 
JForms
About JForms
JForms is a very simple and easy to use WYSIWYG Forms extension for Joomla! that allows website administrator to quickly and easily create website forms through simple to use drag and drop WYSIWYG editor.

JForms Features
Single screen form creation using Easy WYSIWYG Form editor, HTML elements that allow the user to have HTML within the form, Joomla! User Info Element that collects data about the user from Joomla! Database, Ability to define validation rules for different form elements, Ability to define who has the permission to fill any given form, Ability to define default (Pre-selected) value for most of form elements, IP Tracking, AJAX based Records manager featuring control over what fields to display and a simple keyword search, Generated forms are accessible and compliant with xHTML standards, Everything is validated on the both client-side and server-side, Ability to send submissions to any number of E-mails, Ability to send users confirmatory messages, Customizable E-mail messages.

Highlights: • Joomla Version: Joomla 1.5 Native • License: GPL • Price: Free Visit JForms 
 
Kunena Forum
About Kunena Forum
Kunena is the most popular Joomla! Forum extension with more than 1 million downloads to date and makes the task of implementing a great looking, full featured forum into Joomla! an easy one.



Highlights: • Joomla Version: Joomla 1.5 / 1.7 Native • License: GPL • Price: Free Visit Kunena Forum
 
LyftenBloggie
About LyftenBloggie
LyftenBloggie is great looking, easy to use Joomla! blogging extension and is ideal for anyone looking to create a blog within Joomla!.

LyftenBloggie Features
Visitors can leave comments on blog entries with the built-in comments system, built-in spam protection helps to eliminate comment spam, multiple blog authors can post to the blog, user access is controlled via the built-in access control system, themes can easily be changed or added with the theme manager, allow your website visitors to leave trackbacks from their site to yours.

Highlights: • Joomla Version: Joomla 1.5 Native • License: GPL • Price: Freemium Visit Lyften
 
RokQuickCart
About RokQuickCart
RokQuickCart is a simple to use shopping cart for extension for Joomla! RokQuickCart makes the task of selling products online an easy one with its simple, yet elegant shopping cart solution that integrates directly into Joomla!. RokQuickCart is an ideal way for allowing you to showcase your products, complete with images and descriptions along with shipping and tax calculations, all done via an easy to configure shopping cart that uses the popular PayPal and Google Checkout payment systems to process payments.

RokQuickCart Features
Payment Systems: use PayPal or Google Checkout. Currencies: use up to 16 different currencies for your store. Tax Rate: automatic cost calculation based on a tax rate. Shipping: configure shipping costs for auto-calculation. RokBox: product images use RokBox to display larger previews. Style: inbuilt styling for rapid deployment.

Highlights: • Joomla Version: Joomla 1.5 Native • License: GPL • Price: Free Visit RocketTheme
 
Xmap
About Xmap
Xmap is a Sitemap generator component for Joomla!. Xmap allows you to create a map of your site using the structure of your menus.

Xmap Features
Ability to create more than one sitemap with different preferences for each sitemap, Generation of XML sitemaps compatible with Google, Yahoo, Bing and others, Cache system to allow very fast sitemap generation, great for large or high traffic sites, Easily exclude any menu item from your site map directly from the frontend, Option to compress the XML sitemap, Better presentation of the XML sitemap on browsers.

Highlights: • Joomla Version: Joomla 1.5 / 1.7 Native • License: GPL • Price: Free Get Xmap
 
Gallery View
About Gallery View
Gallery View is a great looking, free Gallery extension for Joomla! Gallery View displays the main slide show image above a row of small thumbnail previews, giving the look of a professional slide show gallery, in an easy to setup and use extension.



Highlights: • Joomla Version: Joomla 1.5 Native • License: GPL • Price: Free Get Gallery View
 
AllVideosReloaded
About AllVideosReloaded
AllVideos Reloaded is a fork of the famous AllVideos extension which is used to embed videos into your web pages from videos hosted on your own website or popular online services such as YouTube, Metacafe, Vimeo (and many more). AllVideos Reloaded allows your website visitors to playback almost any type of audio or video file, directly from your server or remote hosted server.



Highlights: • Joomla Version: Joomla 1.5 Native • License: GPL • Price: Free Get AllVideosReloaded
 
Disqus Comment System
About Disqus Comment System
Disqus (pronounced "discuss") is a free service that allows you to easily embed a comments and discussions feature on to your web pages. The Disqus comment system can be easily added into any website or blog.

Disqus Comment System Features
Threaded comments and comment ratings, Powerful moderation and admin tools, Filter out spam, trolls, and unwanted commenters, Enable your visitors to become a real community, Moderation by email or mobile, More comments and increased engagement, Connected with a large discussion community, Increased exposure and readership, Track and manage comments and replies, Verified commenter reputations across sites, More control over your own comments on websites, Never lose your comments, even if the website goes away, Build a global profile, or comment blog, to collect and show off what you're saying, Easier to comment on websites using Disqus, Reply to comments through email or mobile, Edit and republish comments with one click.

Highlights: • Joomla Version: Joomla 1.5 Native • License: GPL • Price: Free Get Disqus Comment System

Google Maps Plugin
About Google Maps Plugin
The Googlemaps plugin allows you to easily embed a Google map directly into your pages, anywhere you choose. The great thing about this plugin is in the amount of easy to use parameters, which allow fine granular control over how the map will be displayed.


Highlights: • Joomla Version: Joomla 1.5 / 1.7 Native • License: GPL • Price: Free Get Google Maps Plugin

Sexy Bookmarks
About Sexy Bookmarks
Sexy Bookmarks is a small, easy to use plugin for Joomla! that integrates several popular social bookmarking services into your Joomla! based Website, allowing your website visitors to add and promote your articles and pages easily to a wide variety of popular social bookmarking services, by means of a single click, which in turn helps increase your website popularity.

Highlights: • Joomla Version: Joomla 1.5 Native • License: GPL • Price: Free Get Sexy Bookmarks

Appointment Booking Pro
About Appointment Booking Pro
Appointment Booking Pro is a commercial extension for Joomla! that allows you to set a varied range of services or resources, with availability timeslots which allow your website visitors to book appointments with you. Ideally suited for businesses that run with daily appointments, like hair dressers, doctors, dentists etc. but can however be used by any type of business or professional to take bookings for their professional services.

Appointment Booking Pro Features
Accept PayPal payments at booking time, Create coupon codes to give to your customer discounted bookings, Google Calendar Support, define booking cost by service, SMS text messaging for reminders and notifications, Front-end booking cancellation.

Highlights: • Joomla Version: Joomla 1.5 / 1.6 Native • License: GPL • Price: $ Visit Appointment Booking Pro

FLEXIContent
About FLEXIContent
FLEXIcontent is an advanced content management system that replaces the standard article manager, category manager and section manager of Joomla! 1.5 and takes it to new levels, allowing far greater flexibility for websites that require more control over their content.
There is a new breed of Content Construction Kits available for Joomla! and FLEXIcontent is probably the best of them all.
FLEXIcontent gives you many professional features that enable you to build a collaborative web publishing system. FLEXIcontent allows you to manage content in a broad sense, and can organize articles, image or video galleries, job offers, product catalogues, business directories and so on, all within a single user interface.
The great thing about FLEXIcontent is in its unparalleled simplicity, everything that you need to do with your website content is controlled within one place. There is no need to master multiple components just to be able to administer an entire website, FLEXIcontent makes the job easy and furthermore, allows you to extend your site in many more ways.

FLEXIContent Features
Nested categories (unlimited depth), Usage of Joomla! content and category tables for content backwards and forwards compatibility (this means it extends the com_content instead of replacing it), Advanced version control, tags, File manager for secure downloads and media files, Ajax rating systems, Ajax commenting system, Favorites and update notifications, Frontend submit/edit capability.

Highlights: • Joomla Version: Joomla 1.5 / 1.7 Native • License: GPL • Price: Free Get FlexiContent

JomSocial
About JomSocial
If you have ever wanted to run your very own social networking or community website, or to enable your existing website to have more social networking / community features, then JomSocial is for you. Jomsocial is a great looking, full featured social networking extension for Joomla! with features such as activity streams, flexible templating & design, video support, photo gallery, event management, organic groups, customized profiles, private messaging, external social network integration (ala facebook) and many more.

JomSocial Features
Flexible designs, photo gallery, video support, organic groups, activity stream, social graphs management, event management, extensible via plugins, customizable profiles, private messaging, social network integration.

Highlights: • Joomla Version: Joomla 1.5 / 1.7 Native • License: GPL • Price: Freemium Visit JomSocial

Joom!Fish
About Joom!Fish
Joom!Fish is the most popular multi-language website extension for Joomla! that allows you to offer your website in multiple languages or better localizations.

Highlights: • Joomla Version: Joomla 1.5 Native • License: GPL • Price: Free Get Joom!Fish

K2
About K2
K2 is another CCK (Content Constriction Kit) for Joomla! that helps provide an integrated solution for offering rich content forms for items (standard articles with additional fields for article images, videos, image galleries and attachments), nested-level categories, tags, comments, category and user forms, ACL, frontend editing, sub-templates and more. K2 is a popular choice for website administrators who wish to transform their Joomla! based websites into news/magazine type sites, blogs, directory listings, product catalogues, document/download manager, portfolios, event listings, knowledgebase and more.


Highlights: • Joomla Version: Joomla 1.5 / 1.7 Native • License: GPL • Price: Free Get K2

Modules Anywhere
About Modules Anywhere
Modules Anywhere allows you to place modules, or complete module positions anywhere on your website where you can place text, including inside components or even inside other modules. Modules Anywhere is a great way of extending your website without having to manually build in new module positions into your website templates.

Highlights: • Joomla Version: Joomla 1.5 / 1.7 Native • License: GPL • Price: Free Get Modules Anywhere

ReReplacer
About ReReplacer
ReReplacer allows you to perform search and replace on the content that your website displays, enabling you to replace anything in your site’s output with whatever you want for as long as the replacement term is published (you can easily update the replacement term at any time to something else, or just unpublish it to put your content replacements back to the way they were originally).
The replacements happen on the fly, which means that they are not permanent. They are done instantly every time you request a web page in your site, providing you with many great possibilities and power to manipulate the output of your site.

Highlights: • Joomla Version: Joomla 1.5 Native • License: GPL • Price: Free Get ReReplacer

ProjectFork
About ProjectFork
Projectfork is a great looking, full featured Project Management solution for Joomla! that enables you to create and share your projects and ideas online (or on your company's intranet) with other users. You can use Projectfork for your company as a private intranet solution or as an online service similar to basecamp or Gforge.

ProjectFork Features
Project manager, Task Manager, File repository, Calendar, Forum, Time tracking, Advanced user access system, Extensible and flexible framework.

Highlights: • Joomla Version: Joomla 1.5 / 1.7 Native • License: GPL • Price: Free Visit ProjectFork

VirtueMart
About VirtueMart
VirtueMart is the most popular and complete e-Commerce shopping cart solution for Joomla! which is used by thousands of store owners around the world. VirtueMart allows you to create an unlimited Number of Categories, Products, Orders, Discounts, Shopper Groups and Customers. It can be run in Store where payments are accepted or in Catalogue-Mode, where your products are for display only.

VirtueMart Features
Capable of using SSL (https) Encryption (128-bit), Order history, order confirmations, multiple currencies supported, multiple languages, powerful administration interface, unlimited products and categories, use as shop or catalogue, product ratings and testimonials, featured products, product availability, downloadable products supported, stock notification, multiple images per product, product attributes (size, color etc.), product types, live credit card processing, payment gateways supported.

Highlights: • Joomla Version: Joomla 1.5 Native • License: GPL • Price: Free Visit VirtueMart

SOBI 2
About SOBI 2
SOBI 2 is a popular and free business directory extension for Joomla!. Ideally suited for business directory type websites, but can be extended easily to suit many other types of sites due to its CCK (Content Construction Kit) abilities.



Highlights: • Joomla Version: Joomla 1.5 Native • License: GPL • Price: Free Get SOBI 2

Well thats it. We hope this guide has helped you choose the best Joomla extensions for your next website.