According to market share estimates (as of May 2026), Joomla 3.x is currently used on more than 50% of all installed Joomla sites worldwide.
However, official support for Joomla 3.x ended in February 2025 (counting the eLTS program).
Back in April we launched the first version of our up-to-date Joomla 3.x distribution, now called 'Joomla 3.x UTD' - an updated distribution of the Joomla 3.x content management system built to ensure code security, support modern PHP & MySQL/MariaDB versions & fix any broken behaviour that never got sorted before the release of newer major versions of Joomla.
This work has produced 6 releases so far (from 3.11 to 3.16), gradually reaching a major milestone for this project, as it achieves its primary stated goals of supporting newer PHP versions, while being fully in-line in terms of security with newer Joomla 5 & 6 releases.
We now shift gears by fixing the things that were either left unfinished (e.g. database drivers beyond MySQL/MariaDB) or were never properly implemented (e.g. templates that highlight what a powerful & approachable content management system should be).
So in version 3.17, slated to be released in the coming days, we're bringing a slew of updates!
Here's a summary:
- Full support for all major database vendors: MySQL/MariaDB (native & PDO), Postgres (native & PDO), SQLite, SQL Server & Azure SQL, spanning versions that were released even 15 or so years ago (excluding SQLite which supports versions from around 2020 for now). Our work made all databases simply work as they should with Joomla. And Joomla 3.x UTD works natively with the default user authentication method that ships with MySQL 8.0, 8.4 and 9.x (caching SHA-2) and it does not require switching MySQL to "native" authentication (the old way up to MySQL 5.7).
- For SQLite specifically, we're using WordPress' emulation layer so that any SQL statement built for MySQL will work with SQLite as well. And we use WAL mode to queue write operations in SQLite, while switching session management to "PHP" to reduce write volume to what would otherwise end up in the sessions table in the database. SQLite is excellent for spinning up Joomla 3.x UTD dev environments in seconds, or even putting entire sites in Dropbox, OneDrive etc. that you can resume working on when switching between devices. But it can also be used for small sites, that don't require lots of concurrent writes. We currently flag the SQLite driver as 'experimental,' having tested it primarily against engine releases from the past six years. Compatibility will continue to improve as we test older releases and gather real-world feedback from third-party extensions.
- A brand new installation process that supports all database drivers.
- 3 brand new frontend templates that truly highlight what a good content management system should be: Finch (for blogging), Hammond (for news portals & magazines) and Rookwood (for portfolio/presentation business sites). All using 100% core Joomla extensions, built with plain CSS and JavaScript, providing editor.css files for ensuring your WYSIWYG editor sees the template's CSS styling, including awesome "print CSS" styling for article views and scoring excellent on Google's Core Web Vitals. Not only that, we revamped all sample data sets to adapt on each template. And you can switch between sample data sets even after you've installed Joomla 3.x UTD for the first time, as if you had installed the new sample data set at first. The 3 new templates are a great starting point for any new project and have been professionally crafted using our nearly 2 decades of experience in building high traffic & heavy content websites with Joomla & K2.
- Protostar has been fully upgraded for PHP 8 and security, but will not be actively used in the future - it's there for backwards compatibility only.
- We've added TinyMCE 8 (the latest version) as a new default editor plugin for Joomla; TinyMCE 4 stays as "Editor - TinyMCE (legacy)", and existing sites keep it until they switch in Global Configuration, to ensure maximum backwards compatibility.
- New command line interface (CLI - at
cli/joomla.php) using the command names of newer Joomla releases (after version 4), but enhancing with many more and using JSON output so that scripts and AI agents can programmatically interact with your site. We're talking full content management (articles, categories, modules, menus), full template management, dry runs, health checks, converting between databases, log viewers and more! This work will bring Joomla 3.x UTD closer to becoming a truly agentic CMS. - The new CLI also exposes a brand new MCP server: All major AI assistants (e.g. Claude, OpenAI, Gemini, Qwen, Kimi, GLM etc.) can now work with your site through this built-in MCP server and perform operations as you instruct them in both the content and structure of the site.
- It's even possible to install a new Joomla 3.x UTD site using just the CLI in mere seconds, which makes rapid prototyping and testing a joy! See our video on X here.
- The backend template has a new responsive login page, inline with Isis' colors, but modernized and more practical.
- We've added a new one-click Clean Cache control in the administrator's status bar for everyone with backend access; administrators also get Clean Everything (the main site cache, anything inside the /cache folder and temporary folders as defined in configuration.php) and Global Check-in from the same spot.
- Post-installation Messages now show what's new in every release of this distribution, starting from v3.11, instead of stock Joomla's outdated messages from the 3.2–3.10 era.
- Fixed the administrator's Help buttons, which showed "not found" since v3.11.
- Fixed a ton of long-standing bugs in the API and ironed out any PHP deprecations we could detect.
As we prepare the release for v3.17, we've setup 3 demo sites to showcase the new templates, using PHP 8.5 and SQLite for database.
Browse, test and torture these demo sites (we're eager to see how SQLite will perform)!
- For Finch: https://j3xutd-demos.joomlaworks.net/finch/
- For Hammond: https://j3xutd-demos.joomlaworks.net/hammond/
- For Rookwood: https://j3xutd-demos.joomlaworks.net/rookwood/
Below you'll find some screenshots of the updates...
