Joomla components are written for certain Joomla version, making it not 100% compatible with future versions. This is a major setback for Joomla setups. Say you want to build a website with 5 functions. You found components for all 5 functions and they are free. Great? Not necessarily. Because you will soon find out that some components are written quite a few years ago and can no longer work with the current Joomla version you downloaded.

So it is back to looking for another component... and praying hard that you find one which is compatible.

Joomla sites are also prone to security problems and some of my friends have had their sites hacked, thus losing everything they set up.

Joomla sites suffer from having backend admin modules that are intimidating for your clerical staff who have to do the updating. One secretary I spoke to actually "did not dare edit anything lest she deleted the whole site". Little wonder - Joomla backends look more like a ship's engine room than a TV console in the livingroom.

Joomla sites are also not "tailor-able"... this becomes a problem when you are faced with an user interface issue where the component loaded is really user-unfriendly for your need. And you just cannot change it. You can shrug it off and say "Never mind, it's free". But I am not so sure your web visitors share the same sentiments; they will probably swear they will never come back again.

Ultimately, each component is a black box that you can't open. You either use it wholesale or you don't.

At Genius Graphic, we adopt a Object-Oriented Approach to PHP Programming. We organise codes into neat little modules which behaves like LEGO. When a customer wants a certain function, we just click to attach to the main web and it is done.

What is different is that the codes in the modules are editable - thus, user friendliness is not sacrificed at the expense of costs.