Official support for Joomla 2.5 ended on December 31st, 2014.
Joomla 2.5 websites will, of course, still operate after this date but security vulnerability fixes may no longer be available and this could place your Joomla 2.5 website at risk.
Joomla 2.5 is becoming increasingly more difficult to support as extension developers concentrate on newer versions of Joomla and drop support for older versions.
Advice for Joomla 2.5 Website Owners
To keep websites secure, Joomla 2.5 website owners should update to the final release Joomla 2.5.28, apply end of life security patches if they haven't already been applied and then migrate to Joomla 3.x as soon as possible.
Apart from official support, other advantages in moving to Joomla 3.x include new features such as tags, version control, improved security, PHP 7 support, improved security and custom fields.
The degree of difficulty in upgrading your Joomla 2.5 website to Joomla 3.x will depend on a number of factors including the currently used template, other third party extensions and the content that needs to be brought across.
Migrating from Joomla 2.5 to 3.x
Moving from Joomla 2.5 to 3.x is regarded as a "mini-migration" which involves the following:
- check the hosting environment is suitable for Joomla 3.x (e.g. PHP 5.3 or later)
- run backup
- make a list of third party extensions and check that equivalents are available in Joomla 3.x
- remove any extensions that are not Joomla 3.x compatible (including templates)
- update from 2.5.x to 3.x
- install Joomla 3.x versions of third party extensions (including templates)
- test and verify that everything has migrated successfully
This process can take anything from an hour or two to a whole day or even longer depending on the complexity of the website and the availability of equivalent Joomla 3.x versions of extensions.
Migrating from Joomla 1.5 to 3.x
Joomla 1.5 website owners are in a similar position to Joomla 2.5 website owners in that Joomla 1.5 is also officially unsupported and potentially vulnerable if new security flaws are found and exploited by hackers.
Joomla 1.5 website owners can migrate directly from Joomla 1.5 to Joomla 3.x using a migration tool such as "SP Upgrade" or similar which is a litle more complicated than the Joomla 2.5 to 3.x "mini-migration". One of the main benefits for Joomla 1.5 website owners moving to the latest version of Joomla is the availability of responsive (mobile friendly) templates that weren't widely available in Joomla 1.5.
More Information
Official Joomla 2.5 to 3.x Step by Step Migration instructions can be found on the Joomla Community website.
Official Joomla 1.5 to 3.x Step by Step Migration instructions can be found on the Joomla Community website.
Webilicious can help with Joomla Migrations.
Migrate My Joomla Website
Migrate from Joomla 1.5 to Joomla 3.x
The cost of migrating from Joomla 1.5 to Joomla 3.x depends on the number of third party extensions and whether there are Joomla 3.x equivalents, whether there is an equivalent Joomla 3.x template and other factors. A straightforward Joomla 1.5 to Joomla 3.x migration typically takes at least five hours and costs from around $450.
Contact me for a quote.
Migrate from Joomla 2.5 to Joomla 3.x
The cost of migrating from Joomla 2.5 to Joomla 3.x depends on the number of third party extensions and whether there are Joomla 3.x equivalents, whether there is an equivalent Joomla 3.x template and other factors. A straightforward Joomla 2.5 to Joomla 3.x migration migration typically takes at least three hours and costs from around $250.
Contact me for a quote.
Migrate from Joomla 3.x to Joomla 4.x
The cost of migrating from Joomla 3.x to Joomla 4.x depends on the number of third party extensions and whether there are Joomla 3.x equivalents, whether there is an equivalent Joomla 4.x template and other factors. A straightforward Joomla 3.x to Joomla 4.x migration migration typically takes at least three hours and costs from around $250.
Contact me for a quote.