I tried Joomla a couple of years ago but never really had a live implementation of it. I just did a simple install, played around with a couple of configuration and that was it. It was only a few weeks back when a couple of schoolmates back in my high school days suggested that we create an online community that we can use to communicate, share stuffs with each other, and even just simply reminisce our old times together. It was then that I tried registering a domain for us and setting up a community web site. I decided to make use of Joomla for this and I never really thought how easy it was. This time around, I really tried digging in to all its bits and pieces as well as customize it based on comments and suggestions from my old schoolmates.
My first impression with Joomla, is that it’s a great Content Management System (CMS). Setting it up and configuring it for your needs is so easy that you can have an online community in just a couple of minutes. Basically, I just downloaded its installer, followed the online installation instruction, and that’s it, I have my own Joomla based website. Installing additional modules and plug-ins can also be done in jiffy through the admin interface. You can just download the module/plug-in installer on your local machine, your server, or even just make use of its download link, and everything would be installed for you.
I made use of FireBoard as an integrated forum on Joomla, and it’s pretty cool and easy to setup as well. Not to mention that it has all the features we need such as being able to attach pictures and media files to our posts, easy administration, email notifications for new posts, and many more.
Performance wise, Joomla is fast and everything seems to be optimized. I haven’t experienced any lag or slow SQL queries yet. But I have yet to look again into this once heavy traffic comes in and DB data becomes populated significantly. But so far, Joomla and I are going along pretty well. 
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