I've got a decent number of sites that I've set up over the years using either Mambo or Joomla. I also use ExpressionEngine and some others that I'd rather not name.. heheh.. um.. anyway, I run Mambo and Joomla so I can keep an eye on the differences with the intention of eventually migrating one way or the other. Things can move slowly when there's not a lot of motivation involved. That's key here. I haven't seen much on either side to motivate me to spend the time to switch sites one way or the other.

I've had a Mambo site cracked because of a crappy, outdated, unsupported 3rd party extension. I've had a Joomla site (with no 3rd party extensions) cracked because of a security issue in the Joomla code that became known while I was too busy to stop and upgrade. In both cases I was able to reload or rebuild without too much hassle. I try to keep things updated and secure but this is the web and there's a lot of people out there who don't know about karma. It'll suck to be them when they have to pay up for all the pain they caused web developers. Anyway, with both systems there are features that I don't like or wish were better. With both there are promises that the next release will be a major break from the old code and things will be better.

I didn't like the spirit in which the Joomla team split off from Mambo. I like even less how they are now treating the 3rd party developers. I'm glad to see that the 3rd party developers have banded together, but I'll still wait and see the outcome. Eyez has several great posts on how the actions of the Joomla core team has caused him to take a wait and see approach to Joomla. Maybe I'm missing something, but what it boils down to is some of the Joomla core team decided that Joomla was supposed to be GPL (I think that's why they split off from Mambo in the first place??) and therefore all derivative work including 3rd party extensions had to be GPL as well. The 3rd party developers were the ones who followed the Joomla core team away from Mambo and helped them build things up. Now the Joomla core team is throwing them under the bus. Nice.. and a repeat.

The trend of interest in Joomla

currently shows Mambo interest trailing off drastically since Joomla was created. Joomla on the other hand has seen a steady increase in interest. What's interesting is despite the upheaval in the Joomla camp there hasn't been a rise in interest in Mambo. At least not according to that Google trend.

The end result for me is I'm still holding off on making any drastic changes. I'll wait and see what Mambo cooks up from cake in version 5, and I'll see how many developers mutiny from Joomla.