Remember Joomla? The Platform That Started It All

There was a time when building a website felt like stepping into completely unknown territory. For me, that journey began in the early 2000s with Joomla.

My first website was for ComputerSurgeon, an IT consultancy business I ran in the UK. At the time, creating a website wasn't something I had ever done before. My hosting company offered a choice of traditional HTML pages, Joomla or WordPress. I had always assumed WordPress was purely for blogging, so Joomla seemed like the natural choice.

To be honest, those early days were challenging.

Joomla wasn't particularly intuitive for a newcomer. Between plugins, modules, menus and sections, it often felt like I was spending more time trying to understand the platform than building the website itself. There were plenty of late nights, moments of frustration and more than a few occasions where I wondered if I'd ever get the hang of it.

But eventually something clicked.

As I became more familiar with Joomla, I started to appreciate how powerful it was. More importantly, it taught me the foundations of website creation. Looking back now, many of the lessons I learnt during those years still influence how I build online projects today.

As my ambitions grew, I began looking for something more flexible. After spending countless hours researching different options, I decided to make the move to WordPress. Once again, I found myself learning an entirely new platform, but this time the transition felt easier. I could see the possibilities almost immediately, and before long WordPress became the home for many of my websites.

For years, WordPress served me well and several of my sites still run on it today. Some have become so established that migrating them simply wouldn't be worth the effort.

The web, however, never stops evolving.

Over time I found myself wanting more control and greater flexibility, particularly when it came to managing photography galleries and custom projects. The more I experimented, the more I realised that traditional content management systems weren't always the best solution for what I was trying to achieve.

Today, the Monty Network is built using a collection of modern tools including Cloudflare Workers, R2, GitHub, Supabase, Notion, custom code and selected hosting services. Together they provide a foundation that allows me to build and expand far more efficiently than ever before.

What I enjoy most is the freedom. Thanks to the structure I've developed over the years, adding a new site can take minutes rather than days. I can manage and maintain the entire network from a laptop or tablet, whether I'm at home, travelling or sitting in a café. I'm no longer tied to a desk for endless hours.

Of course, the journey hasn't been perfect.

I've made mistakes. I've broken things. I've accidentally deleted entire websites and had to rebuild them from scratch. There were moments when I questioned why I started in the first place. Yet every setback taught me something valuable, and every failure became part of the learning process.

When I think about Joomla today, I don't just remember a content management system. I remember the beginning of a journey. A journey that started with a single website and evolved into a network of sites, projects and ideas that continues to grow.

Joomla taught me how to begin.

WordPress taught me how to expand.

The tools I use today allow me to keep exploring what's possible.

And although the technology continues to change, the excitement of creating something from nothing remains exactly the same.