Jasmine Business Directory

A Joomla template is the presentation layer that controls how a Joomla-powered website looks and how its content is arranged on screen. It sits on top of the content stored in the database and decides where the navigation, articles, modules and footer appear, what typography and colour the site uses, and how the page reflows on phones, tablets and desktops. In Joomla terminology a template is one of four extension types, alongside components, modules and plugins. Templates handle the visual output, while the other three handle features and behaviour (Joomla Documentation). For anyone building or commissioning a site, the template is the part that most visitors actually experience, so specialist designers, agencies and template vendors form a recognisable corner of the wider web design field.

This part of the web design section gathers suppliers and resources connected to Joomla theming, and the Joomla templates directory here is a starting point rather than an encyclopaedia. The category brings together template authors, club subscriptions that release new designs on a schedule, freelance theme developers, and agencies that build bespoke Joomla front ends for clients. Joomla theming overlaps with general front-end skills such as HTML, CSS and accessibility, so many of the firms listed also work across other content systems. Their presence in a Joomla templates web directory shows that they treat the platform as a first-class target rather than an afterthought.

Understanding how Joomla itself emerged helps, because the template ecosystem grew directly out of that history. The platform began in 2005 as a fork of Mambo, after most of the Mambo core team resigned over a dispute with the project's commercial steward and formed Open Source Matters to carry the code forward (O'Reilly, 2011). The founders, including Andrew Eddie, Brian Teeman and Johan Janssens, released the first version under the GNU General Public License, and the project has been distributed freely ever since. That open licensing shaped the template market, because it set out what designers could and could not restrict when they sold their work.

Version 1.5, released in January 2008, introduced a new application programming interface and added support for extended character sets and right-to-left languages, which made the system usable internationally (IONOS, 2023). Each major release since then has changed the way templates are written, so the suppliers featured in this business directory tend to advertise which Joomla generations they support. A studio that still maintains designs for older sites offers something different from one that builds only for the current release, and grouping vendors by the generations they target makes that distinction easier to spot.

The scale of the wider Joomla audience explains why a dedicated template trade exists at all. Measurement service W3Techs reports that Joomla powers roughly 1.4 percent of all websites and around 2.0 percent of sites that run a recognised content management system, which keeps it among the more widely used platforms even as that share has declined over the past decade (W3Techs, 2025). A small percentage of the entire web still adds up to a very large number of sites, each of which needs a front end. The web directories that list Joomla companies therefore meet a real and continuing demand from site owners who have already committed to the platform and want help with its appearance.

A template differs from the other things people buy for a Joomla site, and the words are often used loosely. A template controls layout and visual style. A component such as a shop or a forum adds a whole feature area, a module is a smaller block of content placed into a template position, and a plugin reacts to events behind the scenes. A buyer who confuses a template with a page builder, for example, may end up disappointed when a theme does not include drag-and-drop editing. Clear category structure helps here, keeping theme suppliers apart from the component and extension vendors who solve different problems, so a buyer can find the right kind of supplier without wading through unrelated products.

The relationship between a template and the wider web design discipline runs in both directions. A Joomla theme is a constrained design problem, because the author must work within the platform's positions, override system and parameter model rather than starting from a blank canvas. At the same time, the fundamentals that govern any modern website, including semantic markup, responsive layout, typography and accessibility, apply just as much to a Joomla front end as to a hand-coded site. That overlap is why many studios listed in this part of the web design section describe themselves as front-end specialists who happen to work in Joomla, and why a business directory of Joomla template suppliers sits inside a broader web design taxonomy rather than off on its own.

Every Joomla template is defined by a small set of files that the system reads when it renders a page. The central file is templateDetails.xml, a manifest that names the template, lists its files, declares the module positions it offers, and exposes the parameters a site administrator can change without touching code (Joomla Documentation). Alongside that manifest sit the main entry file that produces the page markup, one or more error pages, the stylesheets and scripts, and an images folder. Because the manifest is plain XML, a designer can read it to understand what a template can do before ever loading it into a live site, which is one reason buyers value a clear listing here that states the version and feature set.

Module positions hold the design together. A position is a named placeholder, such as a header, a sidebar or a footer area, into which a site owner can publish modules like menus, search boxes or banners. The template author declares each position inside the positions tags of the manifest, and the administrator then assigns modules to those positions through the control panel (JoomlArt, 2023). This separation means the same template can host very different layouts depending on which positions an owner fills, so two sites built on one theme can look unalike. Vendors found through a business directory of Joomla template suppliers usually publish a position map so buyers can judge how flexible a given design will be.

Output overrides move Joomla theming past simple skinning into real front-end work. By default, components and modules generate their own HTML, but a template can replace that output by placing override files in an html folder inside the template directory. The documented path for a component override is html, then the component name, then the view, then the layout file, while module overrides follow a shorter path using the module name (Joomla Documentation). Overrides let a designer change the markup of articles, contact forms or category lists without editing the core, so updates to Joomla do not wipe out custom work. A studio that advertises override expertise in a Joomla templates directory is telling buyers it can adapt the platform's output to bespoke designs and keep it upgrade-safe.

The current default front-end template, Cassiopeia, shows how modern Joomla theming is put together. Introduced with Joomla 4 and carried into Joomla 5, Cassiopeia is built on Bootstrap 5 and avoids loading jQuery or other heavyweight frameworks, which keeps pages lighter than older themes (Joomla Community Magazine, 2021). It ships with configurable colour schemes and font choices and uses a flexible grid so content reflows across screen sizes. Many commercial themes either extend Cassiopeia or replace it entirely, and the Joomla templates business directory here helps a buyer tell apart a child template that builds on the default from a standalone framework that supplies its own grid and component styling.

Joomla also ships an administrator template called Atum, which governs the look of the control panel rather than the public site. Atum was built to meet the digital accessibility guidelines of WCAG 2.1 at level AA, and from Joomla 5 it adapts to a device's dark mode setting (Joomla Documentation). Site owners rarely buy administrator themes, so most entries in a Joomla web directory focus on the front end, but the existence of an accessible back-end template shows the direction the project has taken. The same emphasis on accessible markup increasingly shapes what front-end template authors are expected to deliver, which the next section covers in more detail.

Parameters connect a designer's intentions to a site owner's choices. Inside templateDetails.xml an author can declare configurable fields, such as a colour selector, a logo upload or a switch that turns a feature on or off, and Joomla renders these as form controls in the template manager. A well-built theme exposes the right amount of choice: enough that an owner can adapt the look without code, but not so much that the settings become a maze. When buyers compare designs through a Joomla templates web directory, the depth and clarity of these parameters often separate an amateur theme from a professional one, because the parameter set is what an owner actually lives with day to day.

Child templates add another option that affects how buyers should read a listing. Joomla allows a template to inherit from a parent, so a designer can build a base theme and then create lighter child themes that change only colours, fonts or a few overrides while reusing the parent's logic. This keeps customisation upgrade-safe, because the parent can be updated without losing the child's changes. Cassiopeia is itself often used as a parent in this way. A supplier who explains whether a product is a standalone template or a child of an existing base gives buyers the information they need to judge maintenance effort, and a Joomla templates directory that records this saves a buyer from discovering it after purchase.

Responsive design is now the baseline expectation for any Joomla template, and the technique has a clear origin. The term responsive web design was introduced by Ethan Marcotte in 2010, first in a talk at An Event Apart and then in an article for A List Apart, where he described three building blocks: fluid grids, flexible images and media queries (Marcotte, 2010). A fluid grid sizes elements in proportion to the viewport rather than in fixed pixels, flexible images scale to their container, and media queries apply different styles depending on screen width. Modern Joomla themes built on Bootstrap 5 use these same ideas, which is why a current design from a supplier in this Joomla templates directory will look usable on a phone without a separate mobile site.

The mobile-first approach has become the common way to write that responsive code. Rather than designing for a large screen and then stripping features away, developers start with styles for the smallest viewport and add complexity for larger screens using minimum-width media queries (MDN Web Docs, 2024). The viewport meta tag is the small but necessary instruction that tells a mobile browser to set the page width to the device width rather than pretending to be a desktop. Template authors who follow this discipline tend to produce lighter, faster front ends, and buyers comparing options through a Joomla templates web directory can ask vendors directly whether their themes are built mobile-first.

Accessibility is the next standard that shapes serious template work. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 were published as a formal W3C Recommendation on 5 June 2018, adding seventeen success criteria to the earlier 2.0 release with a focus on mobile use, low vision and cognitive accessibility (W3C, 2018). WCAG defines three conformance levels, A, AA and AAA, and level AA is the common target for public-facing sites and the level many laws and procurement rules reference. A Joomla template that meets WCAG at level AA will use proper heading order, sufficient colour contrast, labelled form fields and keyboard-navigable menus. Listings in a Joomla templates business directory increasingly note accessibility conformance because buyers in regulated sectors must be able to demonstrate it.

The Joomla project has put real weight on accessibility, in a way that affects template authors directly. The administrator template Atum was built to WCAG 2.1 AA, and the project encourages front-end themes to follow suit, which raises the floor for what counts as a competent commercial design (Joomla Documentation). For a designer, meeting these guidelines is not a single setting but a set of habits applied across markup, colour and interaction. The web directories that list Joomla companies can help a buyer find studios that treat accessibility as part of the brief rather than an extra. That matters because retrofitting access fixes onto a finished theme is usually slower and more expensive than building them in.

Performance and structured markup separate a strong template from a merely attractive one. Search engines reward fast, well-structured pages, so themes that avoid unnecessary scripts, load fonts efficiently and emit clean semantic HTML give the sites built on them a head start. Cassiopeia's decision to drop jQuery is one example of the move toward leaner front ends (Joomla Community Magazine, 2021). When a site owner uses a business directory of Joomla template suppliers to shortlist vendors, asking about page-weight budgets and structured data support is a practical way to separate designs that will perform from those that only look good in a preview. Speed and accessibility usually arrive together, because the same disciplined coding produces both.

Internationalisation is a quieter standard that still matters for many Joomla sites. The platform gained support for extended character sets and right-to-left languages with version 1.5, and a template that handles these properly can serve audiences in scripts such as Arabic and Hebrew without breaking its layout (IONOS, 2023). A theme that mirrors its grid for right-to-left text, uses fonts with the right glyph coverage, and keeps its strings translatable does work that monolingual buyers may never notice but that multilingual site owners depend on. For a buyer with an international audience, asking whether a theme has been tested for right-to-left rendering is a practical filter that quickly removes designs built only with left-to-right layouts in mind.

Browser support and graceful degradation close out the standards picture. A template that relies on the newest CSS features should still present readable, navigable content on older browsers, falling back rather than collapsing. This matters because a public website cannot control what devices its visitors bring, and a design that looks perfect in one browser but breaks in another is a liability. Testing across browsers and screen readers is part of competent template work, and the web directories that list Joomla companies can point a buyer toward studios that treat cross-browser testing as routine. Asking a vendor how they test, and on what, is a fair question that a confident supplier will answer readily.

Licensing often catches newcomers off guard, because the platform's open licence reaches into commercial themes. The code elements of a Joomla template, the PHP and the markup that the software executes, are treated as derivative works and must be licensed under the GNU General Public License (Joomla Documentation). The non-code elements, such as images, CSS, animations and formatting, count as data acted upon by the software, so an author may license those under any terms they choose. This split is why a paid theme can be GPL on its code while its artwork remains protected, and why buyers browsing a Joomla templates directory should read the licence rather than assume that paying for a product removes their own freedom to modify it.

The official Joomla Extensions Directory settled this question years ago. The JED announced that it would list only GPL-licensed extensions from July 2009, and it still welcomes commercial extensions provided they carry a GPL licence and are not encrypted (Joomla Community, 2009). In other words, selling a theme and licensing it openly do not conflict on the Joomla platform, which sets it apart from systems where commercial themes are closed. Suppliers that appear both in the official extensions catalogue and in an independent Joomla templates web directory usually follow these rules, and their listings often state the licence plainly so buyers know what they are getting.

The commercial market itself has a recognisable shape. Many vendors sell through subscription clubs, where a yearly fee gives access to a library of templates and updates, while others sell single themes outright or build entirely bespoke front ends for individual clients. Frameworks add another layer, supplying a parent system of grid tools, typography controls and module styling on which specific designs are built. A buyer using a business and web directory covering Joomla theming will meet all of these models, and the difference matters because a club subscription, a one-off purchase and a custom build carry very different costs and obligations.

Choosing well means looking past the demo. The most useful questions concern which Joomla versions a theme supports, whether it relies on the default Cassiopeia base or a third-party framework, how the author handles updates when Joomla releases a new version, and what support is included. Themes tied to an abandoned framework can strand a site owner when the platform moves on, a risk that grew sharper during the transition between major Joomla generations (JoomShaper, 2021). A Joomla templates directory that records version support and update policy lets a buyer filter for longevity rather than appearance alone, which is often the difference between a site that lasts and one that needs rebuilding within a year or two.

Support and documentation deserve as much weight as design in any shortlist. A template is software that will need adjustment as content grows and as browsers and Joomla itself change, so a vendor's record on responding to issues and publishing clear setup guides predicts how the relationship will go. Reading user feedback, checking how recently a theme was updated, and confirming that overrides are documented are all sensible steps. The Joomla templates business directory here makes that diligence easier by gathering suppliers in one place, but the decision still rests on the buyer matching a theme's licence, version support and service to the specific needs of their project.

The economics of the different sales models reward different kinds of buyer. A subscription club suits a designer or agency that builds many sites a year, because the annual fee spreads across every project and the steady release of new themes keeps a portfolio fresh. A single-theme purchase suits an owner with one site and a clear idea of what they want, where paying once for exactly the right design is cheaper than a recurring fee. A bespoke build suits an organisation whose brand or functionality cannot be met by an off-the-shelf theme, and accepts a higher cost for a front end made to measure. A listing that groups these models clearly lets a buyer match the commercial structure to the shape of their own work rather than being pushed toward whichever model a single vendor happens to sell.

Total cost of ownership is the figure experienced buyers keep in view, because the sticker price is rarely the whole story. A cheap theme that ships with no documentation, lags behind Joomla releases, or has to be heavily reworked to meet accessibility rules can cost far more in developer time than a dearer theme that arrives well built and well supported. Migration cost also belongs in the calculation, since switching themes later means redoing module assignments and overrides. The point of using a curated Joomla templates directory at the selection stage is to weigh these longer-term factors before committing, rather than discovering them once a site is already built on a design that was a poor fit.

This category page collects businesses and resources relevant to Joomla theming so that a site owner does not have to scatter their research across unrelated searches. The listings here cover template authors, subscription clubs, framework developers and agencies that build custom Joomla front ends, and the entries in this directory are curated rather than automatically scraped, which keeps the quality of what appears reasonably consistent. Someone planning a new Joomla site, redesigning an existing one, or simply comparing what the market offers can use this Joomla templates web directory as a map of who does what, then follow up with the suppliers whose focus matches the project.

How a visitor uses the page depends on where they are in a project. A buyer at the start might browse the full set of Joomla listings here to learn the range of options, from free starter themes through subscription libraries to bespoke builds. A buyer with a clearer brief can use the category to narrow toward suppliers who advertise the specific things that matter to them, such as WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility, mobile-first responsive layouts, or support for the current Joomla release. The same skills appear across several entries, so treating the category as a shortlist tool rather than a single answer tends to produce better matches.

A directory has limits that are easy to forget. A business directory of Joomla template suppliers can point a buyer toward credible vendors and summarise what each one offers, but it cannot replace the buyer's own checks on licence terms, version support and after-sales service. The earlier sections of this page set out the questions worth asking, and the listings give the contacts to ask them of. Used together, the guidance and the entries in this Joomla templates directory turn an open-ended search into a structured one, which is what a curated catalogue offers over a plain search engine result.

For readers who want to verify the technical claims made on this page, the official Joomla documentation is the primary reference for template structure, module positions and output overrides, and the W3C is the authoritative source for the accessibility and web standards described above. The Joomla Extensions Directory remains the official catalogue for vetted extensions, and it complements the independent web directories that list Joomla companies by adding the project's own listing and review system. Between those official sources and the curated entries here, a site owner has both the standards to judge a theme against and the suppliers who can deliver one. The references below record the sources cited throughout this description so that any claim can be checked directly.

A few habits make the most of a category like this one. Decide the non-negotiables before browsing, such as the Joomla version the site runs, whether accessibility conformance is required, and the budget model that fits the project, so the listings can be filtered against fixed criteria rather than impulse. Read each supplier's own material alongside the entry here, because a listing summarises but the vendor's documentation and demos carry the detail. Contact more than one supplier, since comparing how two studios answer the same questions about overrides, updates and support reveals as much as any feature list. Used this way, the entries in this Joomla templates directory become the start of a short, well-informed conversation with vendors rather than the end of the research.

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