Tools to manage multiple Joomla websites with ease

It has never been easier for Joomla's users to build a single website with JSN Page Builder 3 or manage their site with JSN Power Admin 2.

However, some people prefer using more than one Joomla site for their purpose and they could easily face the trouble of handling multiple Joomla sites. This article will give you the best solution.

I‘m going to review two useful Joomla extensions for creating & handling multiple Joomla sites with the details about each product. 

Both of the extensions I mentioned here are very easy to use with intuitive admin panel and have detailed documentation. So even you are a newbie I believe you still can work with them without trouble.

Let’s not beat around the bush anymore!

If you want to manage multiple Joomla sites at once

Watchful

This section is suitable for Joomla users who need to manage many Joomla sites from any domains and hosting services.

In this case, I recommend you to use Watchful.li service. Watchful is an amazing tool to maintain as well as tracking traffic of Joomla websites. Watchful can reduce the working time a lot, ease your Joomla work and help you to control the websites seamlessly.

Here are the best features I love from Watchful.li:

• Updating Joomla and other extensions (including commercial extensions) of all websites with just clicks --> this is the easiest way to keep your website always up to date. Besides, you will need to update PHP on your Joomla sites to keep it works properly and get the best performance.
• Remote installer that allows you to install the extension to any or all of your websites --> You don’t have to do the boring installation that is meant to be repeated again and again for each website.
• Site Audit with the report about detected website issues: malware, Joomla configuration file --> This keeps your website more secure and also improves your SEO performance along with Joomla extensions.
• Monitoring the server status --> You can quickly find out the trouble related to your server as well as the downtime to resolve them on time.
• White-label reports --> this is very useful for a developer to generate the reports for the client about the website statistics.

Working with Watchful.li, you need to beware that Watchful.li works as a remote service. So remember to refresh the dashboard to load the latest data whenever you log in.

If you want to create multiple sites on the same Joomla installation

Then this section is the right option for you:

MightySites

For Joomla users- who want to create:

• A subdomain as a separate website such as http://yoursite.com and http://site1.yoursite.com. It is normally the mobile version or the language version of your site.
• A folder as a separate website such as http://yoursite.com and http://yoursite.com/site1
• A new website with the same database or share component data: http://yoursite.com and http://anothersite.com

I highly recommend you to use MightySites. This premium Joomla extension allows you to create many Joomla websites follow the above cases in minutes with ease. This is the best solution for running similar websites using the same database tables. All sites can be configured in one place.

Here I note down some amazing things MightySites can save you a lot of time on building Joomla websites:

• Cloning databases for new sites from existing sites --> no MySQL knowledge required, you just need to understand the database table prefix and the database itself. With this, you still can have a copied version without any troubles.
• Overriding sites running with the same database and files --> you will find it very useful if you want to redesign your brand style, your website design or remove some unnecessary menus & modules.
• Single account in specified Joomla websites, which use the same database table or share users table-->  it will be very simple to remember the username and password of all your sites.

Besides the powerful features, MightySites has some things you should consider. Because it works almost based on the database sharing so you need to understand clearly about your demand before using it.

If you clone all the databases, included unnecessary tables, it might make your site loading slowly and it can affect your bandwidth. Whenever you have a question,  you should contact AlterBrains team before planning your project. They're enthusiastic and they reply to the ticket very quickly.

JMS Multi Sites

Besides, another option is JMS Multi Sites which is suitable for Joomla's users who are seriously want to find a great tool to manage multiple sites. With the same Joomla installation, JMS Multi Sites allows Joomla users to create and manage multiple domain names and sites with their own Joomla configuration files.

However, this will take about 1-2 hour training for installation and not really easy to use for the first time. 

On the other hand, with the supportive documentation and incredible support team, once you get familiar with this extension, you will be able to manage all of your Joomla sites quickly and easily. 

The most thing from this extension gets my impression is that it can share the Joomla's users, files or folders and extension such as VirtueMart, Comunity Builder, JomSocial...between different sites and create totally independence websites.  

Moreover, you are flexible to use:

• One database for all websites. In this case, you must specify different database table prefix for each website.
• Two databases (one master database and one slave database). This architecture is advised when you want to install JMS on an existing website and you are limited in the number of databases you can create ( or disk space)
• As many databases as your website's number. This is the most flexible architecture where each website works with its own database. This is generally the architecture adopted by Joomla when you create multiple websites.

As this extension will take your time, effort and money. I will recommend this awesome tool for business to manage multi-sites or freelancer with many Joomla projects rather than an individual. 

That’s all my gear

Above are three charming Joomla tools which help me a lot in working with multiple Joomla websites. It’s true to say that they keep me far away from stress and bring me much time for other work as well as relaxing.

I’ve shared you my secret weapons and I hope they also can help you to improve your work. Feel free to leave your comment below if you have any question or other ideas!

Moreover, if you are looking for Joomla templates to build multiple sites with different topics and purposes, consider our templates library including variety templates with professional and modern design. 

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