Community Portal 
Congratulations to the J!Awards 2026 winners!
The very first J!Awards came to a close at the Joomla World Conference in Potsdam, where the winners were revealed live. With 731 people voting, the community chose its favourites from nominations through to the final vote, celebrating the people, projects and tools that make Joomla what it is.
A special mention goes to the J!Volunteer 2026, nominated by fellow Joomlers and presented during the same ceremony, recognising an outstanding contribution to the Joomla project.
Thank you to everyone who nominated, voted and took part, and congratulations to all the finalists. Your support is what makes this community special.
Community Choice Awards
Automated Updates
Thank You David Jardin, Harald Leithner, Benjamin Trenkle, Robert Deutz and all the contributors who helped make this happen!
Finalists: Proof-of-Work (POW) CAPTCHA - David Jardin, Smarter Modules - Robert Deutz
21 improvements that can make a difference to a website
By Louise Hawkins
Finalists: Extension developers, it's time to mark your security updates by Allon Moritz, The Spirit of “Us”: How Joomla Builds Community Beyond Code by Brian Teeman
joomshaper.com
Finalists: backupmonkey.io, ifg-fortbildung.de, spreadthejoomlalove.com, stawebnice.com
Brian Teeman
Finalists: Elisa Foltyn, Sigrid Gramlinger
Akeeba Backup for Joomla!
Finalists: Admin Tools, J2Commerce, RSForm!Pro, SP Pagebuilder
Helix Ultimate
Finalists: Cassiopeia, YOOtheme Pro
Hostinger
Finalists: ALL‑INKL.COM, ScalaHosting
mySites.guru
Finalists: Akeeba Grafida, Cursor, Linelabox Template Architect, PhpStorm
Special Community Volunteers Award
David Jardin
Chosen by the volunteers at the Joomla World Conference.
J!Volunteer 2026
Alongside the community-voted awards, one special award was presented at the Joomla World Conference: the J!Volunteer of the Year. Unlike the other categories, nominations came from active Joomlers, the volunteers who know first-hand what it takes to keep the project running.
For its first edition, we wanted to make the J!Volunteer award special and present it at the Joomla World Conference. Nominations were collected on Friday 16 October, the first day of the conference, and the award was presented that same evening during the ceremony. Next year, we plan to build a dedicated process for it, open to all active members.
The response already shows how much work happens across the project: 96 nominations were received for 39 different people, recognising contributions to teams, documentation, forum support and GitHub repositories. Two nominators even chose to nominate all volunteers. Congratulations to David Jardin, who received the J!Volunteer 2026 award.
In the winner’s own words:
“Dear community, thank you all so, so much for your votes! I’m truly honored to receive this award! I want to emphasize that pretty much every area I contribute to in this project is built on teamwork. Behind the work you see me doing, there are so many unsung heroes working quietly behind the scenes. To my colleagues on the Security Team, our Release Leads, Team Leads, J.org site admins, and all the other amazing people I’m probably forgetting to mention right now: please consider this award a recognition of your work, too! Thank you all! ❤️”
That message says it well. Behind every release, security fix, documentation page and forum answer, there is a team. To every volunteer who was nominated, and to everyone who contributes quietly to Joomla, thank you.
The winners of the J!Awards 2026 were announced during the Joomla! World Conference (JWC) in Potsdam-Berlin, Germany, 16-18 October, 2026.