The new Joomla 2.5 is here to replace the old Joomla 1.5 branch. The question that immediately comes up is - Do I need to migrate?

Do I need to migrate to Joomla 2.5?

Technically your Joomla 1.5 will continue to work as it stands today. But after April 2012 Joomla 1.5 will reach the status of "end-of-life". That means it will continue to work as it is but no longer be developed by the Joomla project. That in turn means that no security fixes will be released for Joomla 1.5 after April 2012. One can also expect that makers of extensions will cease the development and support of their extensions for Joomla 1.5.

So, it is a recommendation to start planning for migrating your site to Joomla 2.5.

Is there a one-click-upgrade availible?

The core of Joomla is different between Joomla 1.5 and 2.5. That means extensions, plugins and themes has to be rewritten to work with Joomla 2.5. If a client asked me to make a migration of their site from Joomla 1.5 to 2.5 (or 1.7 as it was called then) six months ago I would have advised against it. At that time many extensions, plugins and themes were not availible for Joomla 2.5 (or 1.7). Today most extensions, plugins and themes are availible in versions for Joomla 2.5.

So the answer to the question is - no, there is no one-click-solution to this. There are tools out there to make the migration quicker but it will require hands-on work to migrate your site. 

How much will it cost to migrate my site from Joomla 1.5 to 2.5?

The answer is one you probably don't like to hear from a consultant - it depends. A simple site with a couple of pages, a few common extensions used and a Joomla 2.5 version availible of the template is a quick job to migrate. A large site, with numbers of extensions and a template that isn't yet availible in a version for Joomla 2.5 will require much more work. 

We have experience in migrating sites from Joomla 1.5 to 2.5 and we will be happy to take a look at your site and give you a price estimate. Contact us for more information about Joomla 1.5 to 2.5 migrations.