Open source content management system Joomla has had quite the year, announcing today that downloads have risen 38 percent from December 2010 to December 2011, brining the total number of downloads to a whopping 27 million.

It's not just the downloads, the rest of the Joomla ecosystem seems pretty healthy too. Joomla extensions developed by outside vendors increased by 41 percent annually to 8,475 as of October 31, 2011, and the number of forum users jumped 23 percent annually as of October 31, 2011, meaning more and more people are interacting to help shape Joomla.

"We've seen double and in some cases triple digit growth in Joomla's adoption since 2007," said Ryan Ozimek, president of Open Source Matters, the not-for-profit created to provide organizational, legal and financial support to the Joomla project. "Part of what's driven this massive number of downloads is an explosion of community involvement in the project."