The Joomla! Project announced the immediate availability of Joomla version 2.5 today. This release was accompanied by much anticipation by the Joomla community as well as some confusion over the new release schedule. The important point to note is that the Joomla! Project is stressing that version 2.5 "is a long-term-support (LTS) release that will be supported for at least 18 months."

Joomla 2.5 is the next update from 1.7, and is the second release in the new six-month cycle that began with Joomla 1.6. Along with several security fixes, 26 new features have been added to this Joomla version, including support for databases other than MySQL, a new, improved search function and better core and extension update notifications.

Users are encouraged to update as quickly as possible as Joomla 1.7 will reach end of life in one month, on February 24, 2012.