This guide walks you through installing a Joomla 5 Quickstart: one zip file that installs Joomla 5.4, VirtueMart 4.8, your template and all the demo content, so your new site looks like the template's live demo.
Prefer not to do it yourself? Add Quickstart installation (€49) when you buy, and we install it on your hosting for you. See pricing.
Before you start
- The Quickstart is a whole new website. Don't install it through System → Install → Extensions on a site you already have. For an existing Joomla 5 site, use the template package in the Joomla5 / TemplateFiles folder instead.
- You need hosting that runs Joomla 5 with PHP 8.3 or later and a MySQL or MariaDB database.
- Install into an empty folder (for your main domain that is usually public_html).
Step 1: Download the Quickstart
- Log in to virtuemarttemplates.net and open My Downloads.
- Open your template, then the Joomla5 / quickstart folder.
- Download the zip, for example aeon-quickstart-J5.4.10.4.zip. It is between about 55 and 72 MB. Don't unzip it on your computer.
Folders named "LEGACY - Joomla 3" or "LEGACY - Joomla 4" hold old versions for sites still running those Joomla versions. You don't need them for a new site.
Step 2: Create a database
- Log in to your hosting control panel (cPanel or similar) and open MySQL Databases or the database wizard.
- Create a new database.
- Create a new database user with a strong password.
- Add the user to the database and give it All Privileges.
- Write down the database name, the user name and the password. You will need them in Step 4.
Step 3: Upload and extract the zip
- Open your host's File Manager (or use FTP) and go to the empty folder for your site.
- Upload the Quickstart zip into that folder.
- Extract it there (in File Manager: select the zip, then Extract). You should now see folders such as administrator, installation and templates.
- Delete the zip file from the server when the files are extracted.
If your File Manager won't take a file this size, see There was an error uploading this file to the server, or upload it by FTP.
Step 4: Run the Joomla installer
- Open your domain in a browser. Joomla's installer starts (if it doesn't, add /installation/ to the address).
- Choose your language and enter your site name.
- Enter your administrator details: your name, a username, a strong password and your email address. This becomes your Super User account. There is no default login in our Quickstarts.
- Enter the database details from Step 2. The host is usually localhost. Keep the table prefix Joomla suggests.
- Click Install Joomla and wait for it to finish. The installer removes the installation folder for you.
- Click Open Site to see your shop, or Open Administrator to log in.
Step 5: First things to do
- If a Joomla guided tour pops up in the administrator, finish or close it first. While it is open it can send you back to the dashboard when you try to install something.
- Set VirtueMart's Safe Path. How to set the Safe Path.
- Enter your shop name, address, email and currency in VirtueMart, then set up payment and shipping. Our VirtueMart payment guide explains the payment plugins.
- Place a test order. If VirtueMart says "No user is marked as vendor", or the last checkout step shows an error, contact support and we will sort it out with you.
- Change the logo and colours in System → Site Template Styles (click your template), and replace the sample products and pages.
- Take a backup with Akeeba Backup, which is already installed. To try bigger changes safely, make a staging copy with StageIt, which is installed too.
Older quickstarts (.jpa files)
Our old Joomla 3 and Joomla 4 quickstarts were Akeeba .jpa archives installed with Kickstart. The Joomla 5 Quickstarts are plain zip files that use Joomla's own installer, as above.
See also: What is in the Quickstart · The Quickstart admin login · My site does not look like the demo
Applies to our Joomla 5 templates (Joomla 5.4, VirtueMart 4.8). Still stuck? Contact support.
