Open Source Content Management Systems

Ghost is an open-source publishing platform and headless content management system designed for professional publishers. It provides a decoupled architecture that separates the content management backend from the front-end delivery layer, allowing users to manage editorial workflows and site data through structured web services. The platform distinguishes itself by integrating a built-in membership and subscription engine, which enables creators to manage gated content, paid tiers, and secure member profiles directly within the system. It also features a dedicated infrastructure for professio

WordPress is an open-source content management system and PHP-based application framework designed for building and maintaining websites. It functions as a visual, block-based website builder that allows users to construct layouts and manage digital content without manual code entry. The platform supports a wide range of operational needs, from managing individual sites to administering complex multi-site networks from a single installation. The system is distinguished by its highly extensible, plugin-driven modular architecture, which allows for the integration of third-party modules to add

Drupal is an open-source enterprise content management system and PHP web application framework. It provides a toolkit for creating digital experiences through custom content types, blocks, and an extensible administrative interface. The platform is designed for enterprise web publishing, managing complex website hierarchies and digital assets across multiple languages. It supports multilingual website administration through content translation and the import of locale files. The system includes capabilities for managing user permissions, controlling access to unpublished content, and calcul

Wagtail is an open-source content management system built on the Django web framework. It provides a structured, tree-based approach to content modeling, allowing developers to define custom page types and reusable content components that are managed through a highly customizable administrative interface. The platform distinguishes itself through its flexible, block-based content composition system, which enables editors to assemble complex page layouts dynamically. It also offers robust support for multi-site and multi-lingual environments, allowing organizations to manage distinct websites

October is a self-hosted content management system and website engine built on the Laravel PHP framework. It provides a modular platform for developing custom websites and web applications, featuring an integrated administration interface for organizing and delivering digital content. The system utilizes a plugin-based extension model that allows core functionality to be expanded through independent modules. This architecture enables the registration of custom routes, views, and database schemas to build complex web features. The platform includes tools for asset compilation and bundling, a

django-cms is a content management system built on Django for creating and managing hierarchical pages and reusable content blocks. It functions as an enterprise framework and modular page builder for organizing website layouts and managing complex digital content. The system features a frontend inline content editor that allows users to modify page titles and body content directly on the live site via an interactive toolbar. It provides a multilingual platform for translating pages and localized content across different languages, including built-in translation fallback support. Additionally

OrchardCore is a content management system and modular web framework built for ASP.NET Core. It serves as a foundation for creating, organizing, and delivering digital web content through a centralized system. The framework is designed for multi-tenant application hosting, allowing multiple isolated website instances to run from a single installation to share server resources and reduce administrative overhead. It employs an extensible architecture that enables the composition of independent functional modules and services into a cohesive application. The system provides capabilities for ent

Umbraco-CMS is an open-source content management system and enterprise web framework built on the .NET ecosystem. It provides a structured environment for organizing, managing, and publishing digital content to professional websites. The platform is designed for digital experience orchestration and enterprise content management, enabling the delivery of tailored website journeys and the management of large volumes of corporate digital assets. It supports multi-platform content delivery by centralizing assets for publication across various web pages and digital touchpoints. The system include

Joomla is an open-source content management system written in PHP that enables users to create, edit, and organise digital content for websites. At its core, it functions as a template-based publishing platform, separating content from presentation so site design can be changed by switching templates without altering underlying data. As a multi-user content manager, Joomla supports multiple authors and editors with granular permissions, making it suitable for collaborative editorial workflows. What distinguishes Joomla is its extension-friendly architecture: the core functionality can be exte

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MODX Revolution - Content Management Framework

Apostrophe is an open-source Node.js headless content management system that delivers structured content through REST APIs while providing a visual in-context page editor for live editing. It is built on a module-based plugin architecture that extends CMS functionality through reusable modules, each encapsulating logic, configuration, and templates. The system uses schema-driven content modeling to define data structures and validation rules through configurable schemas and custom field types, with all content stored as flexible JSON-like documents in MongoDB. The platform distinguishes itsel

Writefreely is an open-source, multi-tenant publishing server and blogging engine. It provides a decentralized system for hosting minimalist blogs, utilizing the ActivityPub protocol to federate content and identities across different servers and social networks. The platform focuses on a distraction-free writing experience by removing social metrics and providing an auto-saving editor. It allows a single user account to manage multiple distinct blogs and pen names, maintaining separate writing personas within one installation. The system includes tools for content organization through hasht

EmDash is an open-source content management system built on Astro that combines a visual admin panel with a plugin-driven architecture and server-side rendering. It provides a complete content management system with structured content modeling, a rich text editor using Portable Text format, and a TypeScript API for type-safe content queries. The system supports authentication through passkeys, OAuth 2.1, and external providers, with role-based access control and fine-grained permission scopes. What distinguishes EmDash is its plugin development framework, which supports both native plugins ru

BookStack is a self-hosted knowledge base platform designed for organizing, storing, and managing structured documentation. It utilizes a hierarchical content model that arranges information into nested trees of books, chapters, and pages, supported by a dedicated search index for rapid retrieval across the entire knowledge base. The platform distinguishes itself through deep integration with enterprise identity providers, allowing organizations to centralize authentication and access control via LDAP, SAML, or OIDC. It provides extensive administrative control over the content lifecycle, inc

Grav is a flat-file content management system that eliminates the need for a traditional database by storing site content and configuration in human-readable Markdown and YAML files. Built as a modular PHP web framework, it uses a hierarchical page routing system where the physical directory structure directly determines the site's URL paths. The platform is distinguished by its event-driven plugin architecture and a command-line interface that prioritizes system administration, deployment, and maintenance tasks. It utilizes a blueprint-driven system to generate administrative forms from stru

Core framework that implements the functionality of the Sulu content management system

BigTree CMS 4.5