Comparison open source cms software

What is a CMS Platform? Ease of use You want a CMS that makes it easy for you to create and edit content. Design options Your CMS software should offer you plenty of website design templates to choose from. Data portability A great CMS platform should have tools for you to easily export your data and move it elsewhere.

Extensions and addons Not all websites are the same. Help and support options Although CMS platforms aim to make building a website as straightforward as possible, you still might have some questions. How much does it cost? Pros WordPress offers you the flexibility and freedom to build any kind of website online store , auction site , membership site , etc. It does not require any technical skills or coding knowledge.

The WordPress block editor makes it really easy to create great looking pages on your site. You have complete freedom to make money online from your website in any way you want. There are thousands of WordPress themes and plugins available, both paid and free. These let you add all sorts of useful extras to your site, like contact forms , photo galleries, and much more.

WordPress is really well designed for search engine optimization SEO. You can also choose from plenty of SEO plugins to help you do more. You can join groups like the WPBeginner Engage Facebook group to get help with any problems you run into.

WordPress offers a lot of extensibility which is what makes it an ideal CMS platform for both beginners and developers alike. WordPress lets you download all your content in XML format, making it easy to move to a different system in the future if you choose to do so.

Pros HubSpot website builder is easy to use even if you have little to no technical skills. Their drag-and-drop editor, built-in SEO tools and contact attribution all makes it easy to create and optimize your web content. They have smart content features to personalize your website page to specific visitors or larger segments.

For developers, there are serverless functions, flexible theme options, and command line tools, so you can make changes and customize assets faster. Cons There is no free version, but they do offer a free trial. The good news is that it easily integrates with WordPress and WooCommerce. Joomla Joomla is another popular free open source CMS platform that comes with lots of different templates and extensions. Pros Joomla gives you lots of flexibility and plenty of options.

You can use Joomla to run an e-commerce store as there are extensions available for this. Cons Even Joomla fans will admit it can be pretty complex. Depending on what you want to do with it, you may well need to hire a developer to help out. There can be some compatibility issues if you have a lot of different extensions and modules installed.

WooCommerce WooCommerce is the most popular eCommerce platform in the world. There are lots of WooCommerce themes available, which makes it really easy to get your site looking exactly how you want. WooCommerce has lots of available extensions known as WooCommerce plugins that let you add extra functionality to your site.

You can sell physical or digital products using WooCommerce. You can even sell affiliate products through affiliate links. You can fully manage your inventory through WooCommerce, making it easy to keep track of what you have in stock. WooCommerce comes with PayPal and Stripe payments by default. You can also add any other payment gateways through extensions and add-ons. WooCommerce technically works with any WordPress theme, but you may want to stick with themes made specifically for WooCommerce for extended support.

Pricing The WooCommerce plugin itself is free, but you may need to pay for extra plugins and extensions for your online store. Drupal Drupal is another open source CMS platform. The custom content types are flexible and offer plenty of options. There are lots of different modules available that you can add to your site these work like WordPress plugins. Support is available via community support options similar to other popular platforms like Joomla and WordPress User management is easy, with a built-in system where you can create new roles and specify their permissions.

Cons: With Drupal, it can be tricky to figure out how to change the appearance of your site or add extras. Most Drupal websites have a heavily customized theme created by a developer, which can be very expensive. Wix Wix is a popular CMS platform, though it has some limitations.

You can select any part of your page and start editing it. There are lots of pre-made templates you can choose from in Wix. These are fully responsive, so they look great on mobiles and computers.

You can add lots of apps to your site from the Wix App Market. We have full instructions on how to move your Wix site to WordPress. The ads make money for Wix, not you. BigCommerce BigCommerce is a fully hosted eCommerce platform, which is sometimes called an all-in-one platform.

You can use a free domain name from BigCommerce, which will look something like mystore. There are lots of different ways you can take payments through BigCommerce. These include live chat , email, phone support, community support, and more.

Particularly when Drupal is used as a community platform for users, data security takes the highest priority. See our basics of Drupal basics article for more information and tips. The software project is an enterprise management system and is constantly updated and kept technically current by a team of experienced developers. TYPO3 is a great solution for large corporate portals and e-commerce platforms.

TYPO3 offers a large community , which provides quick and easy help for beginners with technical problems or questions. There are also numerous professional providers who specialize in TYPO3 support and provide agency services to business users. Professional use of the high-performance CMS requires expert knowledge.

With this, even complex site structures with multilingual content can be soundly implemented. The considerable range of functions ensures professional rights management at the enterprise level and provides interfaces for classic business applications , such as CRM and ERP systems. On the other hand, critics point to the long training period required and comparatively high administration effort. The giant spectrum of functions offered by TYPO3 makes it possible to implement any kind of online project.

But this comes at a considerable expense for installation, configuration, and maintenance. The prominence and good reputation of the software contribute to its use by comparatively small websites. In this case, users are usually expending much more effort than they need to.

For complex projects run by experienced IT specialists, though, TYPO3 is the optimal foundation for a successful online presence. If TYPO3 is used for large and complex projects, the installation should take place within the framework of a hosting package.

The CMS Contao is a clear and user-friendly content management solution. The system features an intuitive, multilingual backend and a clearly structured administrative layer.

The software project pays particular attention to compatibility with web standards, providing barrier-free online content in HTML 5.

The CMS system also offers an integrated theme manager. This makes it possible to individually configure the design and layout of a website based on Contao with the help of pre-designed modules. In addition, website owners are offered professional themes for various application types and industries via the Contao website. These themes must usually be purchased, though. The software is known for its high-security standards.

During this period, the LTS version receives error corrections and security updates, but no new features. The LTS version is stable and recommended for active websites. In addition, there is a developing version, provided with bug fixes and security updates for half a year and contains new features that are not included in the LTS version and will only be included in the next LTS version.

This version is recommended for everyone who wants to test new features. An online demo, as well as extensive documentation material, enable a quick introduction to website creation. Server compatibility can be ensured by Contao Check. The flexible CMS is suitable for websites of all sizes.

The software provides users with a powerful system architecture , which can be adapted to the various requirements of the professional website operation using extensions. Intranet solutions , e-commerce platforms, corporate portals, or microsites, for example, can all be put into action and no wish is left unanswered — even when it comes to search engine optimization and web analysis.

Further information and a detailed description of the underlying page structure of the CMS is provided in our Contao basics article. Neos is, next to TYPO3 , a true open source enterprise content management system, with a special focus on editors and developers. Right from the start, Neos was designed to be especially user-friendly. In contrast to other, classic content management systems, editors no longer have to fill out dozens of form fields for headings, titles, etc.

Instead, they edit the content directly in the layout of the later page. The same applies to different display formats such as a tablet, smartphone, or the display of Google search results. Users can easily switch back and forth between views without having to leave the page. This allows content to be quickly and easily optimized for different channels. The highlight here is that editors can create any number of versions of content for different target groups. The content is not only available in different languages, but also for different target groups gender, culture, country, region, etc.

Marketing campaigns can thus be controlled in a targeted manner. The maintenance of large quantities of multi-sites in a Neos system is also part of the standard repertoire. New content in companies often goes through several review and approval processes from creation to publication.

Using user and group workspaces, supported by flexible rights management, Neos easily integrates into existing processes. Neos was developed for integration and extensibility. Developers can design Neos the way they need to use it. This should make it clear that the strengths of the CMS are in addition to classic websites, by allowing the user to create complex projects. Existing extensions can be easily installed via Composer e. Nothing stands in the way of individual extensions either.

Neos 4. You can also effortlessly use photo services such as Fotolia or Unsplash to edit your images, without having to leave the page. There are hardly any limits to the expandability of Neos. This eliminates the need to enter and check content twice. After the recently completed revision of the user interface in React, the developers are currently working on the integration of machine learning or the reimplementation of the Neos Content Repository with CQRS and EventSourcing.

The latter makes Neos particularly interesting for banks, insurance companies, and public authorities, as it saves various content revisions safely from later changes. True WYSIWYG editor inline editing that displays the content as it will later be displayed when writing, without the user having to click a preview button.

Supports two-stack CMS architecture for large projects with maximum scalability, resilience, and security. Looking at the statistics from W3Tech, one alternative to source-based content management systems stands out: Many website owners prefer to build their own website from scratch using the Dreamweaver HTML editor.

The web design software, originally developed by Macromedia and now distributed by Adobe Systems, is available to users from the Creative Cloud CC as a proprietary product for macOS and Windows. This makes diverse functions like syntax highlighting, automatic code integration, validation, and a browser preview in real time available to developers.

A modern, responsive web design can be implemented using the integrated CSS framework Bootstrap. Due to the extensive range of functions and comparatively high cost for a user license, the high-performance software is primarily directed toward professional users and agents.

More information as well as a description of the attractive alternative to CMS can be found in our article on the topic. In addition, the presented CMS provides important features from which even the big competition can profit.

The content management system Craft was developed in , but still leads a niche existence. The second reason is not necessarily a disadvantage: Where WordPress focuses on ease of use and allows even novice users to bring an appealing blog online in just a few minutes, Craft appeals much more strongly to professional developers.

This approach means that the entire system is very tidy. The code of the website stays neat and the structure of the stored files is also logically organized: Instead of using chronologically ordered folders, Craft users specify rules for which file type belongs in which directory.

Craft also has a clear backend where content editors can easily find their way around and get new articles online. There have also been individual plugins developed for the sleek CMS that extend its range of functions. Content management systems are generally based on databases.

If users visit a website, then the corresponding entry in the database is accessed. Nowadays, a few CMS break with this tradition and get by without a database. Instead, these systems save all important information in files and then save these in a corresponding directory structure. On the official website, you can find both the installation data a small ZIP archive as well as over themes that can be used to customize the design.

You can also extend the functionality with more than plugins, with which you can set up the backend for administration work, for example. Flat file CMS consists primarily of flat files. Instead, this CMS style relies on a folder structure that only stores so-called flat files , which have no references to one another. In this form, even flat databases can be integrated. Only PHP needs to be available for this. You can simply create the content with a text editor and then load it to the server in the correct folder, or use the Kirby panel — a simple, clear backend.

The CMS focuses clearly on simplicity and speed - and does so not only without a database, but even completely without a comfortable backend. Pages are created with markdown files, which in turn are sorted into the directory structure on the server. Markdown is a simple markup language with which text can be formatted.

Therefore, a page for Pico can be written relatively easily in a text editor and modified with the markup elements. All configurations are in their own text file. This makes the flat file CMS very suitable for small projects.

Pico and its range of functions can also be extended with various available themes and plugins. Another lightweight among CMS is Bolt. With the necessary know-how and the use of extensions, more comprehensive online projects can also be realized.

The original development started with a Dutch marketing company that created a CMS with Bolt for creating websites for their customers. Compare Search. Sort by clicks Sort by views Sort by compares Sort by updated Sort by name. If you are the maker of a product, or are an expert user and are willing to maintain the listing, so you can register your listing. Without a doubt, it is the easiest solution to install and manage from our control panel.

It offers users a very wide range of ready-to-use templates and plugins that can quickly meet most website configurations. In short, WordPress is great for those who want a simple, effective solution to set up, without necessarily needing any in-depth technical knowledge.

However, WordPress quickly shows its limits when it comes to complex projects, which it is not designed for. The CMS also requires a certain level of security vigilance - its popularity means that it is a prime target for cybercriminals. Create a WordPress blog. Originally born as a fork created from the source code of an existing software of the Mambo CMS, Joomla! Since version 3 was released, Joomla!

It also offers interesting services for rights and profiles customisation or multisite management. This makes it possible to design rich platforms including private spaces intranet, extranet if needed.

Until now, these features were only available with more complex solutions. Create a Joomla! This newcomer to the open-source CMS market has already become one of the greats. Designed as a platform for building social networks, Drupal quickly established itself as a robust and highly customisable CMS. This is mainly due to the integration of the Symfony framework a group of reusable components , on which it is built. This flexibility makes it a favourite among web designers when they are faced with ambitious, bespoke projects.

However, the solution requires a bit of a learning curve to get the most out of it. Create a website using Drupal. Strictly speaking, PrestaShop and Magento are not content management systems, but e-commerce platforms. You can use them to create an online store, by adding product pages and payment methods to it. Combining WordPress with additional modules is a viable alternative for content-based sites with additional e-commerce needs. A favourite for many online retailers, PrestaShop is undoubtedly one of the most famous e-commerce solutions on the market.