Best self-hosted content management systems (cms)

[Content Management Systems](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_management_system) offer a practical way to setup a website with many features, using third party plugins, themes and functionality that are easy to add and customize.

We track 48 self-hosted content management systems (cms) projects. The median health score in this category is 61, against 17 projects rated healthy or better and 3 showing little recent activity. The table below is ordered by health score, not popularity — the most starred project in a category is frequently not the best maintained one.

#	Project	Health	Stars	Built with	Last release
1	Strapi Headless CMS that lets developers build content APIs fast while giving content creators a friendly editing interface.	Thriving · 94	73k	Nodejs	24 Sept 2026
2	Payload CMS Developer-first headless CMS and application framework.	Thriving · 91	45k	Nodejs	24 Sept 2026
3	Wagtail Django content management system focused on flexibility and user experience.	Thriving · 91	21k	Python	25 Aug 2026
4	Umbraco The friendly CMS. Free and open source with an amazing community.	Thriving · 84	5.3k	.NET	17 Sept 2026
5	WordPress World's most-used blogging and CMS engine.	Healthy · 81	21k	PHP	—
6	Pimcore Multi-channel experience and engagement management platform.	Healthy · 81	3.9k	PHP, Docker	22 Sept 2026
7	CraftCMS Content-first CMS that aims to make life enjoyable for developers and content managers alike.	Healthy · 79	3.6k	PHP	18 Sept 2026
8	eLabFTW Online lab notebook for research labs. Store experiments, use a database to find reagents or protocols, use trusted time	Healthy · 78	1.4k	PHP	24 Sept 2026
9	Kirby File-based CMS. Easy to setup. Easy to use. Flexible as hell.	Healthy · 77	1.5k	PHP	16 Sept 2026
10	october CMS platform based on the Laravel PHP Framework.	Healthy · 75	11k	PHP	30 Aug 2026
11	KeystoneJS CMS and web application platform.	Healthy · 74	10k	Nodejs	31 Aug 2026
12	Joomla! Advanced Content Management System (CMS).	Healthy · 74	5.1k	PHP	17 Sept 2026
13	Ech0 Lightweight federated publishing platform focused on personal idea sharing (documentation in Chinese).	Healthy · 74	2.1k	Docker, K8S	28 Aug 2026
14	Automad Flat-file content management system and template engine.	Healthy · 72	938	PHP, Docker	20 Sept 2026
15	Pushword Content management system built on Symfony, where pages are Markdown and themes are Twig, with optional Git-based flat-f	Healthy · 69	28	PHP	27 Sept 2026
16	Concrete 5 CMS Open source content management system.	Healthy · 68	852	PHP	8 Sept 2026
17	Bolt CMS Content Management Tool, which strives to be as simple and straightforward as possible.	Healthy · 68	591	PHP	9 Sept 2026
18	TYPO3 Powerful and advanced CMS with a large community.	Steady · 65	1.2k	PHP	—
19	Contao Powerful CMS that allows you to create professional websites and scalable web applications.	Steady · 65	439	PHP	—
20	WinterCMS Speedy and secure content management system built on the Laravel PHP framework.	Steady · 62	1.5k	PHP	19 Aug 2026
21	Textpattern Flexible, elegant and easy-to-use CMS.	Steady · 61	881	PHP	14 Feb 2026
22	Typemill Author-friendly flat-file-cms with a visual markdown editor based on vue.js.	Steady · 60	619	PHP	20 Sept 2026
23	Apostrophe CMS with a focus on extensible in-context editing tools.	Steady · 59	4.6k	Nodejs	—
24	Superdesk End-to-end news creation, production, curation, distribution, and publishing platform.	Steady · 59	754	Docker, Python	14 Jul 2026
25	MediaCMS Modern, fully featured open source video and media CMS, written in Python/Django/React, featuring a REST API.	Steady · 57	5.1k	Python, Docker	25 Aug 2026
26	Alfresco Community Edition The open source Enterprise Content Management software that handles any type of content, allowing users to easily share	Steady · 57	230	Java	—
27	Backdrop CMS Comprehensive CMS for small to medium sized businesses and non-profits.	Steady · 55	1k	PHP	24 Sept 2026
28	Cockpit Simple content platform to manage any structured content.	Steady · 54	748	PHP	26 Aug 2026
29	Localess Powerful translation management and content management system. Manage and translate your website or app content into mul	Steady · 53	73	Docker	11 Jun 2026
30	Omeka Create complex narratives and share rich collections, adhering to Dublin Core standards with Omeka on your server, desig	Steady · 52	555	PHP	25 Sept 2026
31	REDAXO Simple, flexible and useful content management system (documentation in German).	Steady · 52	354	PHP, Docker	3 Aug 2026
32	Vvveb CMS Powerful and easy to use CMS to build websites, blogs or e-commerce stores.	Slowing · 50	1.2k	PHP, Docker	11 Jun 2026
33	Expressa Content Management System for powering database driven websites using JSON schemas. Provides permission management and a	Slowing · 50	452	Nodejs	5 Sept 2026
34	d9 Turn SQL databases into secure APIs through an intuitive admin interface. Data platform and headless CMS (fork of Direct	Slowing · 50	155	Nodejs	20 Aug 2026
35	Bludit Build a site or blog in seconds. Bludit uses flat-files (text files in JSON format) to store posts and pages.	Slowing · 48	1.5k	PHP	11 May 2026
36	MODX Advanced content management and publishing platform. The current version is called 'Revolution'.	Slowing · 47	1.4k	PHP	—
37	Squidex Headless CMS, based on MongoDB, CQRS and Event Sourcing.	Slowing · 38	2.5k	.NET	16 Apr 2026
38	Publify Simple but full featured web publishing software.	Slowing · 37	1.9k	Ruby	28 Jun 2024
39	WonderCMS WonderCMS is the smallest flat file CMS since 2008.	At risk · 32	740	PHP	31 Dec 2025
40	HTMLy Databaseless PHP blogging platform. A flat-file CMS that allows you to create a fast, secure, and powerful website or bl	At risk · 31	1.4k	PHP	3 Nov 2025
41	CouchCMS CMS for designers.	At risk · 6	381	PHP	15 Oct 2023
42	Noosfero Platform for social and solidarity economy networks with blog, e-Portfolios, CMS, RSS, thematic discussion, events agend	Unrated	—	Ruby	—
43	CMS Made Simple Faster and easier management of website contents, scalable for small businesses to large corporations.	Unrated	—	PHP	—
44	Drupal Advanced open source content management platform.	Unrated	—	PHP	—
45	Neos Neos or TYPO3 Neos (for version 1) is a modern, open source CMS.	Unrated	—	PHP	—
46	Plone CMS system that is used to create, edit, and manage digital content, like websites, intranets, and custom solutions.	Unrated	—	Python, Docker	—
47	SilverStripe Easy to use CMS with powerful MVC framework underlying.	Unrated	—	PHP	—
48	SPIP Publication system for the Internet aimed at collaborative work, multilingual environments, and simplicity of use for we	Unrated	—	PHP	—

Which one should you run?

If you want the safest bet on longevity, Strapi is the best-maintained project in this category right now at 94/100. Payload CMS is the closest runner-up (91/100) — see the side-by-side comparison.

A health score measures whether a project is alive and shipping. It does not measure whether it has the feature you need. Use it to rule options out, then compare on features.

Related categories

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