CMS com­par­i­son 2025: The most popular content man­age­ment systems

To attract lots of visitors to your website and ensure that they spend a good while there, your content needs to be appealing. However, managing content can be extremely time-consuming depending on the size of the website. That’s why it’s important to find the right content man­age­ment system (CMS). Here is our 2025 com­par­i­son of CMSs.

How do you choose the right CMS?

It’s a jungle out there when looking for the perfect CMS, and it’s easy to get lost. There are between 250 and 350 different programs currently available on the market. From simple building tools to expansive en­ter­prise systems, the pos­si­bil­i­ties are endless. The question that needs answering is what CMS re­quire­ments need to be met in order to optimally support your online project.

What are content man­age­ment systems used for?

Content man­age­ment systems are typically used in three central areas: web content man­age­ment, blog pub­lish­ing/news and social pub­lish­ing/com­mu­ni­ties. When selecting a software solution for a new web project, you should base your decision on which area is most important to your project’s de­vel­op­ment.

Web content man­age­ment

With classic web content man­age­ment, the main emphasis is on creating and managing content for the web. Multiple editors usually need to have access to the backend, which in turn requires complex sharing and approval methods. A system should also be able to ef­fi­cient­ly support the use of mul­ti­me­dia content on a website. Other important factors include managing user rights, full text search ca­pa­bil­i­ties, an efficient news man­age­ment system, and the ability to present necessary content in more than one language.

Blog pub­lish­ing/news

This use case, as the name suggests, is mainly focused on blogging. Here, preparing content, cat­e­go­riza­tion, finding links and linking to social media platforms and other web 2.0 functions is par­tic­u­lar­ly important. The ability to interact with the reader and determine when blog posts are published may also be important features to consider. Being able to quickly and easily create content is equally, if not more important, as well as being able to do so from a mobile device.

Social pub­lish­ing/com­mu­ni­ties

De­vel­op­ing online com­mu­ni­ties and making them available to a larger audience requires a much larger range of features than managing a simple blog does. This is mostly because online com­mu­ni­ties target active user groups instead of passive readers. Ideally, the site has content that is created by the site operator as well as (user-generated content). Social pub­lish­ing solutions are usually modular in design and can be expanded with certain web 2.0 features if necessary.

No matter which category your project falls into, every online project starts with a domain. You can use our Domain Checker to check whether the domain you want to use is available.

Pro­pri­etary vs. open-source CMS

Many content man­age­ment systems are available as open-source software through major project com­mu­ni­ties. With an open-source CMS, the system and the program code are freely ac­ces­si­ble. The source code of the CMS can, in principle, be viewed by anyone. Users are allowed to make changes, im­prove­ments, add ex­ten­sions and to adapt the CMS to their in­di­vid­ual re­quire­ments.

The opposite of open-source software is pro­pri­etary software. Here, the CMS is developed by a company and dis­trib­uted as a com­mer­cial project. To use a pro­pri­etary man­age­ment system, you usually need to purchase a license, and users do not have access to the source code.

Open-source software, on the other hand, is often available without licensing costs. That’s why these solutions are, from an economic stand­point, par­tic­u­lar­ly at­trac­tive for companies. In terms of tech­no­log­i­cal de­vel­op­ments, es­tab­lished open-source CMS are in no way inferior to pro­pri­etary solutions. High-level developer com­mu­ni­ties are behind some of the most famous projects, such as WordPress or TYPO3. Extensive doc­u­men­ta­tion and a trans­par­ent de­vel­op­ment process also ensure that software errors and security gaps are resolved promptly.

A global com­par­i­son of CMS software

The most popular solution for pub­lish­ing content quickly and cost-ef­fec­tive­ly is by far WordPress. According to W3Techs, a company that analyzes CMS usage, over 40% of websites worldwide use the open-source CMS. Other open source projects in the top ten most popular software solutions for operating websites are Joomla! and Drupal.

Open-source content man­age­ment systems, available to users in free community versions, can even compete with es­tab­lished HTML editors like Adobe Dreamweaver.

Com­par­i­son of the most used software solutions for websites (January 2024):

Last updated: January 2025

According to sta­tis­tics, open-source solutions are also popular worldwide. Many online shops put their trust in the e-commerce platform Magento, Shopify’s system or the French shop software PrestaShop. The success of these systems shows that open-source products can hold their own against standard solutions when it comes to operating com­mer­cial websites. Website builders from com­mer­cial providers are also very popular in some cases.

With open-source software projects being such a popular option, we’ll take a closer look at some of the most popular open-source CMS solutions in the next section. We’ll compare their essential features and look at the dif­fer­ences between the CMSs. To round out the com­par­i­son, we’ve included two pro­pri­etary solutions, MyWebsite Now and Dreamweaver. We’ve also included a col­lec­tion of tables in the section on CMS ex­pec­ta­tions and re­quire­ments. These include a detailed de­scrip­tion of the systems and their features with special attention given to the following areas:

• In­stal­la­tion and con­fig­u­ra­tion
• User man­age­ment
• Operation and content creation
• Search engine op­ti­miza­tion and re­spon­sive design
• Security and service

What are the most popular content man­age­ment systems?

Open-source systems like WordPress, TYPO3, Joomla!, Drupal, Contao, and Neos are currently the most popular standard solutions for pro­fes­sion­al website operation. But every system is not equally suited to every in­di­vid­ual purpose. Here, we’ve put together the main features, use cases and system re­quire­ments for different content man­age­ment systems. We’ve included pros and cons tables for each CMS so it’s easier for you to decide which content man­age­ment system is right for you.

WordPress

WordPress is the most-used open-source CMS worldwide. Orig­i­nal­ly conceived as a system for blogging, several ex­ten­sions are now available for the basic in­stal­la­tion, making it possible to upgrade the software to a fully func­tion­al content man­age­ment system.

Facts

• More than 58,000 ex­ten­sions and a huge range of free design templates
• Five-minute in­stal­la­tion via Wizard
• Search engine friendly URLs
• Pub­lish­ing and man­age­ment tools for mobile solutions

System re­quire­ments for WordPress 6.4.3

• Web server: Every server with PHP and MySQL/MariaDB support (rec­om­mend­ed: Apache or NGINX)
• Mid­dle­ware: PHP 7.4 or higher
• Database: MySQL 5.7 or higher, MariaDB 10.4 or higher
• Other rec­om­men­da­tions: HTTPS support

The software’s large user community benefits from an enormous choice of themes, plugins and widgets. Critics, however, say that the system is not only too complex, but also confusing and awkward to use.

WordPress shares the same problems as all suc­cess­ful software de­vel­op­ments. Due to its high cir­cu­la­tion, it’s a popular target for hackers. Because of that, users need to update their WordPress software fairly regularly with security updates. These updates come out quickly after security incidents occur but aren’t always com­pat­i­ble with all the ex­ten­sions that are required to use the software properly. As a result, software updates can mean con­sid­er­able ad­min­is­tra­tive effort, es­pe­cial­ly when it comes to large projects.

Because of its low-effort, basic in­stal­la­tion, WordPress is good for small websites that have a simple structure. WordPress is an effective CMS with an intuitive web interface, es­pe­cial­ly for bloggers who want to provide their visitors with fre­quent­ly changing content in at­trac­tive layouts. As the com­plex­i­ty of the online project increases though, the user-friend­li­ness of the software sig­nif­i­cant­ly decreases. The­o­ret­i­cal­ly, WordPress can be used to implement large en­ter­prise projects too, but needing a greater number of functions and features will in­evitably be ac­com­pa­nied by an increase in ad­min­is­tra­tive effort.

If you’re striving for stable website operation, it’s important to keep in mind that WordPress places high demands on the server as traffic to your website increases. Users who are de­vel­op­ing complex multi-domain projects with a mul­ti­lin­gual focus should choose a CMS like TYPO3 instead of WordPress.

In­ter­est­ed in the leading CMS program? You can find further in­for­ma­tion on the popular blogging software in our WordPress articles “What is WordPress” and “How to start a WordPress blog”.

TYPO3

Alongside WordPress, TYPO3 is among the most popular open-source CMSs. The software project is an en­ter­prise man­age­ment system and is con­stant­ly updated by a team of ex­pe­ri­enced de­vel­op­ers. TYPO3 is a great solution for large corporate portals and e-commerce platforms.

Facts

• En­ter­prise content man­age­ment system
• Huge range of functions
• Extensive in­te­grat­ed rights man­age­ment
• Simple in­te­gra­tion of other systems such as CRM or ERP solutions

System re­quire­ments for TYPO3 CMS 12 LTS

• Web server: Apache (rec­om­mend­ed), MS IIS, NGINX, Caddy Server
• Mid­dle­ware: PHP 8.1 or higher
• Database: MySQL 8.0 or higher, MariaDB 10.3, Post­greSQL 10.0 or higher, SQLite 3.8.3 or higher
• Hardware: At least 256 MB RAM
• Other rec­om­men­da­tions: Graph­ic­s­Mag­ick or Im­ageMag­ick; GDlib; Freetype; zlib; If using an Apache server: mod_gzip, mod_deflate, mod_rewrite; PHP cache (for example APCu, PHP ac­cel­er­a­tor, OPcache, or Zend Ac­cel­er­a­tor); in­di­vid­ual ex­ten­sions may require ad­di­tion­al software.

TYPO3 has a large community that provides quick and easy help for technical problems or questions that beginners may have. There are also numerous pro­fes­sion­al providers who spe­cial­ize in support forTYPO3 and provide agency services to business users.

Pro­fes­sion­al use of the high-per­for­mance CMS requires expert knowledge. If you do have the expertise, you have the pos­si­bil­i­ty to create complex site struc­tures with mul­ti­lin­gual content. The con­sid­er­able range of functions ensures pro­fes­sion­al rights man­age­ment at en­ter­prise level and provides in­ter­faces for classic business ap­pli­ca­tions such as CRM and ERP systems. On the other hand, critics point out that it takes a long time to become familiar with the system and the amount of effort needed for ad­min­is­tra­tion is com­par­a­tive­ly high.

The giant spectrum of functions offered by TYPO3 makes it possible to implement any kind of online project. This, however, comes with asig­nif­i­cant amount of effort that needs to be invested in the in­stal­la­tion, con­fig­u­ra­tion and main­te­nance of the software. The CMS’s promi­nence and good rep­u­ta­tion are why it’s favored by small websites. The downside is that users are usually expending much more effort than they need to. If a website operator doesn’t need the entire spectrum of functions offered by the en­ter­prise CMS, a modular program with a lean basic in­stal­la­tion would, generally speaking, be a better option for their website. For complex projects run by ex­pe­ri­enced IT spe­cial­ists though, TYPO3 is the optimal foun­da­tion for a suc­cess­ful online presence.

In our Digital Guide, you can find out how to install TYPO3. In our article covering the basics of TYPO3, you can also read a detailed de­scrip­tion of the extensive func­tion­al­i­ty of the CMS.

Joomla!

With a near 3% market coverage, Joomla! is another favorite in the CMS market. The software is aimed at both beginners and advanced users but is more chal­leng­ing to use than WordPress. Unlike the market leader, com­pre­hen­sive CMS func­tion­al­i­ties are included without having to install ex­ten­sions. A bonus for users without a pro­fes­sion­al IT back­ground is that there is good doc­u­men­ta­tion in the form of community-supported online handbooks and active user forums.

Facts

• Currently over 6,000 available ex­ten­sions
• Object-based content man­age­ment
• Community support through forums

System re­quire­ments for Joomla! 5.x

• Web server: Apache HTTP Server 2.4 with mod_mysql, mod_xml, and mod_zlib, NGINX 1.21 (1.25 or higher is rec­om­mend­ed), MS IIS 10
• Mid­dle­ware: PHP 8.1.0 (8.2 or higher rec­om­mend­ed)
• Database: MySQl 8.0.13 with InnoDB support (8.1 or higher rec­om­mend­ed), MS SQL server 10.50.1600.1 (10.50.1600.1 or higher rec­om­mend­ed), MariaDB 10.4.0 (11.1.0 or higher rec­om­mend­ed), Post­greSQL 12.0 (16.0 or higher rec­om­mend­ed)

Joomla! is a con­tin­u­a­tion of the open-source CMS Mambo. The system is par­tic­u­lar­ly popular in the U.S. and is char­ac­ter­ized by a fully object-oriented software design that is based on a stand-alone MVC framework. This allows Joomla! users to write their own ex­ten­sions and share these with the community if they want to. They can do so using the Joomla! ex­ten­sions directory, where ex­ten­sions can easily be installed via the backend. Templates can be created with Joomla! modules by combining pre­de­fined content elements.

You can learn more about the range of functions that the user-friendly open-source CMS offers in our Joomla! basics article.

Drupal

The modular CMS Drupal was orig­i­nal­ly developed as a student community solution but is now available as a full-fledged open-source CMS. The software comes with an extremely lean basic in­stal­la­tion, which can be extended quite a bit with modules. Today, the project’s strength lies in its community. The basic module has numerous web 2.0 and community functions like blogs, forums and tag clouds.

Facts

• Very flexible, modular layout
• Lean basic in­stal­la­tion with more than 51,000 extension modules
• Focus on social pub­lish­ing and community projects
• More than 1,400 dis­tri­b­u­tions that serve as complete solutions for typical use cases

System re­quire­ments for Drupal 10.2

• Web server: Apache 2.4.7 or higher, NGINX 1.1.x or higher, MS IIS 5 or any other web server with PHP support
• Mid­dle­ware: PHP 8.3
• Database: MySQL 5.7.8 or higher, MariaDB 10.3.7, Percona server 5.7.8 or higher, Post­greSQL 12 or higher (with pg_trgm extension), SQLite 3.26 or higher

With its modular layout, Drupal offers extensive op­por­tu­ni­ties for cus­tomiza­tion. Users who know exactly what they need won’t have to spend time manually compiling software com­po­nents. For many scenarios, pre-con­fig­ured dis­tri­b­u­tions based on the Drupal framework are available.

With its focus on social pub­lish­ing, Drupal is par­tic­u­lar­ly suited to small and medium-sized community projects. The large spectrum of ex­ten­sions makes it possible to implement company portals with complex multi-domain struc­tures. But the ad­min­is­tra­tion of a CMS core with com­pre­hen­sive ex­ten­sions requires expertise and finesse. If the basic functions of the software aren’t suf­fi­cient, ad­di­tion­al modules will have to be installed manually via FTP. This can be a complex process. As ex­ten­sions are not always com­pat­i­ble, updating them can sometimes prove difficult.

Drupal is primarily used to build social pub­lish­ing and community platforms. Thanks to its flexible, modular system, the CMS offers an ideal solution for highly dynamic platforms that are centered around user-generated content.

Read our article about the basics of Drupal for more in­for­ma­tion and tips.

Contao

The CMS Contao is a clearly struc­tured, user-friendly content man­age­ment solution. The system features an intuitive, mul­ti­lin­gual backend and a clearly struc­tured ad­min­is­tra­tive layer. The software pays par­tic­u­lar attention to com­pat­i­bil­i­ty with web standards, providing barrier-free online content in HTML 5.

Facts

• User-friendly CMS with large range of functions
• More than 1,900 available ex­ten­sions
• Mul­ti­lin­gual backend
• Online demo
• 2-factor au­then­ti­ca­tion (from Contao 4.6)

System re­quire­ments for Contao 4.13 Long Term Support (LTS)

• Web server: Apache or NGINX with PHP and MySQL support
• Mid­dle­ware: PHP 7.4 or higher
• Database: MySQL 8.0 or higher
• Other rec­om­men­da­tions: To benefit from the full range of functions, the following PHP ex­ten­sions are necessary: DOM, PCRE, Intl, PDO, ZLIB, JSON, Curl, Mbstring, GD

The software’s basic con­fig­u­ra­tion comes with a com­pre­hen­sive range of functions that can be flexibly adapted to in­di­vid­ual needs with more than 1,900 available ex­ten­sions.

The CMS also offers an in­te­grat­ed theme manager. This makes it possible to in­di­vid­u­al­ly configure the design and layout of a website with the help of pre-designed modules. In addition, website owners have access to pro­fes­sion­al themes for various use cases and in­dus­tries via the Contao website. These themes usually have to be purchased though.

The software is known for its high-security standards. The LTS version of the CMS comes with a four-year guarantee. During this period, the LTS version receives bug fixes and security updates, but no new features. The LTS version is stable and rec­om­mend­ed for active websites.

In addition, there is a de­vel­op­ment version that includes bug fixes and security updates for half a year and contains new features that are not included in the LTS version. These features will then be in­cor­po­rat­ed 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, enables a quick in­tro­duc­tion to creating websites. Server com­pat­i­bil­i­ty can be ensured using the 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, leaving no wish unan­swered – even when it comes to search engine op­ti­miza­tion and web analysis.

Multi-level workflows, however, can’t be im­ple­ment­ed with Contao in the standard con­fig­u­ra­tion. But there are ex­ten­sions that can map a workflow in Contao 4.

Further in­for­ma­tion and a detailed de­scrip­tion of the un­der­ly­ing page structure of the CMS is provided in our Contao basics article.

Neos

Neos is, alongside TYPO3, a true open-source en­ter­prise content man­age­ment system. The CMS has a special focus on editors and de­vel­op­ers: Editors can create content in a real WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor, and de­vel­op­ers get a state-of-the-art system with planned ex­ten­si­bil­i­ty, living style guides and atomic design. Neos is the ideal system for linking content with third-party systems (ERP, CRM, shops, etc.).

Facts

• Open-source en­ter­prise content man­age­ment system
• True WYSIWYG editor (inline editing)
• Search engine friendly URLs
• Pub­lish­ing and man­age­ment tools for mobile solutions
• Planned ex­pand­abil­i­ty to connect with other systems such as shop, CRM or ERP solutions

System re­quire­ments Neos CMS 8.3:

• Web server: Apache, NGINX
• Mid­dle­ware: PHP >= 8.0 (PHP CLI must have the same version for de­vel­op­ment) PHP modules: mbstring, tokenizer, xml, pdo_mysql, imagick or gmagick PHP functions: exec(), shell_exec(), es­capeshell­cmd() and es­capeshel­larg()
• Database: Of­fi­cial­ly supported: MySQL > 5.7.7, MariaDB > 10.2.2 and Post­greSQL > 9.4
• Optional: Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, SAP Sybase SQL Anywhere, SQLite, Drizzle
• Hardware: at least 256 MB RAM
• Further rec­om­men­da­tions: In­di­vid­ual ex­ten­sions may require ad­di­tion­al software

“Content’s first choice” is not only Neos’ motto, but what the CMS strives to achieve on the daily. Right from the start, Neos was designed to be user-friendly. The focus is on inline editing with a real WYSIWYG editor. In contrast to other, tra­di­tion­al content man­age­ment systems, editors no longer have to fill out dozens of form fields for headings, titles, etc. to get a rough preview of the new content via the preview button. Instead, editors can edit the content directly in the layout of the page that will be displayed later on.

The same applies to other display formats such as a tablet, smart­phone or 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.

Another special feature is the content di­men­sions. 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 tailored for different target groups (gender, culture, country, region, etc.) This allows for marketing campaigns to be con­trolled in a targeted manner. Managing large amounts of mul­ti­sites in a Neos system also belongs to 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, you can easily integrateNeos into existing processes.

Despite its focus on content, Neos is not just a CMS. It was developed for in­te­gra­tion and ex­ten­si­bil­i­ty and is a powerful CMS that comes with an equally powerful PHP framework called Flow. De­vel­op­ers can design Neos the way they need to use it.

The community calls Neos a Content Ap­pli­ca­tion Platform. This should make it clear that the strengths of the CMS lie in complex projects as well as in classic websites. The in­te­gra­tion of third-party software, con­nec­tion to external systems (ERP, CRM, etc.) and shop in­te­gra­tions are all possible with Neos. Existing ex­ten­sions can easily be installed via Composer (e.g., Google Analytics, IBM Watson, Elas­tic­search, etc.).

Nothing stands in the way of custom ex­ten­sions either. Neos 4.0 in­tro­duced the Assets API, which enables direct access to external media resources (Google Drive, Dropbox, OwnCloud, etc.). You can also 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. For example, the Neos Award 2018 went to a project that exports online content directly from Neos to a printable InDesign template, including special markups for the pre-press stage. 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 in­te­grat­ing machine learning and on reim­ple­ment­ing the Neos Content Repos­i­to­ry with CQRS and EventSourc­ing. The latter makes Neos par­tic­u­lar­ly in­ter­est­ing for banks, insurance companies and public au­thor­i­ties, as it securely stores various revisions of content to prevent changes later on.

MyWebsite Now: The easy and effective CMS al­ter­na­tive

Beyond the popular content man­age­ment systems, there is a growing demand for website builders. One of the most modern con­tenders in this category is MyWebsite Now, the simple and effective CMS al­ter­na­tive from IONOS. The website solution comes with a custom domain and a TLS/SSL cer­tifi­cate and is available as a monthly sub­scrip­tion. Users not only benefit from simple, modular software, which makes pro­gram­ming un­nec­es­sary, they also receive a hosting en­vi­ron­ment for their website. IONOS takes care of the man­age­ment and main­te­nance of the website.

The heart of MyWebsite Now is the easy-to-use website editor. A simple drag-and-drop function lets you move website com­po­nents to the desired position, while pre-made building blocks with content sug­ges­tions make working on your project easy. Thanks to a wide range of design, color and layout options, users benefit from a high degree of cus­tomiza­tion. In addition, users can select a the­mat­i­cal­ly suitable design template right at the beginning, with options catering to private websites, club sites or websites for busi­ness­es. To ensure that the result looks good on all devices, templates are re­spon­sive and optimized for all display sizes.

With project ad­min­is­tra­tion and main­te­nance being the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the provider, MyWebsite Now gives you the op­por­tu­ni­ty to focus entirely on your ideas. IONOS has over 30 years of ex­pe­ri­ence in the field and a proven track record in terms of security and per­for­mance. All projects are hosted in high-per­for­mance, ISO-certified data centers, which offer the highest level of data and system stability. Should problems occur with the software or the website, you’ll have personal support at hand at all times.

Dreamweaver: The Creative Cloud’s web design software

Looking at the sta­tis­tics from W3Tech, one al­ter­na­tive to open-source content man­age­ment systems stands out. Many website owners prefer to build their website from scratch using the HTML editor from Dreamweaver. The web design software, orig­i­nal­ly developed by Macro­me­dia and now dis­trib­uted by Adobe Systems, is available to Creative Cloud (CC) users as a pro­pri­etary product for macOS and Windows.

For the editing of visual elements of websites and mobile content, Dreamweaver combines a WYSIWYG editor with a high-per­for­mance coding engine. This makes diverse functions like syntax high­light­ing, automatic code in­te­gra­tion, val­i­da­tion and browser previews available to de­vel­op­ers in real time. In addition to HTML 5 and CSS, the software supports web standards like PHP, Java, JavaScript, ASP and XML, as well as the CSS pre­proces­sors SASS, LESS and SCSS. 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 at pro­fes­sion­al users and agents. For more in­for­ma­tion on Adobe Dreamweaver and a de­scrip­tion of appealing al­ter­na­tives based on open source, check out our article on Dreamweaver al­ter­na­tives.

What new content man­age­ment systems are there?

In addition to the big, well-known content man­age­ment systems, some new systems have appeared in recent years. While they aren’t as widely used, they do have an active community behind them. For some projects or ap­proach­es, these CMS may be exactly the right thing, even if they’re not that appealing to most users. What’s more, the CMSs presented below provide important new ideas that even the big com­pe­ti­tion can profit from.

Craft

The content man­age­ment system Craft was developed in 2012 and continues to lead a niche existence. This could be due to two reasons. The first is that it’s fun­da­men­tal­ly difficult for new products to establish them­selves in a highly com­pet­i­tive market. Secondly, while WordPress is designed to be as easy to use as possible, Craft is aimed much more at pro­fes­sion­al de­vel­op­ers. This isn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly a dis­ad­van­tage though.

While other CMSs rely on pre-made themes to make the design as easy as possible for beginners, Craft assumes that pro­fes­sion­als would rather write their HTML and CSS code them­selves. This approach means that the entire system is very tidy. The website code stays neat, and the structure of the stored files is logically organized. Instead of using chrono­log­i­cal­ly ordered folders, Craft users create rules that specify which file type belongs in which directory.

Craft also has a clearly struc­tured backend where website operators can easily find their way around and put new articles online. In­di­vid­ual plugins have also been developed to extend the range of functions offered by the sleek CMS. The CMS was developed for pro­fes­sion­al de­vel­op­ers, and this is reflected in the pricing. If you only want to create a website for yourself, you can get a free license. But if you want to develop websites for others, you’ll have to purchase a license.

Grav

Content man­age­ment systems are generally based on databases. When users visit a website, the cor­re­spond­ing entry in the database is accessed. Nowadays, there are some systems that break with this tradition and get by as a CMS without a database. Such systems save important in­for­ma­tion in files and then save these files in a cor­re­spond­ing directory structure. An example of a CMS without a database is Grav. With this CMS, you only need a web server that has suf­fi­cient storage space and (at least) PHP 7.3.6.

Grav places a high value on speed but doesn’t disregard aes­thet­ics. On the official website, you can find in­stal­la­tion data (a small ZIP archive) as well as over 100 themes that can be used to customize the design of your website. You can also extend your website’s func­tion­al­i­ty with more than 350 plugins. For example, you can set up a backend where you can perform ad­min­is­tra­tive tasks. If you don’t want to assemble all the settings and ex­ten­sions yourself, you can also use a skeleton, which is a pre­con­fig­ured package that already contains sample websites.

Kirby

Flat-file CMSs, like Kirby from Germany, also more or less do away with databases. This is why CMSs without databases and flat-file CMSs are often mentioned in the same breath, making the dis­tinc­tion between the two somewhat unclear. A flat-file CMS consists primarily of flat files. This means that there’s no complex and re­la­tion­al database man­age­ment system like MySQL or MariaDB running in the back­ground. Instead, this type of CMS relies on a folder structure that only stores flat files, which don’t reference each other. This type of CMS even allows for the in­te­gra­tion of flat databases.

Just like with Grav, Kirby, users only need to upload the few files contained in the starter kit to the server (Apache 2, NGINX, LiteSpeed, Caddy, PHP server), which needs to have PHP available. In principle, it’s not necessary to have an admin interface with a WYSIWYG editor. 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, clearly struc­tured backend.

Bolt

Another light­weight CMS is Bolt. The developer’s approach was to build a fast system that’s tidy and only offers as much as users need. But that doesn’t mean that you get a dis­ap­point­ing range of functions with Bolt. With the necessary know-how and the use of ex­ten­sions, more com­pre­hen­sive online projects can also be realized with this CMS.

The original de­vel­op­ment of Bolt started with a Dutch marketing company that developed the CMS so they could create websites for their customers. Now, the open-source project is also supported by others. Bolt is still aimed at web de­vel­op­ers, both for the initial website creation as well as for ad­di­tion­al con­fig­u­ra­tion. Bolt has a clearly struc­tured backend that you can create content in. But working with the CMS is not as intuitive and simple as with WordPress, for example.

Different CMS re­quire­ments, functions and features compared

Before you decide on one of the many content man­age­ment systems available, it’s important to first define the goal of your online project. Ask yourself the following questions:

• What type of content should the website have?
• Who is going to provide the content?
• Who is the target group?
• What resources are available for operating the website?

It’s also important to estimate how many people will be working on the CMS at the same time and which workflows will be used. Is it going to be a single blogger ad­dress­ing the online community, or will an entire editorial team be creating the content or even the website visitors them­selves?

Your pri­or­i­ties as they relate to in­stal­la­tion and con­fig­u­ra­tion efforts, use, man­age­ment and func­tion­al­i­ty must be con­sid­ered. While usability or being able to simply connect to other systems is important to some, others may be more concerned with search engine op­ti­miza­tion, barrier-free access to online content or en­ter­prise level security.

Choosing a CMS that is right for your project means ensuring that the enormous spread of different functions and features is in line with your in­di­vid­ual re­quire­ments. Since these differ from user to user, a direct com­par­i­son can be extremely helpful. Check out the com­par­isons below to find out which solutions are best suited to which use cases, and which system resources you’ll need to have for a smooth operation.

CMS dif­fer­ences regarding im­ple­men­ta­tion, in­stal­la­tion and con­fig­u­ra­tion

The first obstacle when it comes to im­ple­ment­ing a CMS-supported online project is in­stalling the software that you have decided to use. The more complex the system, the more time consuming the in­stal­la­tion and upkeep is. Joomla! and WordPress provide a Wizard, which dras­ti­cal­ly reduces the time required for in­stal­la­tion. Small web projects can be put online in a matter of minutes. Drupal also offers users a lean basic in­stal­la­tion process, but many functions require ad­di­tion­al modules, which can only be installed via FTP.

The in­stal­la­tion of the self-contained en­ter­prise content man­age­ment system TYPO3 is also rather complex. It’s primarily intended for users who want to implement large online projects, such as company portals or e-commerce platforms. Website operators should possess solid IT skills in order to ensure that the in­stal­la­tion, con­fig­u­ra­tion and ad­min­is­tra­tion are carried out without any errors.

All open-source solutions in our CMS com­par­i­son are based on the PHP pro­gram­ming language. TYPO3 users should also have knowledge of the database language SQL and the client-side scripting language JavaScript. Website operators who want to create or customize their own templates will need PHP knowledge to use Joomla!, WordPress, Drupal and Contao. TYPO3 users will have to learn the TYPO3 template language Ty­po­Script.

All the content man­age­ment systems presented in our CMS com­par­i­son can be extended using ex­ten­sions, plugins, widgets or modules. Multiple functions can only be used with ex­ten­sions. The com­par­i­son table shows which features are supported natively and which require ad­di­tion­al in­stal­la­tions.

User man­age­ment

All open-source solutions in our CMS com­par­i­son can be used as a multiple user system. With these types of systems, the question in­evitably arises, “Who is allowed to do what”? The func­tion­al­i­ties for user ad­min­is­tra­tion should be a central selection criterion for a CMS, es­pe­cial­ly if a website is going to be used by several users at the same time. The following table shows that almost all systems in our CMS com­par­i­son natively support the essential user man­age­ment functions. Multi-level workflow is the only area where the CMS Contao requires an extension, as this feature is primarily intended for medium-sized companies.

Operation and content creation

Website operators rely on content man­age­ment systems to fa­cil­i­tate the creation and pub­li­ca­tion of online content. A good CMS offers func­tion­al­i­ties that enable their users to create and manage website content without needing pro­gram­ming skills. Central selection criteria include an intuitive WYSIWYG editor with preview functions and spellcheck­er, import ca­pa­bil­i­ties for non-textual elements like videos, in­ter­ac­tive an­i­ma­tions and audio content as well as a search function with full-text search.

To provide website visitors with nav­i­ga­tion to relevant content, the CMS should also have a tagging system that allows for the or­ga­ni­za­tion of content based on mean­ing­ful keywords.

If news pub­lish­ing is the focus, the CMS should support blogging func­tion­al­i­ties that enable new content to be promoted in web feeds and provide feedback channels for readers, such as a guestbook or comment function. Users who want to implement in­ter­na­tion­al projects should ensure that content can be made available in several languages.

Search engine op­ti­miza­tion and re­spon­sive design

High-value content is key to a suc­cess­ful website. Here, search engine op­ti­miza­tion is playing an in­creas­ing­ly important role. Website operators who want to conquer a top spot in the search engine rankings need to fulfill certain technical re­quire­ments. It’s important to pay attention to the URL struc­tures on your website, metadata and how your website content is displayed on mobile devices.

All of the open-source solutions in our CMS com­par­i­son offer users the pos­si­bil­i­ty to rewrite pa­ra­me­ter­ized URLs into SEO-friendly URLs that can be in­ter­pret­ed by both human users and search engines. Not every CMS natively supports this function.

An essential influence on search engine rankings is metadata. This includes the title and de­scrip­tion of a web page. These are displayed to users together with the URL as a snippet in the search result and serve as a teaser to encourage the user to click. All the open-source systems presented here offer users the op­por­tu­ni­ty to manually create in­di­vid­ual metadata for every subpage of an online project.

The rising number of mobile devices being used to access websites has changed the demands that users put on how a website is displayed. Operators who only think about desktop users when designing the layout of their website will lose potential visitors and notice a decline in search engine rankings. When creating new online projects, it’s important to make mobile-friendly pre­sen­ta­tion a priority. In principle, CMSs ac­com­mo­date users by strictly sep­a­rat­ing content and pre­sen­ta­tion. For all the systems presented below, you’ll find templates which au­to­mat­i­cal­ly adjust the display size to different user devices using re­spon­sive design. They’re not all available for free, however.

Security & service

Service and support are deciding factors when selecting a CMS. Small and medium-sized en­ter­pris­es usually can’t afford to pay a pro­fes­sion­al agency to design, implement and maintain their website.

When it comes to the secure operation of a website, what’s crucial is whether or not an open-source CMS has the necessary in­for­ma­tion available as well as resources in the form of themes, plugins and regular updates. In this CMS com­par­i­son, we con­cen­trate ex­clu­sive­ly on systems that have a large user and developer community and that provide users with all the in­for­ma­tion needed for secure de­ploy­ment in detailed project doc­u­men­ta­tion. All projects offer public release plans, regular software updates and a trans­par­ent security protocol.

Quick recap of our CMS com­par­i­son for 2024

Every solution presented in this CMS com­par­i­son is based on certain software de­vel­op­ment goals that can sig­nif­i­cant­ly influence the direction of a project. It’s difficult to find a content man­age­ment system that fulfills every re­quire­ment on a website operator’s list. That’s why there is no clear winner. Instead, the goal of this com­par­i­son is to outline the benefits and drawbacks of each system as it relates to in­di­vid­ual projects and their re­quire­ments.

While WordPress is primarily intended for bloggers and needs to have extension added to it before it can be used as a CMS, a system like TYPO3 offers an extensive range of functions in its basic state. For smaller online projects, one rarely needs that level of func­tion­al­i­ty though.

The modular CMS Drupal came from a community project, but still offers today’s users a wide range of web 2.0 functions. If you don’t need these for your project, you should consider going with a different CMS option – for example, Joomla!. This system also offers users a large selection of ex­ten­sions that can be used to adapt the system to their re­spec­tive needs.

If user-friendly operation and barrier-free access to online content is the focus, then Contao is a good solution. As this is the smallest of the projects presented here, users will have to accept that it also comes with the smallest community. Compared to the other projects, it doesn’t offer as many ex­ten­sions, and users have a smaller selection of pro­fes­sion­al themes to choose from.

Here is a final com­par­i­son of the solutions with criteria that is essential for choosing a CMS: