Cockpit CMS is an open-source headless content management system released in 2015 under the MIT license, delivering JSON content through a REST API. It is lightweight, self-hostable and flexible for developer-driven, tech-stack-agnostic content backends.
📝 CMS
Compare 116 CMS platforms covering traditional CMS, headless CMS, and visual website builders.
Contao is a German open-source PHP content management system that originated as TYPOlight in 2006 and was renamed in 2010, known for accessibility (WCAG) and native multilingual websites. Built on Symfony components with no license fees, it suits government, association and media sites.
CoreMedia is an enterprise digital experience platform (DXP) founded in Hamburg, Germany in 1996, focused on content-commerce integration with deep integrations with SAP Commerce and other mainstream e-commerce platforms, supporting hybrid traditional and headless architectures.
Crownpeak is an enterprise Digital Experience Platform (DXP) founded in Denver, US in 2001, built cloud-natively on Microsoft Azure with built-in GDPR/CCPA consent management and WCAG accessibility scanning for compliance-driven large organizations.
Directus is an open-source headless CMS and backend-as-a-service platform founded in Los Angeles, US in 2014 that automatically wraps any SQL database into REST/GraphQL APIs, with 25k+ GitHub stars, ideal for data-driven projects.
dotCMS is an open-source enterprise CMS founded in Miami, US in 2003, built on the Java stack with dual-mode traditional and headless architecture, REST/GraphQL dual APIs and multi-site management, listed as a representative vendor by Gartner.
DNN (DotNetNuke) is an open-source .NET CMS that originated in 2002, deeply integrated with the Microsoft stack, with built-in native multilingual support and granular permissions, plus 1000+ extensions in its marketplace, ideal for enterprise portals and intranets.
Drupal CMS is the official out-of-the-box edition of Drupal released in January 2025, with 100+ built-in Recipes and an AI website assistant, sharing the 40k+ module ecosystem on Drupal.org and greatly lowering the barrier to enterprise site building.
ExpressionEngine is a PHP content management system created by EllisLab in 2002, known for flexible content modeling and a fully controllable template engine, maintained for over 20 years and suited to complex content-driven websites.
Ibexa (eZ Publish) originates from Norway, where its predecessor eZ Systems was founded in 1999, and is an enterprise open-source CMS and digital experience platform (DXP) known for enterprise content modeling, multilingual, and workflow capabilities.
Fork CMS is an open-source lightweight PHP content management system from Belgium, first released in 2010, known for modular extensions, multilingual support, and quick deployment, suited to small and medium business websites and localized sites.
Grav is an open-source flat-file CMS developed by the RocketTheme team, with no database, Markdown file storage, a free MIT license, lightweight deployment, and multilingual support for documentation and light content sites.
HubSpot CMS (CMS Hub) is the marketing-driven content management system launched by US-based HubSpot in 2020, deeply integrated with CRM and offering built-in SEO recommendations, A/B testing and personalization with a 99.99% uptime SLA.
SAP Hybris (now SAP Commerce Cloud) is an enterprise omnichannel commerce platform founded in 1997 and acquired by SAP in 2013 for about $1.5 billion, serving global enterprises and Fortune 500 customers with headless commerce and deep SAP ecosystem integration.
IBM WCM is IBM's enterprise Web content management module within the Digital Experience (formerly WebSphere Portal) platform, offering strict approval workflows, permission control and multilingual capabilities for government, finance and other large organizations under enterprise custom pricing.
Jahia is a Java Digital Experience Platform (DXP) founded in Geneva, Switzerland in 2002. Offering CMS, portal, personalization and integration through an open-source core plus an enterprise edition, it focuses on highly regulated industries such as banking, insurance and the public sector.
Liferay is an enterprise digital experience platform (DXP) founded in 2004 in Diamond Bar, California, USA. Its open-source community edition is free, and one platform integrates CMS, DAM, Commerce, Search, personalization and AI. Rated 4.6/5.0 on Gartner Peer Insights with a 360+ partner network, it suits large enterprise portals and multisite scenarios.
Magnolia is an enterprise digital experience platform (DXP) founded in Basel, Switzerland in 1997. Built on the Java/Spring stack with a modular architecture and REST/GraphQL dual APIs for Headless/CaaS delivery, it includes DAM, AI and enterprise-grade security for large enterprise multi-channel content.
MODX is an open-source PHP content management system initiated in 2004 and released under GPLv2, known for content-presentation separation, Template Variables (TVs) and fine-grained permissions. Free and open source, it suits developer-led, high-performance and highly customizable website projects.
Optimizely is a US enterprise digital experience platform (DXP) formed by merging the 2009 San Francisco experimentation company with Episerver (acquired in 2021), serving 10000+ global brands across content, commerce, A/B testing, and AI optimization.
Orchard CMS is an open-source .NET content management system from the ASP.NET ecosystem whose modern version, Orchard Core, is built on ASP.NET Core under the BSD-3-Clause license, with 8K+ GitHub stars and 2.4M+ NuGet downloads, ideal for .NET teams building content sites and applications.
Pantheon is a US professional WebOps hosting platform founded in 2010 in San Francisco, specialized in WordPress and Drupal, offering a Git-driven Multidev workflow, Autopilot automation, and a global edge CDN; it was acquired by Vista Equity in 2021.
Payload CMS is an open-source headless CMS and application framework built on Next.js and TypeScript, code-first and self-hostable, used in production by Microsoft, ASICS, and Blue Origin, and part of Figma since 2026.
Pico CMS is a lightweight open-source flat-file CMS first released in 2013, storing content as Markdown files and rendering pages with Twig templates on any PHP host with millisecond-level page loads, ideal for personal blogs, portfolios and lightweight documentation sites.