11Free And Open Source WordPress CMS Alternatives (Updated)
So you want to create a website or blog but would rather avoid WordPress? WordPress is very powerful and scalable, it’s also pretty complicated for beginners.
WordPress is just a software that you use to build your own website or blog and publish it on the Internet it is also called a content management system or CMS.
Because WordPress is an open source software meaning that there is thousands of software engineers out there that are working on it every day to make it better and better.
There are plenty of good alternatives available in the market. We will show you the three best non-WordPress options that are, most importantly also easy to use!
1- Drupal
Drupal is a real open-source competitor for WordPress, as it contains similar features and workflow. However, it may require some time to learn and use.
It offers packages that allow an individual, a community of users, or an enterprise to easily publish, manage and organize a wide variety of content on a website
If you are a WordPress user, certainly you will like Drupal as it has come with robust content management tools, sophisticated APIs for multichannel publishing, and a track record of continuous innovation—Drupal is ready to stand as the hub of your digital presence.
The main reason why we add Drupal on top of this list is: It has thousands of people and organizations are using Drupal to power an endless variety of websites.
Drupal is the open-source CMS of choice for some of the world’s leading technology companies, marketers, developers, Agencies. It was written in PHP language and distributed under GPL ("GNU General Public License").
With Drupal, you can build community web portals, Discussion sites, corporate websites, intranet applications, personal websites or blogs, Aficionado sites, E-commerce applications, Resource directories, Social Networking sites.
drupal2- Joomla
Joomla is an open-source (Libre-free) content management system. It comes with a rich set of features designed for productivity and usability.
Like Drupal and WordPress, it enables you to build websites and powerful online applications. It is very popular, easy to use, stable, and secure.
Joomla features include: search engine friendly, mobile-friendly, unlimited design, multilingual, flexible and fully extensible, Multi-User permission levels.
joomla3- ExpressionEngine
ExpressionEngine is an open-source full-featured CMS software capable of building full-featured websites, create a web app, or serve content to mobile applications.
As one of the oldest competitors to WordPress, it has a strong community of users and developers who pack the project.
The system is a free and open-source professional looking, flexible, and secure content management system for Windows, Linux, and macOS.
It features: run multiple sites, live preview, one-click updates, with ExpressionEngine, your site content is stored in channels—flexible data containers with fields for any type of information, and more.
ExpressionEngine built-in with PHP and licensed under Apache License.
ExpressionEngine4- Grav
Grav is yet another open-source, modern flat-file CMS. Voted "Best Open Source CMS" in 2016, and "Best Flat File CMS" in 2017, 2019 & 2020!
As a non-developer looking to run their own site, we think Grav is the best of the flat file systems available.
Grav features include: Enjoyable Content Creation, One-Click Installs, Stellar Performance, Powerful Content Filtering, Dynamic Content Types, Multi-Language Support, Simple Backups and Restores, Image Media Processing, Easy Theme Customization, and more.
It comes with a powerful API and extensive hooks that allow for plugins to extend Grav. Flexible Twig templating allows the easy realization of your designs.
The software is totally free and runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux. There is Zero installation required. It is built with PHP language and licensed under MIT license.
getgrav5- ProcessWire
Processwire is a friendly, powerful open source CMS with a strong API.ProcessWire gives you more control over your fields, templates, and markup than other platforms, while ProcessWire’s API makes working with your content easy and enjoyable.
ProcessWire gives you more control over your fields, templates, and markup than other platforms, while ProcessWire’s API makes working with your content easy and enjoyable.
Web developers love ProcessWire because it is Simple, Easy, and enjoyable to develop with, Capable, Highly scalable on sites big and small, consistent, predictable, Proven stable, has the best community and support, and more.
ProcessWire is available for Linux systems (Ubuntu, Arch Linux, Linux Mint), macOS as a DMG image, and offers a Windows 32-bit installer.
processwire6- October
October is actually an open-source, self-hosted CMS platform based on Laravel. Its purpose to make your development workflow simple again.
October CMS is used as a primary platform by companies that have world-famous brands in their portfolios, such as Toyota, KFC, and Nestle.
October features include: Simple modern template engine, Full Composer support, CMS page components, Built-in asset combiner, File-based templates, Transparent layer between your creativity and the final product, and more.
octobercms7- Jekyll
Unlike some listed alternatives, Jekyll is also a static site generator so it lays in the same category. It uses Ruby, and we would say it's simpler, free, and open-source CMS software.
Jekyll features include a simple, blog-aware, static site generator. It takes text written in your favorite markup language and uses layouts to create a static website.
It is perfect for personal, project, or organization sites, licensed under MIT License, and it can run on Linux, Windows, and macOS.
8- Plone
Plone is an open-source, enterprise-grade, all-in-one content management system. It is a straightforward lightweight free open-source portable photo editor for Microsoft Windows. It has a simple interface similar to Adobe Photoshop.
Plone focused on high-end content management with unparalleled usability, security, customizability, accessibility, easy to set up, extremely flexible, and multilingual support.
It works as a full-featured classical server-side rendered CMS, headless CMS offering all features as a REST API. It is written in Python and licensed under GPL-2.0 License.
plone9- Pagekit
Pagekit is a fairly new open-source CMS. With it, you can create beautiful websites because it has a simple user interface, built-in marketplace.
Pagekit features include: build sites easily, has effective tools, you can collaborate with your team, Pagekit’s blog provides you with the tools to start creating content, with it, you can organize your mess and more.
Pagekit is a modular and lightweight CMS built with Symfony components and Vue.js. It is licensed under MIT License.
plone10- Typo3
Typo3 is an open-source, professional, flexible Content Management System for enterpries. With it, you can build websites, intranets, and online applications, make from small sites to multinational corporations.
The main reason why we added it to this list is it's fully-featured and reliable, with true scalability.
It can run on several web servers, such as Apache, Nginx, or IIS, on top of many operating systems, among them Linux, Microsoft Windows, FreeBSD, or macOS.
The project is PHP-based on web content management system released under the GNU GPL.
TYPO311- Concrete CMS
Concrete CMS is an open-source content management system for teams. It is a solution that pairs robust functionality with ease of use and a low cost of deployment.
Its features include secure and supported, with powerful permissions; You have complete control over who can do what to any part of any page with Concrete CMS, you can train up new content editors in minutes, editing your website as easy as writing a document, mobile optimized and responsive.
Concrete CMS licensed under MIT license and written in PHP language.
concretecmsConclusion
Such services don’t have to cost huge amounts of money since open-source solutions are available. We reviewed 11 WordPress CMS alternatives which are all available for you to choose from.
If you have any additional software you would like to see in this list, then we would love to hear about them in the comments.
