CMS

Strapi72.8k★

Strapi gives you a customizable CMS admin panel and API out of the box, with full control over your content backend. Build your content types, define relationships, get a REST or GraphQL API automatically. No coding required for basic use. The self-hosted Community edition is free and covers most needs: content types, API generation, media management, i18n, webhooks, and role-based access. Strapi Cloud starts at $29/mo for the Pro plan. Self-hosting runs on Node.js with SQLite, Postgres, MySQL, or MariaDB. Docker works but isn't the default: the standard setup is `npx create-strapi-app`. Moderate ops burden because you're running a Node.js app with a database and media storage. Solo developers: self-host for free. It's the best free headless CMS for small projects. Small teams: self-host or consider Strapi Cloud at $29/mo if you don't want to manage infrastructure. Growing teams: the Enterprise tier ($499/mo) adds SSO, audit logs, and review workflows. The catch: Strapi v5 was a significant rewrite and plugin compatibility took a hit. The plugin ecosystem is still catching up. Also, Strapi's customization model (controllers, services, policies) has a learning curve beyond the no-code admin panel.

Ghost54.7k★

Ghost is a publishing platform for serious writers and publishers who want more control than Substack gives them. Blogging, newsletters, paid memberships, and a full CMS in one self-hostable package. Node.js stack, MIT-licensed, runs on a single server. Setup takes about 30 minutes on a clean Linux server. The official CLI handles installation, SSL, and configuration. You need 1GB+ RAM and a Postgres database. Updates via Ghost-CLI are clean. Managed hosting through Ghost.org removes the ops overhead and starts around 11 USD/month. Solo creators and small publications can run Ghost free indefinitely. The self-hosted version has zero feature restrictions. Ghost.org managed hosting makes sense if you do not want to handle server upkeep and the cost is justified by your audience size. The catch: the theme ecosystem is smaller than WordPress and the plugin architecture is intentionally limited. Deep integrations or niche customizations mean building it yourself.

Payload44.0k★

Payload is a CMS that lives inside your Next.js app, giving you full control over content management. Define your content schema in TypeScript, get a full admin panel, REST and GraphQL APIs, auth, access control, and file uploads. It's a CMS, application framework, and admin panel in one. Fully free under MIT. No enterprise tier, no gated features, no cloud-only limitations. The entire feature set ships at $0. Payload makes money through Payload Cloud (managed hosting) but the self-hosted version is identical. Self-hosting means running a Next.js app with a database (Postgres or MongoDB). If you're already deploying Next.js apps, you already know how to deploy Payload. Ops burden is trivial: it's just your app. Solo developers: this is the best free CMS for Next.js projects right now. Full-featured, MIT licensed, no gotchas. Small teams: the admin panel and access control are production-ready out of the box. Growing teams: Payload scales with your Next.js app. The catch: Payload is Next.js-specific. If you're not using Next.js, look at Strapi or another headless CMS. Also, being embedded in your app means your CMS and application share the same deployment, this is a feature for small teams and a concern for large ones that want separation.

Directus37.2k★

Directus wraps any SQL database and turns it into a headless CMS with an admin panel, REST and GraphQL APIs, auth, roles, and webhooks. Point it at your Postgres, MySQL, SQLite, or SQL Server database and the schema becomes your content model. Nothing to migrate, nothing to rebuild. Self-hosting runs in Docker. The database is yours; Directus never owns it. Upgrades are clean if you pin versions. The admin panel is polished enough that non-technical editors can use it without hand-holding. Small teams and startups get the full feature set free on self-hosted. Directus Cloud starts around 15 USD/month for managed hosting. Most teams running internal tools or content-driven sites never need the paid tier. The catch: Directus wraps your existing schema, which sounds great until your schema is messy. It works best when your database is clean and your content model is defined clearly upfront.

emdash11.5k★

EmDash is a TypeScript CMS built on Astro that runs on Cloudflare Workers or plain Node.js, pitched squarely as the modern WordPress replacement for developers. Content is stored as structured Portable Text instead of HTML soup, plugins run sandboxed in isolated Workers, and there is a visual schema builder in the admin panel. MIT licensed and fully free. The Cloudflare-native path uses D1 for the database and R2 for media, which means near-zero ops if you already live on Cloudflare's edge. Node.js deployment works with local SQLite. Since the last look it has grown up noticeably: a WordPress import wizard for actually migrating off WordPress, passkey-first (WebAuthn) auth, full-text search, scheduled publishing, and an MCP server so AI agents can manage content directly. Developer-first teams comfortable with beta software should experiment here. Ghost is still the better pick for straight publishing today, and Payload is the more production-hardened TypeScript option. EmDash's edge is the Astro plus Cloudflare deployment story and now a credible migration path off WordPress. Solo devs on the edge stack: worth a real trial. Larger teams: wait for the plugin ecosystem to fill in. The catch: it is still beta, and the sandboxed plugins that make it interesting need a paid Cloudflare Workers plan (about $5 a month) to run dynamically. The foundation is stronger than it was, but the third-party ecosystem is thin, so you are still building most of what you need yourself.

mediawiki5.1k★

MediaWiki is the software that runs Wikipedia, and you can run it yourself. It is a mature, extensible wiki platform: collaborative editing with full page history, templates, over 350 languages, and a deep extension ecosystem. If you want a knowledge base or internal wiki that scales to hundreds of millions of readers and has two decades of hardening behind it, this is the proven answer. GPL licensed and free. Self-hosting is a classic LAMP-style setup: PHP, a database (MySQL or MariaDB), and a web server. Getting a basic wiki up is genuinely simple, and it runs on modest hardware. The work comes later, with extensions, spam control, upgrades, and scaling, which is real but well-trodden ground with enormous community documentation. For a team or community that needs a serious collaborative wiki, MediaWiki is free, battle-tested, and hard to outgrow. Solo users often find it heavier than a personal notes tool warrants; it shines with many editors, not one. Larger organizations get the most out of it, and there are hosted providers if you would rather not run PHP yourself. The catch is that MediaWiki feels like what it is: enterprise wiki software built for Wikipedia's needs, not a slick modern docs tool. The editing experience and default look are dated next to Notion or a static docs site, and making it pretty takes skinning and extension work. Choose it for durability, scale, and openness, not for out-of-the-box polish.

nesta900★

Nesta is a file-based CMS: no database, no admin panel. You write pages in Markdown or Textile, organize them in folders, and Nesta serves them. It's closer to a static site generator that runs as a Ruby app than a traditional CMS. MIT license, Ruby. The project peaked years ago and development has effectively stopped. Pages are files on disk, categories are folder structures, and the templating uses Haml or ERB. It supports Markdown with metadata headers for titles, descriptions, and categories. Fully free. No paid tier, no hosted version. It's a Ruby gem: gem install nesta. The catch: Nesta is a historical artifact. It was relevant when static site generation was less mature. In 2026, Hugo, Astro, Next.js, and dozens of other tools do everything Nesta does with better performance, larger communities, and active development. Unless you have an existing Nesta site to maintain, there's no reason to start a new project with it. If you need a Ruby-based CMS, look at Middleman or just use Jekyll.

vaahcms575★

A content management system built on Laravel (PHP) with a modular architecture. If you build Laravel apps and need a CMS foundation with user management, roles/permissions, and a module system already wired up, VaahCMS gives you that starting point. It's designed more as a rapid development platform than a traditional CMS. You build modules that plug into the framework. The admin panel includes user management, role-based access, media management, and a taxonomy system. Modules and themes are installable through a built-in marketplace. Completely free under MIT. No paid tier. For a Laravel-based CMS, Statamic is more polished (free for solo, $259/yr for pro). For a full headless CMS that works with any stack, Strapi, Directus, or Payload CMS are all established with large communities. If you specifically need PHP, WordPress still dominates for a reason: the ecosystem is unmatched. Ghost is the best option for content-focused publishing. The catch: this is a very small project with near-zero community activity. The documentation exists but is thin. If you hit a wall, you're reading Laravel source code and figuring it out yourself. The admin UI feels dated compared to modern CMS options. VaahCMS fills a niche (Laravel-native modular CMS) but the ecosystem risk is too high for anything you need to maintain long-term.