CMS

Payload42.3k★

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.

Directus35.4k★

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.

emdash10.4k★

EmDash is a TypeScript-first CMS built on Astro that runs on Cloudflare Workers or Node.js. Positioned as a modern WordPress alternative for developers: sandboxed plugin architecture, portable text storage, and AI-agent-friendly APIs. MIT-licensed, fully free, and Cloudflare-native. Cloudflare deployment uses D1 (SQLite) and R2 for storage, which means near-zero ops overhead if you are already on Cloudflare. Node.js deployment works with local SQLite. The Astro foundation means fast builds and clean static output. But this is early-stage software: the commit count is still modest and the ecosystem is thin. Developer-first teams comfortable with beta software should experiment here. Ghost is better for publishers today. Payload CMS is the more production-hardened TypeScript option. EmDash's appeal is the Astro integration and Cloudflare-native deployment story, especially for teams already running edge infrastructure. The catch: the plugin ecosystem barely exists. This has not proven staying power yet. Watch it for six months before building anything serious on top.

nesta902★

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.

vaahcms577★

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.