CMS com­par­is­on 2023: The most popular content man­age­ment systems

Numerous content man­age­ment solutions by major project com­munit­ies are available open source. These are referred to as open source software. With open source CMS, the system and the program code are freely ac­cess­ible, and the source code can, in principle, be viewed by anyone. Users are allowed to make changes, im­prove­ments, and ex­ten­sions, and to adapt the CMS to in­di­vidu­al re­quire­ments.

The opposite of open source software is pro­pri­et­ary software. Here, the CMS is developed by a par­tic­u­lar company and dis­trib­uted as a com­mer­cial project. The use of pro­pri­et­ary man­age­ment systems is usually as­so­ci­ated with the ac­quis­i­tion of a paid license. The source code is not available to users.

Open source software, on the other hand, is often available without licensing costs. Such solutions are therefore par­tic­u­larly at­tract­ive for companies from an economic stand­point. In terms of tech­no­lo­gic­al de­vel­op­ments, es­tab­lished open source CMS systems are no worse than the 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.

But how high is the share of open source ap­plic­a­tions in the global market in com­par­is­on to pro­pri­et­ary solutions for website operation?

The 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 of course not equally suited to every in­di­vidu­al purpose. Here, we put together the main functions, ap­plic­a­tion types, and system re­quire­ments of different content man­age­ment systems. Our pro and con tables should help you make your decision.

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 5.6

• Webserver: Every server with PHP and MySQL/MariaDB support (re­com­men­ded: Apache or NGINX)
• Mid­dle­ware: PHP 7.4 or higher
• Database: MySQL 5.6 or higher, MariaDB 10.1 or higher
• Other re­com­mend­a­tions: HTTPS support

The software’s large user community benefits from an enormous selection of themes, plugins, and widgets. But critics 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 have to update their WordPress software fairly regularly with security updates. These updates come out quickly after security incidents but aren’t always com­pat­ible with all the ex­ten­sions that are required for effective use of the software. As a result, software updates can be as­so­ci­ated with con­sid­er­able ad­min­is­trat­ive effort, es­pe­cially in the case of large projects.

Because of its low-effort, basic in­stall­a­tion, WordPress is good for small and simply struc­tured websites. Es­pe­cially for bloggers, who want to provide their visitors with fre­quently changing content in at­tract­ive layouts, WordPress is an effective CMS with an intuitive web interface. As the com­plex­ity of the online project increases, though, the user-friend­li­ness of the software sig­ni­fic­antly decreases. Large en­ter­prise projects can the­or­et­ic­ally be im­ple­men­ted too, but in such a case, the greater number of functions is in­ev­it­ably ac­com­pan­ied by an increase in ad­min­is­trat­ive effort.

If you’re striving for stable website operation, WordPress places high demands on the server as your visitor traffic increases. Users who are trying to develop complex multi-domain projects with a mul­ti­lin­gual focus should choose a CMS like TYPO3 instead of WordPress for their purpose.

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In­ter­ested in the leading CMS program? You can find further in­form­a­tion on the popular blogging software in our WordPress basics article.

Facts

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

System re­quire­ments for Joomla! 3.x

• Webserver: Apache HTTP Server 2.0 (2.4 re­com­men­ded) with mod_mysql, mod_xml, and mod_zlib, NGINX 1.0 (1.8 or higher is re­com­men­ded), MS IIS 7
• Mid­dle­ware: PHP 5.3.10 (7.3 or higher re­com­men­ded)
• Database: MySQl 5.1 with InnoDB support (5.5.3 or higher re­com­men­ded), MS SQL server 10.50.1600.1 (10.50.1600.1 or higher re­com­men­ded), Post­gr­eSQL 8.3.18 (9.1 or higher re­com­men­ded)

Joomla! is the de­vel­op­ment of the open source CMS Mambo. The system is par­tic­u­larly popular in the USA, and is char­ac­ter­ised by a com­pletely object-oriented software design 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, 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.

Joomla! divides ex­ten­sions into plugins, com­pon­ents, modules, templates and languages. These can be used in the backend as well as the frontend, which is sometimes ir­rit­at­ing to users. The rights man­age­ment and approval processes are oc­ca­sion­ally seen as lacking for larger projects. Ex­ten­sions help – but are not always available for free.

Deeper insight into the function spectrum of the user-friendly open source CMS is provided by our Joomla! basics article.

Facts

• Very flexible, modular layout
• Slim basic in­stall­a­tion with more than 46,000 extension modules
• Focus on social pub­lish­ing and community projects
• More than 1100 dis­tri­bu­tions as a complete solution for typical ap­plic­a­tions

System re­quire­ments for Drupal 9

• Webserver: Apache 2.4.7 or higher, NGINX 0.7.x or higher, MS IIS, or any other webserver with PHP support
• Mid­dle­ware: PHP 7.3 or higher
• Database: MySQL 5.7.8 or higher, MariaDB 10.3.7, Percona server 5.7.8 or higher, Post­gr­eSQL 10 or higher (with PDO), SQLite 3.26 or higher

The CMS Drupal offers extensive op­por­tun­it­ies for cus­tom­isa­tion with its modular layout. Users who know exactly what they need can spare them­selves the manual com­pil­a­tion of 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 for 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 instinct. If the basic functions of the software aren’t suf­fi­cient, then ad­di­tion­al modules will have to be installed manually via FTP. This can be a complex process. Updating ex­ten­sions is sometimes difficult, as these are not always com­pat­ible with the backend.

The central ap­plic­a­tion of Drupal is the layout of social pub­lish­ing and community platforms. The CMS boasts a flexible, modular system for highly dynamic platforms based on user-generated content.

See our basics of Drupal basics article for more in­form­a­tion and tips.

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 10 LTS

• Webserver: Apache (re­com­men­ded), MS IIS, NGINX, Caddy Server
• Mid­dle­ware: PHP 7.2 or higher
• Database: MySQL 5.5 or higher, MariaDB 10.2, MS SQL Server,  Post­gr­eSQL, SQLite
• Hardware: At least 256 MB RAM
• Other re­com­mend­a­tions: Graph­ic­sMa­gick or Im­ageMa­gick; GDlib; Freetype; ylib; 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 offers a large community, which provides quick and easy help for beginners with technical problems or questions. There are also numerous pro­fes­sion­al providers who spe­cial­ise in TYPO3 support and provide agency services to business users.

Pro­fes­sion­al use of the high-per­form­ance CMS requires expert knowledge. With this, even complex site struc­tures with mul­ti­lin­gual content can be soundly im­ple­men­ted. The con­sid­er­able range of functions ensures pro­fes­sion­al rights man­age­ment at the en­ter­prise level and provides in­ter­faces for classic business ap­plic­a­tions, such as CRM and ERP systems. On the other hand, critics point to the long training period required and com­par­at­ively high ad­min­is­tra­tion effort.

The giant spectrum of functions offered by TYPO3 makes it possible to implement any kind of online project. But this comes at a con­sid­er­able expense for in­stall­a­tion, con­fig­ur­a­tion, and main­ten­ance. The prom­in­ence and good repu­ta­tion of the software con­trib­ute to its use by com­par­at­ively small websites. In this case, users are usually expending much more effort than they need to. If the entire spectrum of functions offered by the en­ter­prise CMS isn’t required, then website operators would generally be better served by a modular software with slim basic in­stall­a­tion. For complex projects run by ex­per­i­enced IT spe­cial­ists, though, TYPO3 is the optimal found­a­tion for a suc­cess­ful online presence.

If TYPO3 is used for large and complex projects, the in­stall­a­tion should take place within the framework of a hosting package. Find further in­form­a­tion about TYPO3, as well as a detailed de­scrip­tion of the con­sid­er­able range of functions, in our basics of TYPO3 article.

Facts

• User-friendly CMS with large range of functions
• More than 1,400 available ex­ten­sions
• Mul­ti­lin­gual backend
• Online demo
• 2-factor au­then­tic­a­tion (from Contao 4.6)

System re­quire­ments for Contao 4.9 Long Term Support (LTS)

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

The software’s basic con­fig­ur­a­tion already has a com­pre­hens­ive range of functions that can be flexibly adapted to in­di­vidu­al needs with more than 1,900 available ex­ten­sions. The CMS system also offers an in­teg­rated theme manager. This makes it possible to in­di­vidu­ally configure the design and layout of a website based on Contao with the help of pre-designed modules. In addition, website owners are offered pro­fes­sion­al themes for various ap­plic­a­tion types and in­dus­tries via the Contao website. These themes must usually 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 error cor­rec­tions and security updates, but no new features. The LTS version is stable and re­com­men­ded for active websites.

In addition, there is a de­vel­op­ing version, provided with bug fixes and security updates for half a year and contains new features that are not included in the LTS version and will only be included 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, enable a quick in­tro­duc­tion to website creation. Server com­pat­ib­il­ity can be ensured by 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 and no wish is left un­answered – even when it comes to search engine op­tim­isa­tion and web analysis.

Only multi-level workflows can’t be im­ple­men­ted with Contao in the standard con­fig­ur­a­tion.

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

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 other systems such as shop, CRM, or ERP solutions

System re­quire­ments Neos CMS 7.x:

• Web server: Apache, NGINX#
• Mid­dle­ware: PHP >= 7.3.0 (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 the motto, but what Neos strives to achieve in their day to day. Right from the start, Neos was designed to be es­pe­cially user-friendly. The focus is on so-called inline editing: a real WYSIWYG editor. In contrast to other, classic 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, they edit the content directly in the layout of the later page.

The same applies to different display formats such as a tablet, smart­phone, or the display of 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 optimised for different channels.

Another special feature is the so-called ‘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 for different target groups (gender, culture, country, region, etc.) Marketing campaigns can thus be con­trolled in a targeted manner. The main­ten­ance of large quant­it­ies of multi-sites in a Neos system is also part of 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, Neos easily in­teg­rates into existing processes.

Despite its focus on content, Neos is not ‘just’ a CMS. Neos was developed for in­teg­ra­tion and ex­tens­ib­il­ity. It 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 are in addition to classic websites, by allowing the user to create complex projects. The in­teg­ra­tion of third-party software, con­nec­tion to external systems (ERP, CRM, etc.), shop in­teg­ra­tions, and so on are all achiev­able with Neos. Existing ex­ten­sions can be easily installed via Composer (e.g., Google Analytics, IBM Watson, Elast­ic­search, etc.).

Nothing stands in the way of in­di­vidu­al ex­ten­sions either. Neos 4.0 in­tro­duced the Assets API. This enabled direct access to external media resources (Google Drive, Dropbox, OwnCloud, etc.). You can also ef­fort­lessly 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 a publisher’s online content directly from Neos to a printable InDesign template - including special markups for prepress. 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 the in­teg­ra­tion of machine learning or the re­im­ple­ment­a­tion of the Neos Content Re­pos­it­ory with CQRS and Event­Sourcing. The latter makes Neos par­tic­u­larly in­ter­est­ing for banks, insurance companies, and public au­thor­it­ies, as it saves various content revisions safely from later changes.

While other CMS rely on premade 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 code of the website stays neat and the structure of the stored files is also logically organised: Instead of using chro­no­lo­gic­ally ordered folders, Craft users specify rules for which file type belongs in which directory.

Craft also has a clear backend where content editors can easily find their way around and get new articles online. There have also been in­di­vidu­al plugins developed for the sleek CMS that extend its range of functions. That the CMS was developed for pro­fes­sion­al de­velopers is reflected in the pricing: If you’re only creating a website for yourself, you can get a free license. But if you want to develop websites for other users, you’ll have to purchase a license.

Grav places a high value on speed, but doesn’t disregard the aesthetic aspect. On the official website, you can find both the in­stall­a­tion data (a small ZIP archive) as well as over 100 themes that can be used to customise the design. You can also extend the func­tion­al­ity with more than 350 plugins, with which you can set up the backend for ad­min­is­tra­tion work, for example. If you don’t want to assemble all settings and ex­ten­sions yourself, you can also use a skeleton: A pre­con­figured package that already contains sample websites.

Like with Grav, for Kirby it’s suf­fi­cient that users only upload the few files of the starter kit to the server (Apache 2, NGINX, LiteSpeed, Caddy). Only PHP needs to be available for this. In principle, it’s also 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, clear backend.

Since the CMS does without a backend, and therefore also without a cor­res­pond­ing WYSIWYG editor, Pico isn’t suitable for handing over content creation to an editorial team. De­velopers, on the other hand, will find the work much easier since there aren’t any settings hidden away in complex databases. All con­fig­ur­a­tions are in their own text file. This makes the flat file CMS very suitable for small projects. Pico and its range of functions can also be extended with various available themes and plugins.

The original de­vel­op­ment started with a Dutch marketing company that created a CMS with Bolt for creating websites for their customers. By now, the open source project is also supported by others. But Bolt is still aimed at web de­velopers – both for the initial creation of the website as well as the ad­di­tion­al con­fig­ur­a­tion. Bolt does have a clear backend in which editors can create content. But work with the CMS is not as intuitive and sim­pli­fied as to be expected from WordPress, for example.

The first obstacle on the way to im­ple­ment­ing a CMS-supported online project is the in­stall­a­tion of the chosen software solution. The more complex the system, the more costly the in­stall­a­tion and upkeep. Joomla! and WordPress com­pensate by using 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 slim basic in­stall­a­tion process. But many functions require ad­di­tion­al modules, which can only be installed with dif­fi­culty via FTP.

The in­stall­a­tion of the self-contained en­ter­prise content man­age­ment system TYPO3 is also 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 have an es­tab­lished knowledge of the software in­stall­a­tion, con­fig­ur­a­tion, and ad­min­is­tra­tion.

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

Ex­pand­ab­il­ity through ex­ten­sions, plugins, widgets, or modules is available in all content man­age­ment systems presented here. Multiple functions can only be used based on ex­ten­sions. The com­par­is­on table shows which features are supported natively and which require ad­di­tion­al in­stall­a­tion.

Website operators rely on CMS 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 pro­gram­ming knowledge. Central selection criteria include an intuitive WYSIWYG editor with preview functions and spellcheck­er, import cap­ab­il­it­ies for non-textual elements like videos, in­ter­act­ive flash an­im­a­tions, 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 an available tagging system with which the content can be organised according to mean­ing­ful keywords.

If news pub­lish­ing is the focus, the CMS should support blogging func­tion­al­it­ies that enable the promotion of new content over web feeds and provide available reader feedback channels, 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.

High-value content is key to a suc­cess­ful website. Here, search engine op­tim­iz­a­tion plays an in­creas­ingly important role. Website operators who want to conquer a top spot in the search engine rankings also need to fulfill certain technical re­quire­ments. These concern the URL structure of an online project, the design of meta-in­form­a­tion, and the ori­ent­a­tion of the layout on mobile devices.

All of the open source solutions in our CMS com­par­is­on offer users the pos­sib­il­ity to rewrite para­met­er­ized URLs in a “talking” URL scheme that can be in­ter­preted by both human users and search engines. Not every CMS natively supports this function without ex­ten­sions.

An essential influence on search engine rankings is meta-in­form­a­tion, like the title and de­scrip­tion of a webpage. These are displayed to users together with the URL as a snippet in the search result and serve as a teaser animating the user to click. All presented open source systems offer users the op­por­tun­ity to manually create in­di­vidu­al meta-in­form­a­tion for the subpage of online projects.

The rising number of mobile views has changed the demands that users put on internet present­a­tions. Operators who still base the layout of their website ex­clus­ively on desktop users lose potential visitors and will find a decline in search engine rankings. The im­ple­ment­a­tion of new online projects should make the issue of mobile-friendly present­a­tion a priority. In principle, CMS systems coun­ter­act users by strictly sep­ar­at­ing content and present­a­tion. For all presented solutions, you’ll find templates which auto­mat­ic­ally adjust the display size to different user devices in the scope of re­spons­ive designs. But be warned: They’re not all available for free.

Service and support are deciding factors for the selection of a CMS. Small and medium-sized en­ter­prises can’t afford to pay for the services of pro­fes­sion­al agencies in the con­cep­tion, im­ple­ment­a­tion, and main­ten­ance of the web presence.

Crucial for safe operation is whether or not the open source CMS has the necessary in­form­a­tion available, as well as resources in the form of themes, plugins, and regular updates. In our CMS com­par­is­on, we con­cen­trate ex­clus­ively on systems that have a large user and developer community and provide users with all necessary in­form­a­tion for secure de­ploy­ment in a detailed project doc­u­ment­a­tion. All projects offer public release plans, regular software updates, and a trans­par­ent security protocol.