The papaya CMS is designed for large-scale web projects, primarily catering to businesses and organisations. It boasts a modular structure with a variety of flexible, customisable features. This adaptability makes it an ideal choice for building accessible websites.

High performance from the Rhine in Germany

In its early years, papaya CMS was distributed as commercial software, but it has been open-source and free since 2005. The Cologne-based papaya Software GmbH is responsible for the program’s development and consistently provides updates to users. In addition to creating traditional websites, the software is also suitable as an application framework for developing custom web apps and applications, as well as for implementing intranet and extranet projects.

papaya CMS is written in PHP and supports databases like MySQL, SQLite, and PostgreSQL. The system is highly scalable and offers excellent performance, primarily due to its comprehensive caching mechanism: By caching data in the XML format, database queries are avoided, and content only needs to be converted into the target format (such as HTML or PDF).

If flexibility in the output format is not required, papaya CMS can bypass the conversion and directly cache the content as static HTML or PDF files. The system can be configured to the second to control how long the content stays in the cache.

Note

The current version of papaya CMS is 6.15.3. The latest update was released on 06/04/2022. Currently, there are no public indications that further updates or new versions are planned.

Wide variety of formats and accessibility

Like many other CMS, papaya separates the frontend and backend. The website content stored as XML files in the backend is rendered in the frontend using XSLT templates. By using XSLT (an open, XML-based programming language), papaya templates can output almost all text-based formats (e.g., HTML, news feeds, PDF, etc.).

The basic version of the program already includes several different website layouts and templates that can be modified and customised with CSS. Additionally, it is possible to create entirely custom papaya templates, though XSLT knowledge is required.

Another unique feature of the papaya CMS is its use of UTF-8 character encoding. UTF-8 is the most widely used encoding for Unicode characters and ensures the correct use of characters in all languages.

Accessibility since 2025

papaya CMS supports accessible websites in the UK through its use of open standards like PHP, XML, and XSLT, enabling clean, valid markup and strict separation of content and layout. This foundation aligns with WCAG guidelines, helping meet the Equality Act 2010’s requirement for businesses to make reasonable digital adjustments, while public sector bodies must adhere to WCAG 2.1 AA under the 2018 Regulations. However, accessibility is not automatic—modern features like ARIA optimisations, accessible navigation, and UI components require custom XSLT development, making compliance dependent on the project team’s expertise, frontend choices, and ongoing maintenance, particularly with limited core updates since 2022.

Overview of papaya’s features

papaya CMS offers a variety of core features, as outlined in the following summary:

  • Freely scalable
  • Versatile caching functions
  • Detailed user roles and permissions system for content management
  • Multilingual content is fully supported
  • Creation and management of multiple websites
  • Versioning of content is possible at any time
  • Comprehensive usage analysis of activities in the front and backend via the statistics module
  • WYSIWYG editor
  • Logically structured, step-by-step user interface
  • Media database

Additionally, papaya CMS ensures SEO-friendly websites, as several features for search engine optimisation are built-in standard functions (metadata, search engine-friendly URLs, valid XHTML, etc.).

Papaya CMS powers around 1,800 sites globally, mostly businesses and organisations in Europe, with a niche in accessible, scalable projects.

Extensions and requirements for papaya CMS

The core modules integrated into papaya CMS can be expanded with additional ones, offering both free and paid extensions. While the selection of free plugins is smaller compared to market leaders like WordPress, Joomla, and TYPO3, free modules are available for download from GitHub. Specialised extensions can be purchased directly from the manufacturer. Additionally, papaya software offers paid services such as customer support, papaya training, and full site design and implementation.

For less experienced webmasters, setting up and modifying a papaya CMS project may require support, as it is a sophisticated CMS. While editorial tasks like creating and editing pages are relatively easy to learn, developers extending or creating custom modules will need significant expertise in object-oriented programming, as well as proficiency in PHP, XML, XSLT, and SQL.

Limitations of papaya

Even though papaya CMS offers many features and advantages, there are some considerations to keep in mind before adopting it:

  • Small community: Compared to WordPress, Joomla, or TYPO3, the developer and user base is relatively small, which limits support, community engagement, and available extensions.
  • Limited plugin/extension landscape: There are few free extensions available; many modules need to be self-developed or purchased directly from the manufacturer.
  • Not ideal for modern frontend frameworks: The classic XSLT-based rendering approach is less compatible with modern headless, API, or SPA (Single Page Application) architectures.

papaya is a comprehensive but demanding CMS

Those without extensive experience in setting up and managing a complex content management system should not expect an easy start with papaya CMS since a powerful CMS comes with certain requirements. Technical know-how is beneficial, especially since its installation is more complex compared to some competing software.

That being said, this shouldn’t be a deterrent. Anyone with basic skills in managing a content management system will find papaya CMS to be a robust and capable tool. However, some familiarity with the programming languages used by papaya will be helpful.

Editing and using an already set-up system is easy for beginners to learn. As long as the web project is in capable hands, web design with papaya CMS offers few limitations. Additionally, the program stands out with its unique XML/XSLT approach and its suitability for accessible web design. The Cologne-based developers prove that a CMS from Germany can hold its own against the competition.

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