Open-source Adobe Experience Manager alternatives

Wagtail is an open-source CMS built on the Python web framework Django. It concentrates on the authoring experience, offering a fast, attractive interface for editors, while developers and designers keep precise control over page structure and front-end templates. The project has a strong community and commercial support options.

Notable capabilities include StreamField, which lets editors assemble flexible content blocks without sacrificing structure, a content API for headless sites with a decoupled front end, integrated search that can use Elasticsearch or PostgreSQL, good handling of images and embedded media, and multi-site and multi-language readiness. The README says it can handle millions of pages and thousands of editors, and it runs anywhere from a Raspberry Pi to a multi-datacenter cloud platform.

Wagtail works with Python 3 on any platform and installs into a virtual environment, with a getting-started tutorial for setup. It is BSD-3-Clause licensed. Because it extends Django, it is a natural choice for Python teams building websites for organizations and publishers that need a customizable, editor-friendly content platform.

Django CMS is a content management system built on the Django web framework and written in Python. It is described by its maintainers as easy to use and developer friendly, and is aimed at teams that want content editing for websites inside a Django project.

Because it is a Django application, it is installed into a Django project and runs on your own infrastructure, so content editors and developers work against the same codebase. It is open source, and the repository lists its license as Other, so check the licence file for the exact terms. The project website carries documentation and installation guidance.

Umbraco is a free and open-source content management system for the .NET platform. Developers use it to build websites and digital experiences with .NET and ASP.NET Core, while editors manage content through a browser-based back office.

The homepage could not be retrieved when this entry was prepared, so details come from the repository description and metadata. The project is a .NET codebase tagged for .NET Core and ASP.NET Core. The vendor also operates a managed cloud service for hosting Umbraco sites, and an ecosystem of packages extends the core.

Umbraco is licensed under MIT, so you can self-host it on your own web servers or Windows and Linux hosting. It suits agencies and in-house .NET teams that want a flexible, extensible CMS in their existing technology stack.

ApostropheCMS is a full-stack content management system and framework built on Node.js and MongoDB. Editors change content right on the live page and see results immediately, rather than switching between a separate admin interface and a preview. Developers can work in current JavaScript, or run it as a headless back end behind any front-end framework.

The project describes its key features as in-context editing and headless readiness, so teams can pick between a traditional website approach and a decoupled one. It is positioned for developers and content teams who want a unified JavaScript environment from the database to the browser. Documentation, a demo and a roadmap are linked from the repository, and topics include the Jamstack and website builder keywords.

The repository metadata does not state a license, so check the project terms before adopting it. ApostropheCMS runs on your own Node.js hosting with a MongoDB database. It suits organizations wanting an editor-friendly CMS written in JavaScript.

Drupal is an open-source content management platform that supports websites ranging from personal weblogs to large community-driven sites. This GitHub repository is a verbatim mirror of the Drupal core repository on git.drupal.org, and pull requests are not accepted here.

Development takes place on Drupal.org, which has hosted the international Drupal community since 2001 and provides the GitLab repository, issue queue and documentation. Contributors use issue forks and merge requests. The core feature set can be extended with thousands of free, open-source modules, and many projects can be built mostly by assembling those modules before writing custom code.

Drupal keeps detailed change records covering notable breaking changes and new features since 2011, publishes security advisories through a page and RSS feed, and describes a formal security process. The software is written in PHP, and, as is widely known, it is released under the GPL.

Pimcore is an open core platform built for Product Experience Management. It offers an API-driven base for handling digital data and the customer experience, pairing a core framework with a modular set of extensions for product information management, master data management, digital asset management, customer data platform, a digital experience platform with CMS, and digital commerce.

A central idea is to keep data separate from any channel and send it to any destination, such as websites, apps, print or marketplaces. The code is PHP, and the project links to documentation, a live demo, a discussion forum and issue tracker. The README states that everything is licensed under the Pimcore Open Core License, shown as 'Other' on GitHub, so read it to see what the free core and extensions include.

Pimcore is self-hosted on your own infrastructure, with commercial support and cloud services available from the vendor. It suits mid-sized and larger organizations that need a single source of truth for product and content data across channels.

Sulu is an open-source PHP content management system built on the Symfony framework. It is meant for robust multilingual and multi-portal websites, and it provides an administration interface for managing the whole content lifecycle that can be extended by developers.

This repository holds the core framework that implements the CMS functionality and is a dependency of every Sulu project. To start a new site, developers use the sulu/skeleton project template, and the Sulu organization on GitHub lists official bundles for extending existing projects. Documentation covers installation and usage, and community help is offered through Slack and GitHub Discussions.

The project is community-driven and backed by partner companies, with a transparent development process. It is written in PHP, licensed under MIT and runs on your own hosting. It suits PHP and Symfony agencies and teams building custom content-heavy sites that need flexibility beyond what an off-the-shelf blogging CMS gives.

TYPO3 is an open-source, PHP-based content management system released under the GNU GPL. It was created by Kasper Skårhøj and is developed today by a community of contributors and the TYPO3 Core Development Team. This repository is a synchronized mirror of the core packages, which are reviewed on the project's own code review system.

It describes itself as a content management framework, meaning the streamlined core is separated from optional extensions, and an open API lets developers extend both the website frontend and the administration backend. Many ready-made extensions are available, or you can write your own. TYPO3 runs on web servers such as Apache, nginx or IIS, on Linux, Windows, FreeBSD and macOS, and uses a database such as MySQL.

The backend is accessed through a supported browser, and the installation guide explains how to set up a basic installation on your server. TYPO3 is self-hosted, with documentation and community resources linked from the README, and it is aimed at agencies and organizations building large, multilingual and customized sites. The repository lists the GPL-2.0 licence.

DNN, formerly known as DotNetNuke, is an open-source web content management platform built for the Microsoft ecosystem. It is used to build commercial websites, social intranets, community portals and partner extranets, and handles dynamic content of many types with sites that are straightforward to deploy and update.

Built-in features include a single installation with multi-site capability, file and folder management, localization with six languages out of the box, customizable site templates and themes, Azure compatibility, many REST APIs for site and content management, a drag-and-drop interface with an in-place rich-text editor, and administration tools such as security roles, protected content, SEO, a scheduler, SSL support and taxonomy. It is extensible through custom modules, with third-party extensions and skins available in the DNN Store.

DNN is written in C# and licensed under MIT, and runs on your own Windows and .NET hosting. The project has a community website, forums, documentation and a contribution process with a versioning policy and release schedule. It suits organizations and developers who already work in the Microsoft stack and want a mature open-source CMS.

dotCMS is an enterprise content management system that combines headless delivery with visual page editing. Content teams can edit pages in a visual editor, while developers consume the same content through REST and GraphQL APIs from any front-end stack, including single-page apps and server-rendered sites.

The platform supports multi-tenancy, so one instance can host many sites in many languages, such as microsites, brand sites or intranets. Content and assets are indexed in Elasticsearch for real-time and faceted search, and can also be vectorized for semantic search in AI applications. Marketing features include personalization, rules and A/B testing, plus custom workflows, roles and permissions, push and static publishing, and an OSGi-based plugin architecture.

dotCMS ships as a Docker image for self-hosting and also as dotCMS Cloud, a managed product. The code is public under the Business Source License 1.1, and the README says it is free for organizations with total finances under $5,000,000 USD; larger organizations should read the license terms.