Open-source Showit alternatives

WordPress is a content management system and publishing platform for building websites, blogs and apps. People write and organize content in a browser-based editor, choose how the site looks with themes, and publish without writing code. Its own site describes it as the platform behind millions of websites, from creators and small businesses to enterprises.

Design and editing are built around blocks, so pages can be assembled and rearranged visually with a live preview as content changes. Styling can be adjusted for different screen sizes and interactive states without writing CSS. Functionality is extended through a large library of plugins that add features such as stores, analytics, newsletters and social media integration.

The software is written in PHP and is open source; the GitHub repository is a read-only mirror of the project's Subversion repository, with development happening elsewhere. You can run it on your own hosting, and a managed service is also available through WordPress.com. It suits individual bloggers, small businesses and larger organizations alike.

Instatic is a self-hosted content management system with a visual editor, content engine and publisher all running in a single Bun server. It is presented as an open-source alternative to Webflow, Framer and WordPress, and aims to replace the usual pile of separate services for CMS, framework, hosting, forms and analytics.

One server holds the canvas editor, content engine, media, authentication, forms, plugins and the publisher, with users, roles and a database included, backed by SQLite or Postgres. Pages it generates are plain semantic HTML with compact CSS, without framework runtime or builder attributes, so they behave like static files. The README suggests one-click deployment on Railway, with options for Render and Docker or a VPS with Caddy TLS.

Instatic is MIT licensed and very new: the repository was created in April 2026 and the latest release is v0.0.20, so expect rapid change. It targets developers, designers and small businesses who want to own their site stack and keep the published output lean.

Webstudio is a visual development platform, released as open source, for developers, designers and cross-functional teams, and is presented as an alternative to Webflow. It is a visual builder that connects to any headless CMS and supports all CSS properties, and you own the data, components and infrastructure.

You can choose the hosted version or deploy your own instance, and the topics mention Cloudflare Workers, React, Remix and accessibility via Radix UI. The project provides a blog, documentation, a roadmap and an issue tracker for the builder, and a community on Discord.

Licensing is split. The Webstudio core, meaning all functionality in the repository, is free and open source under AGPL-3.0-or-later, while the optional sdk-components-animation package is proprietary and requires accepting the Webstudio, Inc. EULA. It is written in TypeScript. It suits designers and developers who want Webflow-style visual building with the option to self-host.

Microweber combines a drag-and-drop page builder with a content management system on the PHP Laravel framework. It aims to let people create websites, online stores and blogs without technical skills, while still giving developers a modern code base to extend.

The README describes an array of modules, customizations and features tailored for e-commerce, and the current 2.0 version runs on Laravel 10. A shopping cart and content management features sit alongside the visual editor, and the documentation covers system requirements, installation and getting started. Topics include website builder and drag-and-drop.

Microweber is MIT-licensed and can be installed on your own hosting. It suits small businesses, freelancers and agencies that want to build a site or store visually, on an open-source PHP stack they can still modify.

Silex is a visual builder for static websites that can also pull in dynamic data. You design pages visually and export standard HTML and CSS that can be hosted anywhere, so there is no proprietary format, forced hosting, or subscription. It is released under the AGPL-3.0 license and presented as an open alternative to Webflow.

It is maintained by Silex Labs, a non-profit organization, and describes itself as free forever with all features included and no premium tier. It follows JAMstack practices, uses the GrapesJS editor according to its topics, and can pull content from WordPress through GraphQL. An MCP server is also mentioned among the project topics, and a desktop app can be downloaded alongside the online version.

You can try Silex online or run it yourself with Node.js. It suits web agencies, WordPress developers, freelance designers, and no-code builders who want a visual workflow with output they fully own. Because the output is standard web files, learning it also builds transferable HTML, CSS, and JAMstack skills.

Frappe Builder is a low-code website builder designed for simplicity, speed, and flexibility. Designers can lay out pages visually, and developers can customize them. A click-to-publish option covers the end-to-end process of making a site live. It is part of the Frappe ecosystem, written with Python, Vue, and TypeScript, and released under the MIT license.

The author says existing tools were too complex, too restrictive, or hard to integrate with Frappe, and that pages made with them often carried unnecessary scripts and styles. Builder aims to produce lean pages. The topics mention responsive layouts, Figma, a CMS, ERPNext website integration, and an AI website builder.

It suits teams already running Frappe or ERPNext who want to design public pages such as landing pages and marketing sites without leaving the platform, and developers who want a visual tool that integrates with their Frappe data. Documentation and a project website are available.

Vvveb is a self-hosted CMS for building websites, blogs and online stores. It combines a drag-and-drop page builder with publishing tools such as revisions, media management, multi-user access and role permissions, plus localization and multi-language support.

For selling online it adds one-page checkout, subscriptions, digital assets, vouchers and coupons, and product options, attributes, variants, reviews and questions. A marketplace allows themes and plugins to be installed from the admin dashboard, custom fields, posts and products are supported, and a plugin system with events enables extensions. It can also run as a hybrid headless CMS through GraphQL and REST APIs.

The project highlights a small resource footprint, caching that makes pages load like static files, a bundled SEO plugin, brute-force and SQL injection protection, a hidden admin login page and an install where only one PHP file is publicly exposed. It needs PHP 7.4 or later, with 8.3 recommended, and a MySQL, SQLite or PostgreSQL driver. It is licensed under AGPL-3.0.