About Fae
Fae is a CMS engine for Rails applications. Like many Rails CMS engines it provides the basics out of the box: authentication, authorization, an administration UI, form helpers, image processing and workflows, so developers can get a content admin running quickly.
Where it differs, according to its authors, is that the generated models, controllers and views are written to be customized and scaled. Features include global search, filtering, pagination and sorting, multi-language support with translation, cloning, a change tracker, slug generation, a manager for form field labels and helper text, a Netlify deploy monitor, and multi-factor authentication through OTP.
Fae 3.x supports Rails 7, and Fae 2.x covers Rails 5.0 to 5.2. Installation is a gem plus an installer, followed by creating a super admin at /admin, and the documentation includes tutorials for SEO, GraphQL, images and files, and nested objects. It is MIT licensed and runs on your own Rails hosting.
Key features
- Generated models, controllers and views
- Authentication and authorization built in
- Image processing and file uploads
- Multi-language support
- Change tracker and cloning
- OTP-based multi-factor authentication
- GraphQL and SEO tutorials
Good fit for
- →Admin back ends for Rails sites
- →Content-managed marketing sites
- Tags
- cms
- rails
- ruby
- rails-engine
- admin
- content-management
- graphql
Fae: questions and answers
- What is Fae used for?
- Fae is a Ruby on Rails CMS engine that supplies authentication, authorization, form helpers, image processing and workflows with customizable generated code. It is a good fit for admin back ends for Rails sites and content-managed marketing sites.
- Is Fae open source?
- Yes. Fae is open source under the MIT licence. Its source code is on GitHub at wearefine/fae and is written mainly in Ruby.
- Is Fae free?
- Yes. Fae is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
- Can I self-host Fae?
- Yes. Fae can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
- What are some alternatives to Fae?
- Similar open-source tools in the CMS category include Spina CMS, AlchemyCMS and Strapi. SaaS products in the same category include Adobe Experience Manager, Contentful and DatoCMS.
- Is Fae actively maintained?
- Yes. The most recent commit to Fae was on 1 October 2026. The project has 852 stars on GitHub.
Open-source alternatives to Fae
See all
Spina CMS
CMS
Spina CMS
OSS★ 2.3k
AlchemyCMS
CMS
Alchemy is the Open Source Rails CMS framework for the component based web that can be use
BSD-3-Clause★ 905
Strapi
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🚀 Strapi is the leading open-source headless CMS. It’s 100% JavaScript/TypeScript, fully
OSSvs Contentstack★ 73k
Sulu
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Core framework that implements the functionality of the Sulu content management system
MITvs Sitecore★ 1.4k
Cockpit CMS
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Cockpit Core - Content Platform
OSSvs Storyblok★ 750
PropertyWebBuilder
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Create a fully featured real estate website on Rails in minutes! ⛺
MIT★ 644
SaaS alternatives to Fae
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Adobe Experience Manager
CMS
Enterprise content management and digital asset management for websites and brand content
SaaS
Contentful
CMS
Headless CMS and content platform with APIs, structured content and localization
SaaS
DatoCMS
CMS
Headless CMS with a GraphQL API and image CDN
SaaS
Hashnode
CMS
Developer blogging platform with custom domains and a community feed
SaaS
Hygraph
CMS
GraphQL-native headless CMS with content federation
SaaS
Sitecore
CMS
Enterprise digital experience platform with CMS, personalization and commerce
SaaS

