What is Wagtail used for?

Wagtail is a CMS built on Django that gives editors a polished interface and developers full control over structure and front-end design. It is a good fit for organization and publisher websites on Django; headless content backends; and multi-language, multi-site content platforms.

Is Wagtail open source?

Yes. Wagtail is open source under the BSD-3-Clause licence. Its source code is on GitHub at wagtail/wagtail and is written mainly in Python.

Yes. Wagtail is open source, so the software itself is free to use.

Can I self-host Wagtail?

Yes. Wagtail can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.

What is Wagtail an alternative to?

Wagtail is an open-source alternative to Sitecore, Optimizely, Contentstack and Adobe Experience Manager. Other open-source alternatives to Sitecore include dotCMS, Umbraco CMS and TYPO3.

Is Wagtail actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to Wagtail was on 1 October 2026, and the latest release is v8.0, published on 25 August 2026. The project has 21k stars on GitHub.

Wagtail: open-source alternative to Sitecore, Optimizely

About Wagtail

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.

Key features

Editor-friendly admin interface
StreamField flexible content blocks
Content API for headless setups
Search with Elasticsearch or PostgreSQL
Multi-site and multi-language support
Image handling and embedded content

Good fit for

→Organization and publisher websites on Django
→Headless content backends
→Multi-language, multi-site content platforms

Built with: Python; Django
Tags: cms; django; python; headless-cms; content-management; multi-site; multilingual; self-hosted

Wagtail: questions and answers

What is Wagtail used for?: Wagtail is a CMS built on Django that gives editors a polished interface and developers full control over structure and front-end design. It is a good fit for organization and publisher websites on Django; headless content backends; and multi-language, multi-site content platforms.
Is Wagtail open source?: Yes. Wagtail is open source under the BSD-3-Clause licence. Its source code is on GitHub at wagtail/wagtail and is written mainly in Python.
Is Wagtail free?: Yes. Wagtail is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
Can I self-host Wagtail?: Yes. Wagtail can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
What is Wagtail an alternative to?: Wagtail is an open-source alternative to Sitecore, Optimizely, Contentstack and Adobe Experience Manager. Other open-source alternatives to Sitecore include dotCMS, Umbraco CMS and TYPO3.
Is Wagtail actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to Wagtail was on 1 October 2026, and the latest release is v8.0, published on 25 August 2026. The project has 21k stars on GitHub.