[opensourcedex]

best-of ranking · updated nightly

Best Open Source Content Management Systems (CMS) Tools

Ranked by GitHub stars — actual adoption, not editorial taste. All 10 are free, open source and self-hostable; license and last activity on every entry.

  1. 1
    hugo ★ 90K

    The world’s fastest framework for building websites.

    Apache-2.0 Go pushed 2026-09-17 details →
  2. 2
    Strapi ★ 73K

    Headless CMS with REST and GraphQL APIs out of the box

    NOASSERTION TypeScript pushed 2026-09-17 details →
  3. 3
    Payload ★ 45K

    Headless CMS for developers, built with Node.js

    MIT TypeScript pushed 2026-09-17 details →
  4. 4
    halo ★ 40K

    Halo 是一款强大易用的开源建站工具，从个人博客、知识库，到企业官网、在线商城，Halo 都能助您轻松实现，一站式满足您的多样化建站需求。

    GPL-3.0 Java pushed 2026-09-17 details →
  5. 5
    filament ★ 32K

    A powerful open-source UI framework for Laravel • Build and ship apps & admin panels fast with Livewire

    MIT PHP pushed 2026-09-17 details →
  6. 6
    wagtail ★ 21K

    A Django content management system focused on flexibility and user experience

    BSD-3-Clause Python pushed 2026-09-17 details →
  7. 7
    decap-cms ★ 19K

    A Git-based CMS for Static Site Generators

    MIT JavaScript pushed 2026-09-17 details →
  8. 8
    TinaCMS ★ 14K

    Visual editing for your Git-based content

    Apache-2.0 TypeScript pushed 2026-09-17 details →
  9. 9
    frappe ★ 11K

    Low code web framework for real world applications, in Python and Javascript

    MIT Python pushed 2026-09-17 details →
  10. 10
    Instatic ★ 8.7K

    The open-source alternative to Webflow, Framer and WordPress. Agentic self-hosted visual CMS outputting clean static pages. Users, roles, plugins, content, data

    MIT TypeScript pushed 2026-09-13 details →
method stars desc · snapshot from github api refresh nightly related Blogging & Personal Sites, Learning Management Systems (LMS), Publishing, Digital Asset Management (DAM), Community Platforms, Documentation & Knowledge Base

Related best-of lists

best Blogging & Personal Sites →best Learning Management Systems (LMS) →best Publishing →best Digital Asset Management (DAM) →best Community Platforms →best Documentation & Knowledge Base →

last updated nightly · ranking method: github stars, live-tracked

Looking for a replacement for one specific commercial product? Browse alternatives by tool →

Frequently asked questions

What is the best open source Content Management Systems (CMS) tool in 2026?

hugo leads the ranking with 89,854 GitHub stars, ahead of Strapi. Rankings use live GitHub star counts, refreshed nightly.

How is this list of Content Management Systems (CMS) tools ranked?

By GitHub stars — a proxy for adoption and community size. Each entry also shows its licence, primary language and last commit date, so you can judge maintenance activity rather than trusting the ranking alone.

Are the best Content Management Systems (CMS) tools free?

Every project on this list is open source and free to self-host. Some also offer paid managed hosting, but the software itself carries no licence fee.