Sulu is an MIT-licensed, Symfony-based PHP content management system core framework for building multi-lingual and multi-portal websites with an extensible administration interface, aimed at PHP teams that want to own their own content platform.

What it is

This repository contains the core framework of the Sulu content management system. It implements the functionality that is built into Sulu itself, which makes it a dependency of every Sulu project rather than a standalone application. The project is written in PHP, released under the MIT License, and lives in the Symfony ecosystem, as reflected in its topics: php, symfony, cms, cmf, and admin. The framework is developed to deliver multi-lingual and multi-portal websites while providing an administration interface that covers the full content lifecycle.

The concrete problem it solves is the amount of groundwork a team would otherwise write itself on top of Symfony. Multi-lingual routing, multi-portal delivery, and administration tooling for the content lifecycle are supplied by the framework instead of being assembled per project. Teams then extend that base through the official Sulu bundles listed in the Sulu organization on GitHub, rather than patching the core. New work starts from the sulu/skeleton template repository, and this repository supplies the layer beneath it.

Key capabilities

• Requires PHP version 8.2 or higher and is compatible with Symfony versions 6.4 through 7.4.
• Delivers multi-lingual and multi-portal websites as a core design goal, not an add-on.
• Provides an intuitive and extensible administration interface for managing the full content lifecycle.
• Acts as a shared dependency: the require section of the repository's composer.json holds the up-to-date list of requirements.
• Ships under the MIT License, with the licence text in the LICENSE file at the repository root.
• Supports extension through the official Sulu bundles published in the Sulu organization, keeping core changes out of project code.
• Is backed by partner companies as a community-driven open source project with a transparent development process.

Who uses it and how

• Teams starting a new project use the sulu/skeleton pre-configured project template, which depends on this framework, instead of wiring the core themselves.
• Existing Sulu installations add official bundles from the Sulu organization when they need extra functionality, leaving the core framework untouched.
• Organisations that run multi-lingual and multi-portal websites fit the stated design target of the framework directly.
• Contributors work through pull requests against sulu/sulu, guided by the contribution guidelines, with the hacktoberfest topic indicating recurring outreach to new contributors.
• Support and discussion happen through the official Slack channel, GitHub Discussions, the Sulu account on Twitter, and StackOverflow under the sulu tag.

Getting started

Start from the sulu/skeleton repository, which provides a pre-configured project template for quick-starting development. The official Sulu documentation at docs.sulu.io covers how to use that template to begin a project; this repository is the dependency it pulls in, not the entry point.

How it compares

Sulu builds on Symfony rather than competing with it, so the relationship named in the facts is one of dependency, not rivalry. No comparable content management system is named anywhere in the supplied facts, so on the evidence available this project stands alone in this registry.

When to use it — and when not to

A self-hoster must operate a PHP 8.2 or higher runtime and a Symfony 6.4 to 7.4 application, and must keep the requirements listed in composer.json satisfied. Anyone wanting a hosted, zero-operations product, or without PHP and Symfony experience, should not start here. The trade-offs are visible in the facts: the README is thin on installation detail and defers features to sulu.io and docs.sulu.io, and the repository carries 593 open issues against 1,350 stars and 368 forks, so expect to lean on the documentation, Slack, and issue tracker rather than on the README alone.