Winter is a free, open-source, self-hosted content management system built on the Laravel PHP framework, made for developers and agencies who want a quick-to-prototype, secure foundation for projects of any size.

What it is

Winter CMS is a self-hosted content management system written in PHP and built on top of the Laravel framework. Between Laravel and Winter sits the in-house Storm library, which acts as a buffer to minimize breaking changes and improve stability across releases. The project was forked from October CMS in March 2021, following a difference in open source management philosophies between the core maintainer team and the two founders of October. Development is led by Luke Towers alongside a wider maintainer group, and the Frostbyte Foundation provides organizational backing for Winter, its plugins and themes, and its ecosystem.

The concrete problem it solves is giving PHP developers a CMS they fully own and control, rather than one they rent or fight with. It lives in the Laravel and PHP ecosystem, so existing Laravel knowledge carries over directly, and it is the specific alternative to October CMS for teams that want the same plugin-and-theme style platform under different open source stewardship. That covers the needs the README names directly: quick prototyping and development, a safe and secure codebase, and a dedication to simplicity that holds regardless of project size or the developer's level of experience.

Key capabilities

• Composer installation through composer create-project wintercms/winter example.com "dev-develop", with additional installation methods documented on the installation page.
• Command-line bootstrap: php artisan winter:env generates the environment file holding configuration settings.
• Database setup and first-admin provisioning in one step with php artisan winter:up, which runs migrations and creates an administrator account with the username admin, whose generated password is printed in the terminal.
• Laravel foundation abstracted by the Storm library, which isolates the project from upstream framework changes.
• Plugin and theme ecosystem backed organizationally by the Frostbyte Foundation.
• MIT licence, with the package published on Packagist as wintercms/winter and a test workflow running against the develop branch.
• Documented contribution path with PSR-1, PSR-2 and PSR-4 coding standards, contributing guidelines, and a code of conduct.

Who uses it and how

• Developers and agencies worldwide building client websites, where the CMS provides the content layer and Laravel provides the application layer.
• Teams that need to prototype quickly before committing to a full build, using the Composer quick start and Artisan commands rather than manual scaffolding.
• PHP and Laravel developers who want a familiar framework underneath the CMS, including those with limited prior CMS experience, since the README frames the environment as usable at any experience level.
• Projects spanning small sites to large ones, with the same development environment serving both.
• Contributors taking part in community work such as Hacktoberfest, supported through the contributing guidelines and the project's Discord community.

Getting started

Install with Composer using composer create-project wintercms/winter example.com "dev-develop", then run php artisan winter:env to generate the environment file and php artisan winter:up to migrate the database and create the administrator account. The project's installation page lists further methods for both new users and experienced developers.

How it compares

The facts name one comparable tool: October CMS, the project Winter was forked from in March 2021. The split came from a difference in open source management philosophies rather than from a technical divergence, and Winter is MIT licensed with the Frostbyte Foundation as its organizational backer. Teams already familiar with October's plugin and theme model will recognize the shape of Winter, but the governance, maintainer team and foundation behind it are different.

When to use it — and when not to

A self-hoster must operate a PHP application with Composer, a database for migrations, and an environment file for configuration, so a hosting environment capable of running Laravel is a prerequisite. The project suits teams that want to own their content platform and are comfortable with PHP; it is a poor fit for anyone looking for a managed or hosted service, or for a deployment path that avoids the command line, since the README documents Composer and Artisan commands as the primary route and names no container or hosted option. The repository also carries 124 open issues, which is worth weighing against the responsiveness the Discord community is described as offering.

composer create-project wintercms/winter example.com "dev-develop"

php artisan winter:env

php artisan winter:up