A flexible, user-friendly, self-hosted PHP CMS for creating custom digital experiences on the web.
Craft CMS is a self-hosted PHP content management system designed for creating custom digital experiences on the web and beyond. It provides a flexible, user-friendly platform for developers to build bespoke websites and applications while offering content editors an intuitive interface. The system is backed by MySQL or PostgreSQL databases and can be deployed using Docker-based development environments like DDEV.
Developers and agencies building custom websites, web applications, and headless content backends that require flexible content modeling and a polished editor experience.
Developers choose Craft CMS for its balance of developer flexibility and content editor usability, its robust plugin ecosystem, and its ability to handle complex multi-site and headless projects without the bloat of more generic CMS platforms.
Composer starter project for Craft CMS.
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Allows defining custom content structures and fields to match any project requirements, enabling bespoke digital experiences without rigid templates, as highlighted in the key features.
Designed with content editors in mind, providing an intuitive control panel that reduces training time and improves editorial workflow, emphasized in the project's philosophy.
Supports managing multiple websites from a single installation with shared or localized content, ideal for agencies and large organizations, a core feature mentioned in the key features.
Offers GraphQL and REST APIs for decoupled frontends, making it suitable for modern web and mobile applications, as noted in the key features for headless use.
Features a wide range of official and community plugins to extend functionality, with resources highlighted in the README for further exploration.
Requires manual server setup, database management, and ongoing maintenance, unlike SaaS CMS options that handle infrastructure automatically, adding overhead for teams without DevOps expertise.
Built on PHP, which may not integrate easily with projects using other backend technologies, limiting stack flexibility and requiring PHP knowledge for customization.
Involves Composer and Docker-based tools like DDEV for local development, which can be daunting for developers unfamiliar with these technologies, as indicated in the getting started section.
github.com/craftcms/craft is an open-source alternative to the following products:
An open-source content management system written in PHP, used for building websites, applications, and digital experiences.
WordPress is a free and open-source content management system (CMS) written in PHP and paired with a MySQL or MariaDB database, used for creating websites and blogs.