Netlify CMS Alternatives for Self-Hosted

An open-source tool for managing content across all your omni-channel digital experiences. Directus is free and open-source headless CMS written in PHP, that takes a data first approach. Developers and content creators use Directus to manage content and generate a powerful API that can be used by any frontend technology. Directus can be self-hosted and is absolutely free.

Strapi is a free and open source headless CMS developed with JavaScript for Node.js. The software makes it really simple to generate REST and GraphQL APIs. Simply create your database schema and relationships in the Strapi admin panel UI, and Strapi will auto-generate API endpoints to represent the data structures provided. Strapi comes packed with features you come to expect from normal CMS's such as authentication, authorization, content management and a media library. The software can be used for free and can be self-hosted on any server and platform. Extra enterpise functionallity is currently being developed, and will be sold at cost.

ButterCMS is a commercial headless content management system and content API. With ButterCMS you can quickly setup your very own headless CMS that supports In-browser editing. Where you can quickly find and filter your images and files, update and schedule content and serve you assets over a content delivery network.

Ghost is a free and open-source headless CMS and blogging platform developed by Ghost Foundation. With Ghost you can manage content in style, the user experience provided by the software is intuitive and encourages writing. Ghost is written in JavaScript for the Node.js platform and is released under the MIT license.

A headless & API-based CMS with an opt-in head and a visual editor. With Storyblok you can manage your content through an intuitive dashboard and access that data though the content delivery API, as nested JSON. Storyblok is an open-source software and can be used as such, but is also provided as a commercially hosted, cloud rendering service. As a front-end developer you can choose to work with any template engine, framework or system of your choice.

CMS Made Simple is a free and open-source content management system that offers an easy to use interface for end users, while maintaining a powerful backend for developers. CMS Made Simple is written in PHP and got an extensive API and custom modules. The CMS also utilize the Smarty templating engine that can be used to customize sites with HTML, CSS and PHP.

Anchor is a super-simple, lightweight blog system written in PHP. Compressed, Anchor CMS weighs in at just under 250kb making it an extremely light weight content management system. With Anchor CMS, you can manage content in HTML or Markdown, depending on which you prefer. The content management is fully free and open-source and released under the GPL-3.0 License.

Django CMS is a free and open-source content management system build on the Python web framework Django. With Django CMS, you can create your own website or blog in a matter of minutes which is easy to maintain far into the future. If you are a developer utilizing the Django framework you can integrate Django CMS into an exiting Django application and take advantage of it's publishing and editing features.

Backdrop is a full-featured content management system written in PHP. The Backdrop CMS allows non-technical users to manage a wide variety of content. It can be used to create all kinds of websites including blogs, image galleries, social networks, intranets, and more.

MODX is a free, open source content management system and digital experience platform. The CMS gives you full control over your creative, editorial vision and the experience you deliver. MODX is written in the programming language PHP and supports both MySQL and Microsoft SQL Server databases. The CMS is openly developed and released under the GPL license, and allows contribution.

Joomla is a free and open-source content management system written in PHP. The CMS is built entirely by volunteers from all over the world and has a strong community that provide educational resources, and extensions. 

WordPress powers roughly 30% of all web pages online. It's a free and open source CMS designed and developed for self-hosted publishing by Automattic, Inc. The software is written in PHP and utilize either MySQL or MariaDB as a database, and is compatible with most web hosts. Wordpress includes a plugin architecture and a templating system that can be used to extend and customize your website. These are commonly known as WordPress plugins and WordPress themes and make up a whole open source and commercial eco-system where anyone is free to create products for the platform.