Best Content Management Systems (CMS) for 2024

WordPress is a well-known CMS used by popular sites like The Walt Disney Company, The New York Times, Geekflare, Forbes, and CNN.

WordPress is user-friendly and highly customizable, with 12,000+ themes and 59,000+ plugins. Its SEO-friendly structure and mobile-responsive designs help improve search engine rankings and ensure websites perform well on all devices.

The active WordPress community provides robust support and resources, making it suitable for blogs, websites, and online stores. Due to its stable performance and regular security updates, WordPress is one of the best CMS platforms for scaling your online website or business.

For website development, users have Gutenberg, WordPress’ native page builder that creates stunning websites. Alternatively, WordPress integrates with popular page builders like Elementor, Divi, Oxygen, Beaver, and more to help you create your websites.

WordPress is an open-source and DIY solution, which you can download from wordpress.org. However, if you are not ready to host it yourself, you can avail WordPress hosting from wordpress.com.

Drupal is a leading open-source CMS that is highly flexible and customizable. Its modular design offers 40,000+ free modules for easy website customizations. It offers powerful content management tools, including custom content types, in-place editing, and content versioning.

Drupal supports high-traffic websites and complex web applications, making it a preferred choice for large organizations, governments, shopping, and media companies.

Drupal offers solid security features, with its large community continuously reviewing and patching code. It provides out-of-the-box multilingual support for more than 100 languages.

Joomla, an open-source CMS founded in 2005, is managed by Open-Source Matters, Inc. It uses PHP and a model-view-controller framework and supports MySQL, MS SQL, and PostgreSQL databases. Joomla’s global community has developed over 5,400 extensions, which are available in its directory.

Joomla powers nearly 2 million active websites, from corporate sites and online magazines to e-commerce stores and community portals. Its strong SEO and security features and a wide library of extensions and themes make it a popular choice for businesses and organizations.

In summary, Joomla is a robust and flexible CMS suitable for diverse web projects. Its extensive community support, rich extension library, and powerful features ensure it meets the needs of businesses and organizations of all sizes.

Joomla is free to download and use. However, you will have to pay for hosting and a domain name. Using premium themes or plugins will increase your expenses.

TYPO3 is an open-source CMS written in PHP. Due to its advanced features like editorial workplace, workflow, frontend editing, scalability, and maturity, it is perfect as an enterprise-level CMS for e-commerce website.

TYPO3 is a powerful and flexible CMS that is well-suited for large-scale, enterprise-level websites and applications, especially in Europe. Its advanced features, scalability, and strong community support make it a compelling choice for organizations seeking a robust and customizable content management solution.

Concrete CMS, formerly concrete5, is a content management system popular for its in-context editing. It allows users to manage website content directly on the page rather than a separate admin interface.

Concrete CMS offers comprehensive built-in functionality, eliminating the need for additional extensions. Its collaboration and permissions system provides fine-tuned control over access and content approvals.

The platform ensures robust security and compliance, including ISO 27001 certification and HIPAA compliance. Version control and change tracking are available for all content edits. An extensive developer API supports custom functionality through add-ons.

With a large and active community of 250+ contributors, Concrete CMS is trusted by organizations like the U.S. Army and Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport.

Magnolia is one of the best cloud CMS for large enterprises and organizations. It is based on the Content Repository API for Java (JCR) and was developed by Magnolia International Ltd., a company based in Basel, Switzerland.

Magnolia excels in omnichannel content delivery, managing content across multiple websites, brands, and channels from a single platform. It offers tools for personalizing digital experiences and optimizing content performance.

Magnolia provides generative AI to automate tasks like generating copy, metadata, and image tagging. Its advanced features and powerful workflow tools ensure brand consistency and control.

Magnolia CMS’s key strength is security. It holds key security certifications like ISO 27001 and SOC 2 and national certifications such as ENS (Spain) and NIST (US).

Empower your digital vision with a leading open-source CMS built for developers. Known for its unmatched flexibility and customization, Umbraco enables you to create unique websites and web applications that truly reflect your brand.

Whether you’re a small business or a large enterprise, Umbraco offers a free, open-source platform and premium support plans to meet your unique needs.

Kentico should be on your list if you are looking for a headless CMS. It is essentially a digital experience platform (DXP) that is easy to use and packed with essential low-code, no-code tools.

Kentico is designed mainly for marketing teams that want to craft memorable customer journeys to boost website engagement without depending on developers. It integrates SEO, email marketing, and visitor analytics to enhance digital marketing efforts.

Kentico Xperience is ideal for managing complex content hierarchies and multilingual websites. Its features include content versioning, hierarchical structure, and efficient workflow management. The platform offers customizable templates and responsive design for a seamless user experience.

Kentico Xperience includes robust e-commerce features like product management, payment handling, shopping cart, product catalog, inventory management, and order processing. It supports integration with third-party applications and CRMs.

Adobe Commerce, formerly Magento, is a top e-commerce platform for B2B businesses. It offers flexible hosting options, including on-premises and cloud hosting. Integration with other Adobe products like Analytics and Experience Manager provides data-driven insights and personalization.

Designed for scalability, Adobe Commerce includes powerful developer tools for unlimited growth. Its intuitive, customizable interface allows merchants to personalize storefront designs. Mobile responsiveness ensures a seamless shopping experience across devices, and robust security features protect customer data.

Adobe Commerce offers API availability, customizable templates, and third-party integrations for optimal storefront creation. Comprehensive reporting and analytics tools track sales and customer behavior. The platform supports various payment gateways, including credit cards, PayPal, Venmo, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and voucher cards.

Adobe Commerce integrates with Adobe Sensei, Adobe’s artificial intelligence and machine learning platform, to provide advanced personalization and optimization features.

Shopify is a cloud-based e-commerce platform for building, managing, and growing online businesses. It integrates with drop-shipping apps like DSers, Zendrop, and Spocket to enhance online sales.

Shopify’s user-friendly admin interface ensures efficient store management for beginners. It provides 200+ customizable, responsive themes for creating custom store designs. Its built-in SEO features include auto-generated canonical tags, robots.txt, sitemap.xml, and title tags with your store name.

Shopify provides robust security features, including SSL certificates and fraud prevention tools like Shopify Protect and Card Testing Protection. Advanced analytics offer valuable insights into sales and customer behavior.

Shopify supports 100+ payment gateways and various solutions, such as PayPal, Razorpay, Amazon Pay, Google Pay, Apple Pay, Affirm, Klarna, and credit cards. It has a native payment gateway called Shopify Payments.

Launch your online store with PrestaShop, the versatile and customizable e-commerce CMS trusted by thousands of businesses worldwide. Whether you’re starting small or aiming for global reach, PrestaShop offers the tools and flexibility to grow your business.

Whether you’re a seasoned developer or a first-time store owner, PrestaShop’s comprehensive admin interface and extensive Addons marketplace make it easy to create and manage your dream online store. PrestaShop integrates with payment gateways, including Mollie, Stripe, PayPal, Amazon Pay, and more.

Contentful is a headless CMS designed for standardizing and synchronizing content across multiple brands, regions, and channels. It features a comprehensive content graph that centralizes all content assets, including images, text, and articles.

Contentful separates content management from content delivery, enabling publication across multiple digital channels and devices. Content is delivered via APIs, offering greater flexibility and scalability.

Contentful’s API-first design includes robust Content Delivery and Content Management APIs. This allows developers to access and manipulate content programmatically, making it highly customizable and easy to integrate with other systems.

Contentful offers advanced content modeling capabilities, allowing teams to define custom content structures and relationships. This feature is more robust than traditional CMS platforms. It integrates AI-powered features, like the Content-Type Generator, to design content models and streamline workflows, enhancing the productivity of content teams.

Storyblok is a cloud-native headless CMS designed for flexibility and integration. It lets developers build and publish content across any service or technology. Marketers can independently create and scale content using its visual editing interface, collaborative tools, and custom workflows.

Storyblok’s API-first design ensures seamless integration with any front-end framework or technology. It includes AI-powered tools to enhance content personalization and automation.

Storyblok handles increasing content and traffic without compromising performance or security. Users are equipped to build custom components, apps, and integrations to meet specific needs.

With extensive multi-language support, Storyblok is ideal for global businesses. It enables the management of multiple websites and digital experiences from a single platform. Developers and marketers favor Storyblok for its flexibility, scalability, and customization.

Contentstack is a cloud-based, API-first headless CMS designed to empower developers and marketers. It provides a decoupled architecture, allowing content to be managed independently of the presentation layer. This makes it highly flexible and scalable for powering digital experiences across the web, mobile, IoT, AR/VR, and more.

Contentstack offers flexible content management tools for streamlined content publishing. Its enterprise-grade scalability and performance offer a guaranteed 99.95% uptime SLA. With its native multilingual capabilities, users are allowed to localize their website from its impressive list of over 200 languages offered.

Contentstack’s headless architecture and cloud-based delivery model make it an attractive choice for enterprises and mid-market businesses looking to create and manage content for omnichannel experiences.

Directus is an open-source headless CMS and BaaS platform that transforms any SQL database into a robust REST and GraphQL API. It offers a no-code interface for easy content and data management.

Directus’ intuitive admin interface allows both developers and non-technical users to manage content and data models effortlessly. The platform provides unmatched flexibility in data modeling, allowing you to shape your content without constraints.

Directus is highly modular and scalable, with the Extensions SDK enabling custom functionality. Directus Flows lets you create complex designs and event-driven workflows and automate data processing tasks.

Directus balances flexibility for developers and ease of use for content editors. Its headless architecture, instant APIs, and extensible design make it a strong choice for building modern, data-driven applications.

Webflow is a visual, composable CMS that empowers designers and marketers to create, edit, and publish content without writing any code. It includes a content management application (CMA) for building the site and a content delivery application (CDA) for updating site content.

Webflow allows designers to connect dynamic content to any layout without being restricted by specific designs. Editors can manage various content types, such as colors, images, text, and numbers, and define the necessary content structures.

Content creators integrate their website with over 750 third-party services through Zapier, automating workflows and reducing manual tasks through Webflow. Webflow offers robust SEO controls, enabling customization of alt text, meta descriptions, URL slugs, and page titles to improve search rankings.

Webflow’s visual-first, composable design expands creative possibilities, allowing custom content structures and data from multiple collections. Webflow automatically populates rich content embedded with CMS field data.

Appy Pie offers various tools for building websites, mobile apps, chatbots, and more. One of the tools is an AI-powered website builder that allows you to create professional websites without any coding.

Appy Pie offers 10,000+ mobile-responsive templates to create your CMS website. You get built-in e-commerce features like a shopping cart, payment processors, business emails, and more if you decide to make an online store with Appy Pie.

Appy Pie offers many free tools, such as a free domain name, hosting, business email, and a free app that matches your website to complete your brand.

Grav is a free, open-source, and self-hosted CMS written in PHP, first released in 2014 by Trilby Media. Designed for simplicity, speed, and ease of use, Grav prioritizes performance over many built-in features.

Grav uses a flat-file database, storing content and configuration data in text files rather than requiring MySQL or PostgreSQL. This makes it easy to set up, maintain, and back up. It’s ideal for developers and website owners who value simplicity and flexibility.

Grav is lightweight and customizable, making it a cost-effective and reliable choice. Its open-source nature and large community support add to its appeal for those prioritizing speed and ease of use.

Sitecore is a leading CMS founded in 1999, serving over 10,000 customers. It delivers personalized digital experiences across web, mobile, and social media. Sitecore’s user-friendly platform allows easy content creation and management without extensive technical skills.

Sitecore’s advanced personalization tailors content based on customer data, while omnichannel capabilities ensure consistent brand experiences.

Sitecore integrates with CRM, marketing automation, and e-commerce platforms to keep customer and product information up-to-date. A/B testing and optimization identify effective strategies and built-in analytics provide valuable insights.

Sitecore offers flexible pricing for on-premises and cloud hosting, ideal for medium to large enterprises. Its scalable platform meets growing demands without sacrificing performance or security.

Sitefinity is a popular CMS by Progress that enables businesses to create, manage, and deliver engaging digital experiences across multiple channels. It offers an intuitive platform for both content creators and developers, providing a comprehensive digital marketing hub for building websites, portals, and applications.

Sitefinity integrates seamlessly with customer and enterprise data, enhancing digital interactions and enabling faster development and deployment of digital experiences. The user-friendly interface simplifies content creation and management, supporting personalization and multichannel experiences.

One of Sitefinity’s standout features is Sitefinity Cloud, an enterprise infrastructure for managing and delivering customer-centric digital experiences at scale, available as both SaaS and PaaS.

Additionally, Sitefinity Insight is a native Customer Data Platform that captures customer interactions, optimizes campaign performance and facilitates data-driven decisions. The flexible framework scales with business growth and integrates with various technologies.

Crownpeak’s CMS, powered by FirstSpirit, streamlines content creation, optimization, and governance. Its flexible architecture supports headless APIs, static content delivery, or both and integrates seamlessly with existing digital infrastructure.

Crownpeak drives content natively to extend the life of digital touchpoints, avoiding costly rebuilds. It accelerates time to market by enabling IT and marketing teams to work in parallel, delivering content eight times faster than other providers.

Crownpeak is the only SaaS CMS with built-in digital accessibility and quality capabilities, allowing issue resolution during the editorial process. Crownpeak integrates with Dynamic Yield to create personalized customer experiences.

Designed for commerce, Crownpeak integrates with leading platforms and features an AI-powered product discovery solution to boost revenue. Its no-code visual editor and low-code developer tools offer flexibility and agility.

ButterCMS is ideal for building modern, API-driven web applications. Its headless architecture separates content management from presentation, offering flexibility and scalability.

ButterCMS scales effortlessly, handling increased content and traffic without performance issues. Its robust API integrates content into any application, and multilingual support is perfect for global businesses.

ButterCMS seamlessly combines content and commerce by integrating with popular e-commerce platforms. It manages multiple websites from one interface and integrates with cloud services like AWS and Google Cloud. Built-in analytics track content performance and user engagement.

As a true headless CMS, ButterCMS enables custom, API-driven digital experiences. Widely adopted, it leverages AI and ML for content personalization and optimization. Its flexibility, real-time editing, and robust features make it a top choice for advanced content management and personalization.

HubSpot CMS Hub is a comprehensive content management system for small to medium businesses. It is built on HubSpot’s CRM platform, which includes marketing automation, sales, service, and operations tools.

The HubSpot CMS’ website builder is easy to use, even for those with minimal technical skills. Its drag-and-drop editor, built-in SEO tools, and contact attribution features simplify content creation and optimization.

HubSpot CMS’ smart content features let you personalize website pages for specific visitors or larger segments. Developers use serverless functions, flexible theme options, and command line tools for faster customization.

CMS Hub includes strong security features such as a global CDN, a Web Application Firewall, and a dedicated security team to protect against DDoS attacks and hackers. It integrates seamlessly with HubSpot’s email marketing tool and sales CRM, streamlining operational workflows.