Best open-source alternatives to WordPress.com

Ghost is an open source publishing platform built as a headless Node.js CMS. It is aimed at publishers, creators, and teams that want a professional, modern system for running a website or publication while connecting to other tools through its API. The project offers both a self-hosted route and a managed Ghost(Pro) service. For self-hosting, the README points users to a CLI-based quickstart for local or production installs, along with documentation for hosting, updates, themes, development, and contributing. The README also highlights automatic SSL setup for production installs and access to the Content API for custom integrations.

A powerful and easy-to-use website building tool (documentation in Chinese).

WordPress is a self-hosted publishing platform intended for creating websites, blogs, and other content-driven sites. The README presents it as the “Semantic Personal Publishing Platform” and frames it as a widely used project supported by a large contributor community. It is meant for users who want to install the software on their own web server and manage a site through a browser-based admin interface. The installation process described is the classic five-minute setup: upload the files, open the installer, configure database connection details, and complete the setup through the login page. The README also notes built-in upgrade procedures, import tools for migrating from other systems, and a plugin API for extending core functionality. It positions WordPress as free software released under the GPL, with requirements centered on PHP and MySQL-compatible databases.

Keystone is a developer-focused CMS and application framework built to turn a defined schema into a working content and data backend. It is aimed at developers who want a flexible, custom backend without the boilerplate of building core CRUD and admin functionality from scratch. The project provides a GraphQL API and a management UI for working with content and data. Its README points users to online documentation, getting-started materials, examples, and API reference pages, and notes that the packages are published to npm for use in Node environments. It also indicates the project is maintained by Thinkmill and released under the MIT license.

Webiny is an open-source, serverless content management system aimed at enterprise use cases and designed to run on AWS. The README positions it as a CMS platform rather than a standalone application, with emphasis on a cloud-native architecture. It appears to be intended for organizations that want a customizable CMS with an ecosystem of community extensions. The repository also provides links to documentation, a Slack community for support and discussion, and contribution guidelines for people who want to help develop the project.

Umbraco CMS is a free and open source content management system built on .NET. It is aimed at developers and teams that want to create and customize websites and digital experiences while using a flexible, extensible platform. The README emphasizes that Umbraco is designed to be friendly, simpler, and social, and points users to official documentation for setup, tutorials, and production deployment. The project is distributed through .NET templates rather than as a standalone runtime package. Users install the Umbraco templates, create a new project, and run it locally after installing the required .NET Runtime and SDK. The README also highlights a live backoffice preview for the latest UI and directs users to Discord and the community forum for support and feedback.

WriteFreely is a publishing platform designed for writers who want a clean, minimalist environment for blogging and knowledge sharing. It emphasizes distraction-free composition, simple publishing, and the ability to organize posts with hashtags and static pages. The project is aimed at individuals, organizations, and communities that want a lightweight writing-focused system rather than a general-purpose CMS. It supports multiple blogs from a single account, making it suitable for people who write under different pen names or for different purposes. The README also highlights federation with other ActivityPub-powered software and OAuth 2.0-based onboarding from existing platforms, which makes it useful for connected communities. Deployment is centered around a Go static binary with built-in SQLite support or optional MySQL/MariaDB backing, and the project also offers Docker guidance and packaged builds.

Joomla! is an open source content management system aimed at people who want to build and manage websites or web-based applications. The README describes it as a simple and powerful server-side application and points to the official site, version history, and changelog for more information. It is intended to run on a PHP-based web server with a supported database such as MySQL, MariaDB, or PostgreSQL. This repository is the source tree for Joomla 5.x rather than a ready-to-install package, so contributors and developers are expected to set up a local environment with Composer, Node.js, and Git before working with it. The project also emphasizes community contribution, documentation, and branching guidance for pull requests.

ApostropheCMS is a full-stack content management system designed for developers and content teams who want both a traditional editing experience and a headless-friendly architecture. It is built on Node.js and MongoDB, and the README highlights that content creators can edit directly on live pages while developers can build with modern JavaScript or integrate the CMS with any frontend framework. The project appears aimed at teams building websites and larger content-driven applications, with emphasis on in-context editing, a powerful admin interface, and REST API access for headless use cases. The README also describes a pro offering with advanced user management, translation, analytics, SEO, performance features, and multisite management, indicating support for organizations with more demanding publishing workflows.

Publify is a self-hostable Ruby on Rails publishing platform aimed at people who want to run their own blog and syndicate content from their own site. It combines a classic blogging engine with a small messaging feature connected to Twitter, reflecting IndieWeb principles of owning one’s content and publishing from a personal site. The project appears to be designed for bloggers and site owners who want a traditional publishing workflow with extensibility. The README highlights multi-user support, markdown and mention/hashtag conversion, widgets, plugins, custom themes, SEO features, and multilingual content support. It can be installed locally from a release or source checkout, or deployed to a server or Heroku with a relational database and a Rails runtime.