If you’re looking for a way to manage and share content online, open-source content management systems (CMS) are a great option. In this article, we’ll analyze and compare our top five open-source CMS platforms to help you find the right one for your needs.

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Best Open-Source CMS

Open-source content management systems empower users to customize and scale their digital presence quickly. They offer a versatile toolkit for creating and managing websites, blogs and online stores.

It’s important to pick a CMS that fits your project requirements. To help you narrow it down, here’s our list of the best five open-source CMS platforms.

Alfresco Content Services

Alfresco Content Services caters to diverse use cases, including content and governance services, portal integrations, enterprise collaboration, and contextual search and insights.

The solution provides a repository for storing content, metadata, associations and comprehensive full-text indexes. It integrates with many third-party applications, including Microsoft Office 365, SAP SuccessFactors and Adobe Sign.

Configure the dashboard to show the most essential information. Source

Why We Chose This Product

The solution offers scalable enterprise content management in open-source and paid versions. It provides diverse deployment options and cloud platforms such as AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.

It supports containerized deployments, like Docker and Kubernetes, and validates content before it’s added to the repository.

Highest Rated Modules According to Our Data

• Document Protection — 100
• Document Management — 100
• Content Capture — 89
• Compliance — 83
• Reports and Analytics — 80

Top Benefits

• Improve Accessibility: Use the Alfresco API to create apps for desktop, cloud and mobile platforms. Connect with both on-premises servers and the ExperienceAlfresco cloud.
• Reduce Manual Tasks: Automatically copy, move and organize files to save time spent on repetitive tasks. Set up rules to efficiently version drafts, apply workflows and categorize files.
• Monitor Changes: Keep a record of when documents are added, moved or removed, and review any edits made to your content and folders.
• Enhance Efficiency: Use NLP tech to automatically create summaries, indexes, and labels for audio and video files. Locate and tag personal information in documents to safeguard it.

Primary Features

• Document Scanning and Capture: Upload and extract metadata from documents, images and videos. Use features like image scanning, bulk import, and drag-and-drop tools to organize content. Connect with apps like Salesforce and Outlook to share files across systems.
• File Management: Create folders using templates and store them in the digital library. View and edit different types of files, like Word docs, PDFs and web pages. Leave notes on files, organize them with tags and download them for offline editing.
• Enterprise Search: Use intelligent search capabilities that show you results as you type. Search for media files using AI, add filters to narrow down results and see important words highlighted. Find specific content and metadata across large volumes of information with the Alfresco Query Accelerator.
• Document Collaboration: Create shared areas for files, set up discussion forums and send file links through emails or social media like Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

Limitations

• The solution doesn’t support tag-based search features out of the box. However, you can implement this capability through APIs.

Features Not Fully Supported According to Our Data

• Document Request — Not supported
• Batch Scanning — Supported with partner integrations
• Document Co-Authoring – Supported with partner integrations
• Access Electronic Forms from Mobile — Not supported
• Mobile eSignature — Supported with partner integrations

Pricing

The solution offers two versions:

• Alfresco Content Services Community Edition: It’s free to download.
• Alfresco Content Services Online: PaaS subscription-based. Get a free price quote.

The Alfresco Intelligence Services is an add-on module that comes at an additional cost.

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Nuxeo

Nuxeo helps organizations manage large volumes of content. It provides a centralized platform to store, organize and share documents and files. The solution is well-suited for medium to large businesses in industries such as healthcare, finance and manufacturing.

Use the spreadsheet to edit several documents at once. Source

Why We Chose This Product

The solution offers cloud-native content services tailored for large enterprises. It features low-code functionality, an extensible REST API and pre-built connectors. Its ECM and DAM capabilities help manage various content types such as PDFs, Word docs, images and videos. The solution integrates embedded AI and machine learning functionalities.

Highest Rated Modules According to Our Data

• Document Protection — 100
• Document Management — 94
• Content Capture — 89
• Compliance — 81
• Mobile Capabilities — 81

Top Benefits

• Streamline Workflows: Use media assets effectively with features like image rotation, as well as video and audio players. Add valuable insights and context to documents to help team members understand them better. Convert videos to popular formats like Ogg, WebM and MP4 so everyone can watch them on any device.
• Get Business-Specific Content: Use AI and machine learning with Nuxeo Insight to create metadata tailored to your business and gain deeper insights into your content.
• Improve Data Security and Compliance: The solution’s cloud setups use top-notch safety measures, such as data encryption and Threat Detection Monitoring. They’re certified with PCI-DSS and SOC2 and operate in separate environments to keep your data safe.
• Customize Easily: Use the Nuxeo Studio application to customize content modeling, business logic and user interface design. Future releases of platform components will automatically maintain your customizations.

Primary Features

• Document Upload: Upload and create files in multiple formats, including JPG, PNG, GIF, PSD and PDF. Define each file’s purpose by including details like document type ID, label and description, and integrate with cloud storage applications like Dropbox and Google Drive.
• Document Management and Classification: Create folders, files or any document type in various formats, including HTML, XML and Markdown. Classify existing documents into collections, and add tags to files to make them easy to find and share.
• Document Search: Find documents, users and groups using keywords or specific details. Compare different document versions to track changes. Search for assets using metadata attributes like type, format, width and height, and compare them to spot differences.
• Document Protection: Use built-in renditions like resized videos or watermarked images to keep documents secure. Add image or text watermarks to indicate the status or ownership of office documents, images or videos.

Limitations

• The solution doesn’t comply with FIPS 140-2 regulations.
• Users can’t send file requests to colleagues, clients and other outside parties.

Features Not Fully Supported According to Our Data

• Document Request — Not supported
• Batch Scanning — Supported with partner integrations
• FIPS 140-2 Compliance — Not supported
• Push Notifications — Not supported
• Report Scheduling — Not supported

Pricing

The solution’s starting price is $100K/year. The AI and content bots feature mentioned in the benefits section is accessible with Nuxeo Insight, a free add-on module.

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OpenKM Community Edition

OpenKM Community Edition offers a powerful API featuring nearly 500 request types and SDKs for Java and .NET. It relies on Java EE architecture and Spring Security for centralized access management and authentication, and smoothly integrates with third-party applications like Apache, Nginx and OCR.

View and manage task progress in the task manager. Source

Why We Chose This Product

The solution provides essential features, including workflows, OCR and version control. It can integrate with any Twain scanner and offers plugin integration, scalable architecture and flexible deployment options.

Top Benefits

• Reduce Manual Tasks: Execute workflows automatically based on predefined triggers, such as folder, document or folder type, to minimize manual tasks and complete processes quickly.
• Scale Capabilities: Quickly add or remove features as business needs shift, and maintain top performance no matter how many documents you handle.
• Improve Security: Track every document interaction through audit trails, and protect sensitive data with advanced encryption protocols. Integrate with ClamAV for antivirus scanning and secure your data against malware.
• Personalize Workflows: Create serial and parallel workflows to tailor tasks to specific groups or individual users and ensure efficient task allocation. Get real-time visibility into workflow tasks, status updates and overall process progress on the dashboard.

Primary Features

• Folder and Repository Management: Create folders, add documents and download files individually or as ZIP folders. Use document templates in PDF, OpenOffice and text formats, and assign unique IDs, titles, descriptions and notes to documents.
• Reporting: Use the integrated Jasper reports engine to create, edit, execute and delete reports. View, print and export documents in multiple formats, including HTML, PDF, Excel, OpenOffice and Word.
• Document Capture and Search: Configure OCR engines such as Tesseract and Cuneiform to extract text from documents. Use the scanner client to capture images from scanners and upload them to the repository. Look up documents by various parameters, including content, keyword, date modified, author and document type.
• Document Protection and eSignature: Manage document versions with features like check-in/check-out, add comments to versions, and access or restore previous document versions. Configure a digital signature client to capture electronic signatures.

Limitations

• The solution doesn’t support record management and document versioning.

Pricing

Though the solution is available for free download, it also offers two paid editions. These include:

• OpenKM Cloud: Starts at $81 per month.
• OpenKM Professional: It has a one-time payment license, and pricing is available on request.

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FormKiQ

FormKiQ allows users to store and manage content. It’s a customizable turnkey solution that can integrate with your existing applications. Powered by advanced technologies like OCR and document classification, its Document API enables users to integrate with internal applications and streamline document management processes.

Enable document control, records and compliance management with external services and internal tools. Source

Why We Chose This Product

You can install the solution directly on your AWS cloud account and use it for different purposes, either headless or with a user interface.

Top Benefits

• Generate Insights: Use NLP technology to analyze hidden patterns, sentiments and trends within documents. Add confidence scores and review workflows to detect customer sentiment from support requests and create proactive response strategies.
• Deploy Globally: The platform can be run locally or in multiple AWS regions worldwide, including AWS GovCloud (US) West.
• Scale Storage: Use Amazon S3 to store documents and scale storage capacity to accommodate growing document volumes. Save metadata, like content type, original file name and unlimited tags in Amazon DynamoDB for effective document organization and retrieval.
• Enhance Security: Protect documents from viruses, trojan horses, adware and spyware using ClamAV’s database and detection capabilities.

Primary Features

• Document Collection and Storage: Upload documents in bulk and sync them between the file server and the system. Create inbound webhooks using FormKiQ’s Document API to create and import documents from external services. Process document content, including raw text, table data, or form keys and values with OCR workflows.
• Document Organization and Classification: Manage document tags and metadata, and create, add, update and remove tags to classify documents. Set up custom validation rules with document tag templates, and use site IDs to separate documents by teams or organizations.
• Integration and Compliance: Use a custom KMS Key Store and AWS CloudTrail to meet industry standards like GDPR, HIPAA, SOC 2, ISO 27001 and PIPEDA. Integrate with webhooks and services like Zapier, Automate.io and Microsoft Power Automate to support data import/export operations.
• Document Processing and Auditing: Receive real-time notifications when documents are created, updated or deleted. Convert physical copies into digital records, contracts and forms. Upload new document versions with a detailed history of changes, and create metadata to track changes alongside document content.

Limitations

• The solution currently doesn’t support document archiving. However, the feature is in the beta stage.
• It doesn’t provide a native mobile application.

Pricing

The solution offers four pricing packages:

• FormKiQ Core: Free (AWS usage charges may apply). It provides full source code for customization.
• FormKiQ Pro: $499 /month + AWS usage charges. It provides full source code for all the features included as part of a customized license agreement.
• FormKiQ Enterprise: Price available on request. It includes the source code for all licensed modules.
• FormKiQ Enterprise (For Startups): $499 /month + AWS usage charges.

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LogicalDOC Community Edition

LogicalDoc Community Edition offers features like document organization, version control and collaboration tools. Users can efficiently manage documents, track revisions and control access through defined user roles and security settings. The system integrates advanced search capabilities, supports ERP integration and provides mobile apps for iOS and Android devices.

Share documents with other users via email. Source

Why We Chose This Product

The solution is licensed under GNU, and provides free access to features such as access control, advanced search, and SOAP and REST API interfaces. It offers integration extensions for Joomla and WordPress to publish content on websites automatically.

Top Benefits

• Improve Accessibility: Use intelligent indexing that understands different word variations to find what you need in any language. Easily add new languages with an online translation feature, making the platform accessible to everyone around the world.
• Enhance Engagement: A simple rating system lets users show their appreciation for documents. Users vote for documents, giving them stars, making it quick and easy to see which ones are of top quality.
• Streamline Distribution: Send documents to others with ease by giving them downloadable tickets through a link. Control how long tickets are valid, ensuring secure and timely access to documents.
• Boost Functionality: Connect with popular platforms like Joomla and WordPress to access documents and publish content automatically. Browse, download and search documents directly within WordPress, making it even easier to manage your content.

Primary Features

• Document Import and Upload: Import documents from ZIP files and upload folder structures. Assign templates to documents and specify attribute values during upload or editing.
• Email and Contact Management: Send documents like invoices and technical sheets via email to recipients. Keep track of your contacts’ details, like their email addresses and company info, in an address book.
• Security: Keep your documents safe with features like check-in and check-out. Protect sensitive documents with passwords, and customize access rights to decide who can view, download, print or edit them.
• Document Management and Search: Use tags to organize and find documents, and customize them with metadata and descriptive details. Search for documents by their content or details, such as title, author or type.

Limitations

• The solution doesn’t support saved and folder searches.
• It doesn’t offer a mobile web user interface.

Pricing

The solution is free to download and offers paid versions under the Business, Enterprise and Cloud editions (which are not open-source).

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Why Use an Open-Source CMS

A 2024 report by StoryBlok found that 68% of users changed their CMS in the last three years and another 57% plan to switch soon. If you’re looking to make a change, here’s why you might opt for an open-source CMS:

1. Individuals (Bloggers, Hobbyists, Freelancers)

• Affordable: Open-source CMS platforms are free, so they’re perfect for people with limited budgets.
• User-Friendly: Many open-source CMSs, like WordPress, have simple interfaces, so even non-coders can build and run their sites.
• Community Help: Users can find resources, forums and tutorials from a community network, which can help them find answers to their queries, solve problems, learn new things and improve website features.
• Flexible: With many themes and plugins, open-source CMSs let users personalize their sites without writing codes.

2. Businesses and Organizations

• Affordable: Open-source CMSs save businesses money by avoiding pricey licensing fees of proprietary software.
• Expandable: CMSs like Drupal and Joomla let businesses grow their websites, handle more visitors and add new features as their needs change.
• Secure: Open-source code lets businesses find and fix security problems quickly, with help from the community, security pros or in-house teams.

3. Developers

• Flexible: Open-source CMS platforms allow developers to create tailored solutions for their clients’ specific needs. They can design custom themes, develop plugins or integrate with third-party services of their choice.
• Offers Learning Opportunities: Developers can better understand web development, software architecture and best practices through hands-on experience and collaboration with peers.
• Facilitates Portfolio Building: Developers can build portfolios that demonstrate their expertise and ability to work on projects and attract potential clients and career opportunities.

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Cost of an Open-Source CMS

Although open-source CMSs are free to use initially, you may still have to pay for services like web hosting, domain names or customizations.

Let’s look at some of the factors that influence the cost of an open-source CMS:

1. Customization

An open-source CMS provides a range of templates, themes and plugins to personalize the look and feel of your website. Sometimes, you might need to hire developers or designers to help you make those changes if you’re not sure how to do it yourself.

Matthew Smith, Digital Marketing Director at Right Hook Studio, discusses the importance of skilled developers in customizing CMS platforms.

We customized WordPress to create a complex eCommerce platform with inventory management and shipping integration. The customization was extensive, and required dedicated developers who were well-versed in WordPress’s core architecture and PHP programming. The limitations often lie in the technical resources available rather than the CMS itself.”

Experienced developers can handle the platform’s complexities, and create custom solutions that improve performance and user experience.

2. Hosting

Even though the CMS is free, you need a place to store your website’s files and make them accessible online. This is where hosting comes in.

Factors such as server resources, performance and security features affect hosting costs. To manage these costs effectively, choose a reliable hosting provider with flexible plans.

3. Plugins and Extensions

These are extra tools you can add to your website to give it more features, like a calendar or a contact form. Some plugins and extensions are free, but others may cost money. For advanced features like eCommerce or marketing automation, you might need to buy licenses or subscriptions to add them to your site.

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4. Development and Maintenance

Just like a car needs regular check-ups, your website needs someone to keep it running smoothly. You might need to hire a developer or a maintenance service to fix bugs, update software or add new features.

They can also carry out ongoing maintenance tasks such as software updates, security patches and backups.

5. Training and Support

Many open-source CMS platforms offer documentation, tutorials and community forums where you can get help using the software.

If you still have problems and need extra help, you can consider getting training or hiring support staff. They can help you learn how to use your website or fix any problems you encounter.

Training costs typically include onboarding sessions, workshops and online courses to help you use the CMS effectively.

6. Scalability

It’s essential to choose a platform that can handle more visitors, content or features without breaking or slowing down too much. As your website gets busier and you add more features, you might need to spend money on infrastructure, development and ongoing support.

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Next Steps

Whether you’re starting a blog or working on big web projects, an open-source CMS gives you everything you need to manage your content. We hope our list of the top five solutions provided valuable insights to narrow down your software search.

Looking for more? Check out our free comparison report to evaluate top open-source CMS platforms and how well they align with your business needs.

Have you used an open-source CMS before? Are you looking for any business-specific features? Let us know in the comments!

SME Contributors

Matthew Smith is a Digital Marketing Director at Right Hook. He is passionate about helping local service companies thrive online. With a proven three-part framework, he specializes in niche industries like pest control, dentistry, plumbing, dog training and cosmetic surgery. An alumnus of Sheffield Hallam University, Matthew has worked as a digital marketer and digital marketing manager at Kinspeed and Boxing Science.