CMS also helps you to build your own system for creating web pages, storing images, and other functions. The content management system handles all the basic infrastructure stuff for you, which helps you to focus on more important aspects of your website. Following is a handpicked list of Top CMS Software with their popular features and website links. The list contains both open source (free) and commercial (paid) software.
Best CMS Platforms to Build a Website
1) WordPress.com
WordPress is the world’s most popular open-source and free to use CMS. It started as just a blogging platform, but it has been added features significantly over the years, and today, it is emerging as the complete content management software.
Features:
You can design multiple pages with no coding skills using Page Builder plugins. Option of WordPress hosting or self-hosting. Helps you to create webpages for multiple functions for your blog. This one of the top content management systems offers Backward Compatibility. WordPress Plugins comes with excellent unofficial support other than the main help document. WordPress offers a simple addition of posts or pages on the site. Hosts offer WordPress installation using cPanel with very few clicks.
Link: https://wordpress.com/
2) Wix
Wix is easy to use, beginner-friendly drag-and-drop website builder. This web editor tool allows you to drag-and-drop elements anywhere you want in any web page. With Wix’s help, the entire process of web building becomes smooth, simple, and fast.
Features:
It helps you to optimize for mobile use. Wix provides a secured shopping cart. Easy tracking for every order. Provides services like inventory and order management Offers feature for send & manage invoices. It has abandoned cart recovery feature Customer login/member area Offers multilingual stores Track traffic with Google Analytics Integration with Square POS
Visit Wix »
3) Joomla
Joomla is another popular CMS that allows you to build a website and many different business-oriented online applications. It runs smoothly on various web servers without any issues because it is easy to use and is a highly extensive free to use CMS tool.
Features:
It allows you to choose when articles are published. Joomla is suitable for blogging websites. Add extra functions to your content in a single click. It offers a perfect balance between ease of use and complexity of functionality. Edit content without any knowledge of code. This is one of the best content management systems that offer a user-friendly admin interface. Templates are available free of cost and can be applied with one click.
Link: https://www.joomla.org/
4) Drupal
Drupal is an open-source web development platform for creating an online content management system and user communities. You can set up the Drupal CMS platform from a simple blog to a large corporation’s content portal.
Features:
Helps you to create Panels, Views, and Web forms A website developed using Drupal CMS is more secure as compared to other CMS platforms. Some excellent developers are available for support. Enables you to manage complex, multi-domain management. This is one of the best content management systems that offer access to thousands of modules and themes.
Link: https://www.drupal.org/
5) Shopify
Shopify is the best website builder around. This web builder tool offers a rapidly growing service that now powers over 800,000 online shops. It provides best pricing plans. It provides a free trial, which allows you to check the various functionalities of this web builder tool. This Content management system allows you to sell your products and services online. It is one of the easy to use online store builders that allows you to add an unlimited number of products directly from the dashboard.
Features: Visit Shopify »
6) Magento
Magento is an e-commerce platform. It provides online merchants with exceptional flexibility and control over the content, looks, and functionality of their e-commerce store.
Features:
Supports reporting and analytics. This is one of the best CMS that allows product and catalog browsing. This is one of the best content management systems that offer a feature for site management. Various types of marketing promotions and tools International Support Magento is an expensive solution, so the installation cost is extremely high.
Link: https://magento.com/
7) Squarespace
Squarespace is a website builder tool that is known for its professionally designed templates. This tool offers Squarespace software that combines hosting, templates, themes, e-commerce, CMS, and technical support in one solution.
Features:
Modern design templates. Adjust the styling of your sites along with fonts, colors, and page configurations. Easy to use editor interface. Customizable content layouts. This CMS software allows you to add your personalized CSS and other coding. This is one of the best CMS that supports Social media Integrations. The drag-and-drop blog editing interface. Option to create private blogs.
Visit Squarespace »
8) BigCommerce
BigCommerce is a modern-day online store platform. It offers fully-customizable themes with built-in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It also allows you to develop a mobile responsive eCommerce store.
Features:
This CMS software is one of the best free online stores that allow you to build your site on WordPress with a full back-end platform integration. You can preview before publishing. Multi-channel selling capabilities. Get more traffic with customizable, SEO-friendly URLs.
Visit BigCommerce
9) SharePoint
SharePoint is a Microsoft app having third-party tools and online hub for building web applications. SharePoint CMS is a simple content management system that is part of a SharePoint site.
Features:
Ability to follow people, sites, tags, and documents Company or organization feeds For group sharing and collaboration, provides use of @ and hashtags. Complete integration of social features with Windows Phone 7 and 8. New site definition for communities and many promising features like moderation, discussion, membership, etc. Security and document activity updates in the feed
Visit SharePoint »
10) Weebly
Weebly is easy to use drag-and-drop website builder. This tool offers 50 customized templates that help you to create a customized blog for your business. It allows you to change the blog template easily.
Features:
Weebly offers a free plan for a limited period, which allows you to try it out on a small scale before paying. Offers built-in easy to understand SEO guides. Unlimited levels of the navigation hierarchy. Fancy header with slideshow or video background. Integrated video or audio player Password-protected pages.
Visit Weebly »
11) HubSpot CMS
HubSpot is all in one platform for marketing, customer service, and sales hub. It helps you to convert leads, grow traffic, and track your entire marketing funnel in one place. This CMS also allows you to create and share email templates.
Features:
It provides a drag-and-drop facility to build web pages, landing pages, email templates, and blog posts. You can connect with your prospects through live chat available on the website. It supports HubSpot CRM, Google calendar, and Office 365. You can get a notification when someone opens an email, download an attachment, and more.
Visit HubSpot »
12) Ghost
Ghost is another important CMS platform specifically designed for bloggers. It is described as a headless CMS. This means that the CMS platform never forces content to be delivered in a specific way. So, the content which you produce can be shown on a website and it can be also published to a mobile app or something else entirely.
Features:
Lightweight and minimal Based on modern technologies Easy to customize and create themes Perfect for blogging only Membership management Hundreds of integrations available User role management Good documentation
Link: https://ghost.org/
13) Blogger
Blogger is a blog-publishing service that allows users to create and maintain their websites. It offers various functionality and design tools. It works seamlessly and you do not need to buy, install, and manage separate applications to develop your web page.
Features:
The drag-and-drop blog editing interface. Allows raw conversion. Option to create private blogs. Web feed options. Link editing in Composed mode. Offers country-specific blogger addresses
Link: https://www.blogger.com/
14) PrestaShop
PrestaShop is an e-commerce solution with all the features you need to create an online store and grow your business. It offers a mobile-optimized platform, which allows you to select between various eCommerce store themes.
Features:
It allows you to share your content on social networks and your blog to attract more visitors. Prestashop platform allows you to build your online store in several different languages and currencies; your business has no borders. You can select colors, logos, and designs from a selection of professional-looking themes. It helps you to manage store products, orders, customer relationships, and track your statistics.
Link: https://www.prestashop.com/en
15) Contentful
Contentful is the API-first content management platform to create, manage and publish content on any digital channel. It is one of the best headless CMS tool that helps you to query using RESTful API. As it is headless CMS, so you will need some technical knowledge to implement it.
Features:
It helps you to unify content so it can be edited from a single hub. This is one of the best headless CMS that can be used in any digital channel. Integrate with hundreds of leading-edge tools for translation, segmentation, eCommerce, and more.
Link: https://www.contentful.com/
16) TYPO3
TYPO3 is a free enterprise-class CMS based on PHP. It one of the most popular CMS options globally, which is predominately used in Europe and other regions. It is very flexible, so companies of all sizes looking to scale can use this CMS platform. However, it comes with a hefty learning curve, and it is not the most user-friendly CMS on this list.
Features:
Great pick for enterprise-level sites. Includes support for multilingual websites. Allows you to manage multiple sites from a single installation. It makes it possible to share data and tools among your websites
Link: https://typo3.org/
17) Kentico CMS
Kentico Xperience is an award-winning digital experience platform. It combines content management, digital marketing, and commerce. This is one of the best headless CMS for modern websites.
Features:
Translation Management ASP.NET MVC Support Multi-site management This one of the best headless CMS that offers personalized experiences. It integrates seamlessly into any technology stack. Provides document management Web farm support
Link: https://www.kentico.com/
18) DotCMS
dotCMS is one of the best open-source headless CMS. It offers a fully secure, scalable, and fully customizable CMS Cloud. It helps you to scale across your organization quickly and easily.
Features:
Future-proof Content Management System It has an Edit Mode Anywhere feature that provides business users with WYSIWYG editing, layout, navigation, and multi-site management. Static and dynamic content publishing are supported Offer the flexibility to deploy on a public or private cloud Offers mobile device preview.
Link: https://dotcms.com/
19) Grav
Grav is a lightweight CMS that uses a flat-file architecture. That means you do not need a separate MySQL or similar database to use Grav. Everything is stored in one single file on your server.
Features:
Open-source with MIT license Functions without a database management system You can extend with themes and plugins It is a pre-configured package that already contains sample websites.
Link: https://getgrav.org/
20) Silverstripe
Silverstripe is a highly customizable and extensible CMS. This CMS tool comes with a framework and CMS, and it can be customized to perform any feature imaginable.
Features:
Super flexible & extensible It helps you to start quickly and deliver your content to your users fast. Enterprise-level security and support. It has hidden a power and functionality that developers can customize.
Link: https://www.silverstripe.org/
21) Umbraco
Umbraco is the ideal CMS for highly customized and unique applications. It allows you to access some of the highest tier plugins and software packages available for. NET platform.
Features:
Flexible CMS – you can customize and manage your content your way Offers intuitive editing experience Band system and component picker Simple multilingual management Offers best hosting for your website. Easy-to-use form builders Open source and well-documented API
Link: https://umbraco.com/
22) concrete5
concrete5 is an open-source CMS for publishing content on the World Wide Web and intranets. This is one of the best CMS tools that are designed for ease of use for users with a minimum technical skills. It enables users to edit site content directly from the page. It offers version management for every page. This CMS allows users to edit images through an embedded editor on the page.
Features:
Helps you to generate forms for typed content with auto-save and drafts Easy theme controls Media manager Layouts retain responsive grid points. Drag and drop content Automatic add-on update notification
Link: https://www.concrete5.org/
23) Bynder
Bynder is a CMS with million plus users around the world. It provides creative branding, and marketing features. It helps professionals to accelerate the creation of video and other content and get the right assets to the people and systems that need them, and ensure brand compliance. Bynder is used by brands like Spotify, Puma, TED, and Five Guys to get content and campaigns to accelerate the end-to-end creative content lifecycle.
Features:
Great collaboration tools Easy to create shareable style guides Ideal for marketing Digital asset management Offers creative workflow
Link: https://www.bynder.com/en/
FAQ:
❓ What is a CMS Platform?
🚀 Which are the Best CMS Software?
🏅 How to Choose the Best CMS Platform for Your Website
Also, check the key differences between WordPress, Joomla and Drupal CMS: Click Here
WordPress Wix Joomla Drupal Shopify Magento Squarespace BigCommerce
Content editor: CMS software is made for easy content creation and management, so naturally, an easy-to-use content editor is a key factor to consider. Design flexibility: You should opt for CMS, which provides a large variety of templates and designs. Customization: It is essential to have a CMS that helps you to adapt the look and feel of your content to fit your brand style guide. User Management: Set permissions and manage users can help give the right people access to essential tools, yet also restrict certain features to certain managers or other executives. Integrations: It should be able to integrate with your existing marketing technology stack. Support: Having reliable customer support or a wide knowledge base for your CMS can be beneficial not only to you and your problems but also to your time management. Pricing: Every CMS has some pricing plan. Some are free and open source. However, you will need to pay to host them. While in some others, you just need to purchase the software and start using it. SEO: It is important that your chosen software gives you the tools to rank in Google and other search engines. Personalization: For business use cases, select the best CMS which allows you to create personalized visitor experiences. It should also help you to improve your marketing and conversion rates. Security: With some CMS tools, you’ll be responsible for your site’s security, while other tools handle it for you.
👉 Do I need a CMS to start a blog?
❗ Why Use Web Content Management Software?
What is headless CMS?
A headless CMS needs plenty of knowledge to implement but gives you more flexibility for how and where you use your content.
