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Cockpit

Lightweight self-hosted headless CMS in PHP with a one-off Pro licence.

Open sourceSelf-hostableContent management systems
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About Cockpit

Cockpit is a lightweight, API-first headless CMS written in PHP by a small team in Germany. It installs on almost any PHP host in minutes, stores data in SQLite by default or MongoDB for larger setups, and gives you a clean admin for defining content models, singletons and trees, managing assets and users, and exposing it all over REST and GraphQL. Because it is self-hosted with no account required, your content never leaves your server, which suits privacy-conscious European organisations, agencies and developers building small to medium sites and apps. The free core is open source, and Cockpit Pro adds features such as extra add-ons and is sold without a subscription. The trade-offs are a small community and documentation, fewer integrations and starters than the big headless CMSs, and a single-company project that you rely on for long-term updates. Editing happens in the browser.

Best for: Developers wanting a small self-hosted headless CMS on cheap PHP hosting.

Pros and cons

What works

  • Installs in minutes on almost any PHP host
  • Self-hosted with no account or subscription
  • REST and GraphQL APIs

Why people leave

  • Small community and limited documentation
  • Few integrations and starters
  • Depends on a small team for updates

Top Cockpit alternatives

See all 5
  1. 1Directus logo
    Directus

    More features over SQL databases, free for smaller organisations.

    66.5
  2. 2Strapi logo
    Strapi

    Larger open-source headless CMS with a big plugin ecosystem.

    62.6
  3. 3Squidex logo
    Squidex

    Open-source headless CMS with workflows and EU cloud hosting.

    59.6
  4. 4Grav logo
    Grav

    Flat-file PHP CMS if you also want rendered pages.

    57.2
  5. 5Kirby logo
    Kirby

    File-based PHP CMS with a customisable panel and API.

    55.3

Why people left Cockpit

In reviewers' own words, from reviews of the apps they moved to. These are their opinions, not ours.

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Cockpit: common questions

Is Cockpit free?

Yes. Cockpit is free, open-source software that you can host yourself.

Is Cockpit open source?

Yes. The source code is on GitHub at Cockpit-HQ/Cockpit. You can also run it on your own server.

What platforms does Cockpit run on?

Cockpit is available for Self-hosted and Web.

What are the best alternatives to Cockpit?

The highest-ranked Cockpit alternatives right now are Directus, Strapi and Squidex. See the full ranked list for pricing, platforms and verified facts.

See all 5 Cockpit alternatives