Craft CMS
Developer-friendly PHP CMS with flexible custom fields and a polished editing experience.
- Verified facts
- 4 of 4
- Alternatives ranked
- 6
- Approved reviews
- 0
- Visits sent from here
- 0
About Craft CMS
Craft CMS is a commercial PHP CMS from Pixel & Tonic, popular with agencies building custom websites. Instead of themes, developers define sections, entry types and custom fields, then write their own templates in Twig or use Craft as a headless backend through its GraphQL API. Editors get a clean control panel, live preview, drafts and multi-site support for different languages or brands. A plugin store adds commerce, SEO and form tools, and Craft Commerce turns it into an online store. The licensing model is per project: a free Solo edition for a single user, and paid Team and Pro editions with a one-off fee that includes a year of updates, then optional renewals. Craft Cloud offers official hosting, or you self-host on any PHP and MySQL or PostgreSQL server. The trade-off is that there is nothing to install and click together like a WordPress theme; you need a developer to build the site.
Best for: Agencies and developers building custom sites that editors will actually enjoy using.
Pros and cons
What works
- Very flexible content modelling with custom fields
- Clean control panel with live preview and drafts
- One-off project licences instead of monthly fees
Why people leave
- Needs a developer to build templates; no drag-and-drop themes
- Smaller plugin ecosystem than WordPress
- Paid editions required once you need more than one user
Top Craft CMS alternatives
See all 6- 1
Statamic66.5Similar developer-first approach, built on Laravel with a flat-file option.
- 2
Kirby62.6File-based PHP CMS with a one-off licence and a highly customisable panel.
- 3
WordPress59.6Free core and a vast plugin market if clients want to self-manage everything.
- 4
ProcessWire57.2Free open-source PHP CMS with similarly flexible fields and templates.
- 5
Drupal55.3Free open-source option with even deeper structure for very large sites.
Why people left Craft CMS
In reviewers' own words, from reviews of the apps they moved to. These are their opinions, not ours.
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Craft CMS: common questions
Is Craft CMS free?
Craft CMS has a free plan and paid plans.
Is Craft CMS open source?
No, Craft CMS is not open source. Open-source alternatives include WordPress, ProcessWire and Drupal.
What platforms does Craft CMS run on?
Craft CMS is available for Self-hosted and Web.
What are the best alternatives to Craft CMS?
The highest-ranked Craft CMS alternatives right now are Statamic, Kirby and WordPress. See the full ranked list for pricing, platforms and verified facts.