13 Simple CMS Options
While there are a lot of powerful and feature-rich content management systems available to choose from, designers often have the need to work on small sites for clients that may only have use for a fraction of the features offered by the CMS. In theses cases the ideal solution is to use a simple CMS that may offer limited features, but will be easier for clients to use.
If you’re finding that some of your clients are confused by extra options, consider finding a CMS that has been created specifically for smaller projects with simplicity in mind. In this post we’ll look at 13 options that are available. All of these CMSs should make it easy for you to set up the site, and easy for the clients to manage content.
GetSimple
GetSimple claims to have “everything your clients need, and nothing a CMS dosen’t.” GetSimple is XML-based rather than using a MySQL database, and has been created specifically with the needs of small websites in mind. GetSimple is free and takes about 5 minutes to install.
CushyCMS
CushyCMS allows designers to brand their own CMS with a pro account ($28/month), and a free version is also available without the custom branding. It takes just minutes to make a site editable (by using classes) and clients can then easily edit their own content.
Surreal CMS
Surreal CMS is very similar to CushyCMS, but it includes a few additional features like the ability to create new pages from existing pages, preview before publishing, the ability to edit title, keywords, and descriptions, and more. With a free account you can manage up to 3 websites, or with the Designer Account you can manage unlimited sites and re-brand it as your own.
PageLime
PageLime also uses CSS classes to determine editable content and allows users to easily manage text, images, links, page titles, keywords, descriptions, and more. Users can create new pages from templates, manage image galleries, create RSS feeds, etc. Free accounts are available to manage up to 3 sites, and premium accounts are available for designers who want to re-brand the CMS (50 sites for $19/month or unlimited sites for $69/month.
Konductor
Konductor (currently in Beta) integrates with Adobe Dreamweaver to allow designers to work with Konductor. No server setup is required and users can easily modify content in regions that you have designated. Konductor hosts the websites, and most sites will require a $25 – $30 monthly fee.
Zimplit
Zimplit is a basic CMS that allows site owners to edit content right on the page without going to a back-end admin area. It’s free and open source and uses no database. A re-brandable version is available with prices 29€ to 399€ per month, based on the number of sites using the system. Free site templates are available for quick setup, or you can design your own themes.
Perch
Perch is a “really little content management system.” There is a one-time license cost of £35 per domain, and it runs on your server with no ongoing-costs. With Perch you’ll use PHP tags to declare editable regions and can be set up quickly. Designers can re-brand the system which will customize the interface.
Simple CMS
Simple CMS offers designers a brandable CMS that takes only minutes to set up. Rather than visiting a back-end dashboard to manage content, site owners can edit content right from the page. To make the content editable you can either use a class or comments within the HTML. You can manage one site for free, 15 sites for $15/month, or unlimited sites for $20/month.
CMS Made Simple
CMS Made Simple has been created to give designers and users the option of a basic, simple CMS, but it also offers modules and additional features that make is usable for larger sites. It’s a free open source CMS that is built on PHP.
Frog CMS
Frog CMS was started as a PHP-based version of Radiant CMS, which is built with Ruby on Rails. It uses a simple but flexible templating system. Plugins are available to extend the core functionality.
Symphony
Symphony is an XSLT-powered open source CMS. It provides a lean core CMS, with the flexibility of adding on through the extensions library. By keeping only the essential functions as part of the core system, Symphony maintains simplicity that makes it suitable for smaller projects.
Pixie
Pixie is a free open source option. Different installations are available according to the type of site that will be using it, and some basic free themes are available for download.
Typeroom Lite
Typeroom Lite is “a lite-weight, instant CMS for simple websites.” Designers can decide what content should be editable for clients. A free account is available for sites with up to 3 pages (hosted on your own server), and three different paid plans are also available. The paid plans include Rackspace hosting and prices range from $24/month to $149/month for each site.
Have Anything to Add?
If you have any other simple CMSs to suggest, please leave a comment.
For more CMS-related content please see:
Maybe it’s not simple as in the simplest thing around, I’m talking about concrete 5 … but it offers ease of use, which is very important for clients. It has a very easy “right under your nose” style of content editing. While it might take a little longer to set up as your client want’s it afterward it’s a piece of cake to change (as far as CMS-ing for the noob goes). As any good programmer is aware, changing a premade CMS to do more than it was designed to do is a bitch of a task which is why I recommend home made CMS solutions or frameworks or ck editor or anything that comes to mind as long as it helps keep things simple. (I had to change the way drupal works and the way e-commerce works because a client thought it would be fun and fast to have pre-made solution and then just tweak it to be something else … actually it takes about twice the time as doing it from 0 depending on how well you know the system you are about to change)
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Hi Paul,
I’ve heard good things about Concrete 5, I haven’t personally used it myself. I looked at it when I was compiling this list, but it didn’t seem to be what I would consider a simple solution. That’s not to say it’s not a great CMS. I use WordPress every day but it’s not on the list because I don’t think it’s ideal for very small sites that only need basic updates and changes.
Great roundup Steven. We’re most likely going to need to move to a smaller CMS (we currently use Joomla and WordPress) for some of our clients. Of the one’s that you’ve used personally in the list, what’s your favorite?
Great list Steven. It’s amazing all the good stuff out there. But problem is that the big boys steal the limelight. I am a great believer in using the right tools for the right job.
Chris,
I like CushyCMS for its simplicity, but it is very limited. If I had a project right now that required one of these options I would try PageLime. I’ve only experimented with it to a very limited extent, but it has more features while still maintaining simplicity.
Awesome… Thanks… for sharing..
Thanks, I will look into PageLime.
I use CMS Made Simple and it is the best CMS I’ve ever used. It has simplicity but also has the ability to be as complex as you need, which I think is very important.
The only thing holding it back is it’s ecommerce functionality.
I’ve used Cushy before and have been rather happy with it, especially for people who have static html sites and want a better solution – it makes for a nice temporary fix while we’re planning a major overhaul.
You forgot Light CMS http://www.speaklight.com
I will admit I’ve not used any of the systems mentioned in this list (and for some, by their descriptions, I certainly never will), but I’m always amazed when Textpattern CMS doesn’t make these lists.
http://textpattern.com
Since 2004 development has been true to the aims of the system: lightweight, flexible and secure (never hacked), and in that scope it has only refined over time (no feature creeping/bloating).
If you build websites for people, site construction with Textpattern is as simple as Russian dolls, and the Tag-based system is bloody genius. You can create a publishing solution for anything a site owner could possibly need.
Like I said, I’m always amazed.
Destry,
As Textpattern’s websites says, it is “full featured software.” That was not the point of this article. Textpattern was included in our CMS Toolbox, which was more of an all-inclusive post of a wider variety of CMSs.
Robert,
I didn’t forget LightCMS. I’ve worked with it before and I would not consider it to be a “simple CMS.” While it’s pretty easy to work with from a designer’s perspective and from a user’s perspective, it is rather feature-rich, which is not what this post was about.
Cool collection! Did a great work in finding all of these… Really inspiring…
Thanks for sharing..
Anybody willing to do a side-by-side comparison with Word press?
I love lists of things I didn’t know about, but a more in depth review would be very helpful. Chugging along with client work on WordPress sites, I don’t have much time to sift through all the other content management options to see if there’s anything actually better
Of course I don’t think there’s anything actually better. I LOVE WordPress.
I wanted to point out a great CMS for Flash elements that I recently used for a client called Yooba. It allows creation of flash elements in a simple photshop-y way easy for clients to make adjustment to flash items without a flash designer
When I saw the post title I thought WordPress would be #1, at least the .com version, but then I saw your answer to Chris Thurman’s comment. Now what about the great plug-ins that are available for the self-hosted WordPress? I believe these plug-ins make it the ideal CMS platform for any site of any size. Still, this is a great post – and an awesome site 🙂
Adam,
I would say that what’s better depends on the needs of the project. WordPress has more potential than most of these CMSs, but they are created for different purposes. I’ve had clients with very small sites that only need to edit maybe two pages on the site, and no need to add new pages. WordPress can be a bit overkill for these situations, although you can remove or hide some of the options in the dashboard to make it easier.
Amadou,
I’ve never used WordPress.com and I wouldn’t really consider it for a list like this because I don’t think it’s a professional option. For a personal blog it’s fine, but there purpose of this post was in reference to working with client sites. I agree with you that WordPress is a great CMS and various plugins enhance it’s CMS capabilities, but I’ve had several situations where I used it on a client site and it wasn’t ideal.
We also have to mention the great cms PluXml (http://pluxml.org/). It’s all in xml technology. Also it’s perfect coding give to skilled-webmaster great possibilies. It’s a very light CMS, I mean there aren’t much stuff around like modules, plugins etc… Morevover the community doesn’t seem to be very important but appears to me as quite active. On the other hand it gives you a complete freedom for your design.
Since 3 years i’m using it for various type of website command, it has always match to my need.
Thanks for the article !
I haven’t read through all of the comments, so I apologize if I am repeating what has already been mentioned. We have been working with Squarespace and, so far, like it.
http://www.squarespace.com
That’s a really good list. Too often, developers forget that clients might not have much design knowledge, so using a fully-fledged CMS might be tough. WordPress is probably the simplest I’ve come across out of the popular ones, but there are those like Drupal which has a gigantic learning curve. Plus they might have features the client doesn’t even need.
I have also recently worked with Concrete 5 and must say it’s quite brilliant.
However it is very much a frontend oriented CMS – which means that there’s not a a clear logical grouping of content, as in say Joomla or WordPress, for administrators. Editing pages with Jquery sliders or carousels etc also becomes a bit of a headache – so much so that I abandoned the carousel in the last project – which is not ideal.
First off, thanks for the mention of GetSimple! It’s a project I’m very, very proud of.
@Adam Wood – I love WordPress too: nothing even compares to it. But sometimes, in the eyes of a client, WP is a monster they are afraid of trying to learn. All they want to do is update a web page… not learn how to blog, or update a photo album or anything else that WP does so great. They just want to edit the text on a web page.
That’s where I think a lot of these types of ‘lite’ CMSs come into play. I built GetSimple not to compete with WordPress, but to fill a niche that comes up when small businesses need to do very basic and minimal updates to their websites… and I think (a little biased maybe) that GetSimple services this niche admirably.
For a simple CMS, sNews is great. http://snewscms.com/
one core engine file, one template file and one css file. PHP/mySQL driven.
It is true that WMaker.net is not to be listed as a simple CMS because it offers a wide range of features, but, a focus has been put on the user interface, so that it remains simple to use.
End users can simply manage their content and designers can easily customize websites
Thanks for this list. It is very useful to see various solutions.
I use http://www.monkeycms.com/ and love it, the way it worked just clicked with me when I couldn’t get to grips with Drupal
PureEdit is nice if you (not your client) know a little PHP.
http://www.pureedit.com/
Unfortunately the author has been ignoring it for awhile… but you can still get a fair amount of support from the community, if you need it.
Hi Brandy,
I’ve never used PureEdit but I have seen it before. Since I saw that it’s not currently being developed I didn’t include it.
Here is a new one worth checking out. It is also a hosted option and allows users to edit content right on the page. Its build for designers so you can easily plug your xhtml/css right into the system and with the use of a few tags, make content editable.
Webvanta – http://webvanta.com
Another that looks like it fits the criteria for this list is: http://unify.unitinteractive.com/
I’ve been using WebYep from ObDev.at for about two years. It’s an amazing system and practically free for the value it’s been for my clients. They offer a number of options for sale and you can test it on the fly.
WebYep direct link: http://www.obdev.at/products/webyep/
Great roundup. Radiant CMS is still my favorite though…
Good list. Thanks for the list. Its a good one.
These would be some options I would love to see on the list too:
1 – Pritlog – http://hardkap.net/pritlog
2 – Nanocms
All I can say is wow! Thanks for the great resource!
Great post, bookmarked 🙂
Thanks Steve for the great post. But I am not sure about the definition of “small projects”. Most of the projects I worked starts with basic requirements where some of the above can fit well but over a period of time they grow many folds.
Also, it will be useful, if there is a feature list attached to each CMS which will really help in picking one up for implementation.
Cheers,
Shishank
WebNode — they won Start-up of the year at LeWeb — http://www.webnode.com/?dr=1
A CMS list without WordPress seems incomplete to me.
v1dz,
WordPress doesn’t fit this list at all. The point was not to showcase the best CMSs, it was to focus on those that are intended for simplicity with minimal features. That is not WordPress.
also don’t forget joomla 😉
I’m looking for something like Pagelime that would let me add CMS elements to an existing site through simple code snippets.
Only criteria is that I don’t want a hosted solution. I don’t want to take a chance that another company will still be in business 10 years from now.
I’m looking for a simple solution that I can host on my own servers.
Any suggestions?
That is silly. This is 2010 we put everything in the cloud. Email, Docs, File Backups, personal info, credit cards…
Holding on to this “Another Company Will Still Be In business 10 years from now” thought is just ridiculous.
If that website your building is still around in its current form in 10 years, the company sure as heck wont be.
PageLime also doesn’t host the site, just the content management, so if they did go out of business, nothing would happen to your websites. Using a service like PageLime is going to be more reliable, more stable, and a better User Experience in the long run since they are constantly being forced to improve the system. As opposed to your self hosted solution which you wont even look at for the next 10 years.
Think of it this way, with hosted solutions (Especially when you white label them!) it’s like your still working with your clients and in their best intrest long after you type you last “/>” This means you will be who they call in 2 years when they actually need a new website. Your thinking about the future, but so myopically that it’s hurting your present. – Cynthia
If you are looking for a really simple Video or Podcasting CMS I would take a look at http://getmediacore.com
I am still looking. I have used (and like) simplecms, but I want something just like it that I can host myself – with mysql perhaps. I want it simple – just like simplecms. Any suggestions?
Aron
i think unify is one of the most simple cms. its great, because you only have to ad a css-id to your code and thats it.
Chris English asked:
——————–
I’m looking for something like Pagelime that would let me add CMS elements to an existing site through simple code snippets.
Only criteria is that I don’t want a hosted solution.
I’m looking for a simple solution that I can host on my own servers.
Any suggestions?
———————
Dynpage is that. Not much more than a PHP include manager tied into CKeditor and CKfinder for WYSIWYG editing and file management.
I’ve also used CMS from Scratch for a few sites, it’s little rough around the edges though. I really like it conceptually and hope development on it continues.
The best option for developers and their clients has to be osmek.com, They have revolutionized what a content management system can be by centrally hosting the conent and pushing it out to your site through a simple api.
You guys forgot this one, which is very good:
http://www.gosimplecms.com
Thanks!!
Aron,
try http://www.seotoaster.com
From what we know it’s the most advanced SEO CMS out of the box;
deeplinks, JavaScript based link sculpting, point & click link silo building, auto 301, auto image tagging, auto SEO alignment…
It’s very easy to use too, and requires only 4 html and 2 css templates.
Free & Open Source.
FORGET ABOUT OTHER CMS! THIS LIST ROCKS!! hehe
I am amazed not to see so simple CMS tools like WordPress, Joomla or Drupal. Is this about the upcoming or petty CMSes only ? 🙂
By far the best one is Pulse CMS.
http://pulsecms.com
Oh, and its free.
I was surprised to see Symphony here; I guess it could be used for any sized site but it’s definitely a work horse that can do some pretty amazing things and is probably overkill for when a lite CMS is needed.
Best,
Clayton
Chris,
WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla are not what this post is about. I use WordPress on a lot of projects but it can be too much for some situations that just need something simple.
I agree that Unify is also a great simple resource. You can get a site up and running in 10-15 minutes for under $20. You can’t create new pages with it, but for simple text editing it’s perfect. It also allows adding/arranging repeatable elements, which is useful.
Frog is in the list, but do note that development seems to have ground to a halt some time ago. In July 2009, Wolf CMS forked, and is under active, productive development. Great system in the “Radiant” tradition!
http://www.wolfcms.org/
Very simple page management, very light, readily extended. Well worth a look!
Frog is in the list, but do note that development seems to have ground to a halt some time ago. In July 2009, Wolf CMS forked, and is under active, productive development. Great system in the “Radiant” tradition!
http://www.wolfcms.org/
Very simple page management, very light, readily extended. Well worth a look!
I am not sure how this will help the developers, but i always prefer to use WordPress for my most of the websites.
Good list. LightCMS is pretty good and it’s simple to use.
The proof is in the pudding. Check us out.
Simple CMS?
maybe this is :SweetRice
My small and fast CMS 🙂
Template CMS 0.9 Features:
– Easy to install, use and update
– Easy administration interface.
– Multilingual interface administration. (English, Russian +)
– Minimum requirements for web hosting (without sqlDB only PHP)
– Keywords and description for each page and for all.
– Easy page editor (WYSIWYG).
– Create a backup of the site.
– Ability to change themes.
– Friendly URLs.
Site: http://templatecms.webdevart.ru/
Download: http://templatecms.webdevart.ru/download
Very good list showcasing some great products/services.
I’d love to add GingerPenguin to that list.
Fairly new to the scene, and in keeping with the simple to use philosophy for clients.
Branding features are just around the corner but include the ability to customise some of the content that they see including news, support info etc allowing you to easily stay in touch with your clients, advertise new services and products etc without the need to email them as they’ll see your updates whenever they edit their site.
nice work~
great list!
i want to suggest that, since you excluded several cms’s since they were not simple enough, i’m going to be different and, instead of suggesting yet another one to include, suggest Cms Made Simple is not really very simple, compared to say Frog, and maybe does NOT belong on this list. also, i personally find it to be a bit unclear to work with– it’s architecture is a bit obscure. imho.
thanks!
I am looking for any information on how a company would move an outsourced CMS system to inhouse. What is the best way of going about this sort of thing?
Please help
Here`s a bigger list of simple CMS’ http://www.vivalogo.com/vl-resources/free-lightweight-simple-cms.htm
Lots of great choices out there, anyone try http://www.cloudinclude.com ?
Seems to be a different alternative to current solutions, offering a lightweight cloud based cms system.
building websites is not only fun, but it can also generate an income for yourself ,”:
Here is a solution, Veolay : http://www.veolay.com/
Its is a tool for Designers, Developers, Bloggers & anyone wanting to edit web pages easily within minutes. No more CMS Installation hassles…
– No database setup or installation
– White Labeling tool (Rebrand easily)
– Easy content editor
– Dedicated File Manager
– Automated Backups on every SAVE
– File Version Controller
– User Management
Hope this help anyone looking for the simplest content editing app. 🙂
Hi Steven,
CouchCMS (http://www.couchcms.com/) is another such light-weight CMS.
It can be retrofitted within existing static sites and uses only XHTML type tags to do everything – features that make it perfect for web-designers.
In short, it is as simple in use as CuchyCMS and as flexible as ExpressionEngine.
Perhaps, you’d like to review it.
Hello Steven,
Thanks for your post.
I’d definitely add newbie CMS to the list (http://newbie-cms.com/demo/admin/). newbie has an amazingly intuitive interface that newbies can get up to speed with which ia a major issue when newbies face learning curves. newbie’s dashboard is clearly ahead of cushy and newbies see everything they can do at a glance. Another point is using any templatefor a website which can be done in 3 minutes with newbie with the uploaded files unzipped and added to the template system and ready to go. Add that to the SEO friendliness and ability to add functionality like analytics, currency converters and lots of different widgets including jquery to it and you really have a package that can contend anything on the list.
You should take a look at RapidCMS, http://rapidcms.org
It’s a completely free, very simply CMS that is REALLY simple.
RapidCMS uses both PHP and MySQL. That completely eliminates it from the Light/Simple CMS market. Go spam your product elsewhere.
Excellent list thanks, nice to see a list of lite systems and not the usual WordPress Joomla stuff.
The Demo of rapidCMS dont even work, error Array lol
Hey, I made rapidcms.org
Beth – You’re correct that it does use php and MySQL, but it is still very simple to use and is completely lightweight. It is not designed for a someone that has not knowledge of web technologies, but for someone with limited knowledge, and more specifically for the client to make quick updates effortlessly.
I do not think it’s very difficult to click “add mysql database” and the performance impact of a flat file database is too drastic, though thanks to go suggestion maybe I’ll consider making it an option.
Thanks for the feedback.
Russ – I checked the demo and it seems to be working. However, I don’t think the instructions on are clear, so I wrote some ugly instructions on top.
The username is demo and the password is demo.
Give it another shot, I think you’ll be impressed.
Feel free to ask any questions you like. I’ll check back to see what you guys think.
what i do NOT like about rich-text editors on “editable regions” in many a light CMS, is that end-users can totally DESTROY the design and uniformity of a website by picking fonts, sizes, or styles which are not part of the designed CSS of the site, and which deviate from the designer’s choices. i’m looking for a light CMS which ONLY provides standard html tags (H1, H2, etc), and classes which are in the CSS. No font-selectors or size-selectors, no bold/italics/underline. This will lock the non-techie end-user into the designers intended fonts and styles– which is a very good thing. Which light CMS offers that?
New one as of Dec 2010 – Pyro CMS http://pyrocms.com (free, and on github.org)
Can I also suggest you give http://www.gingerpenguin.com a try. We’ve some very nice updates due very soon too. – Adrian
I dont like downloading and installing a CMS. Too much hassle. I’ve tried CushyCMS which is online but it’s UI is a little complicated for the average user. PageLime is the same, the UI is nice but not that intuitive. Apparently GingerPenguin is new and it’s really easy to use with most if not all of the features of Cushy and at half the price
Ive been looking for some decent CMS I was using SMS but it’s not powerful enough and little options
Template CMS – a fast and a little content management system written in PHP,
which allows you to easily create a website business card, satellite, home page of a man who has no expertise in php or html.
Features
+ Easy to install, use and update
+ Easy administration interface.
+ Multilingual interface administration.
+ Minimum requirements for web hosting (without sqlDB only PHP)
+ Keywords and description for each page and for all.
+ Easy page editor (WYSIWYG).
+ Ability to change themes.
+ Ability to specify custom template for any page.
+ Ease of development and integration of new themes.
+ Editing themes directly from admin
+ Powerful Plugin API
+ Friendly URLs
site [en]: http://templatecms.webdevart.ru/en/
plugins: http://templatecms.webdevart.ru/download/plugins
themes: http://webdevart.ru/temyi-oformleniya/
try phpwarmsky. it is currently lightweight with…
* a powerful bulletin board.
* about 5 WYSIWYG editors to choose from.
* 10 themes.
* 40 plus modules.
* easy to install modules or update them.
* Minimum requirements for web hosting
http://www.phpwarmsky.com
Hello! I know this is kinda off topic however I’d figured I’d ask. Would you be interested in exchanging links or maybe guest authoring a blog post or vice-versa? My website covers a lot of the same topics as yours and I feel we could greatly benefit from each other. If you might be interested feel free to shoot me an email. I look forward to hearing from you! Wonderful blog by the way!
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You may take a look at the SiteCake CMS (sitecake.com). It has a limited set of features (intentionally) but offers the simplest possible user interaction – drag&drop wysiwyg editing style.
Thanks for mentioning Pulse CMS here, Steven!!
How about Mecha CMS?
Interesting list, but the article is pretty old article by web standards. Any updates to this list?