15 Best CMS Software in 2023

by Imed Bouchrika, Phd
Chief Data Scientist & Head of Content

An efficient Content Management System (CMS) is needed to create a website and manage its content from scratch without the need to learn to code or possess a degree in web development. Businesses lean on websites to establish credibility and build customer trust. With the aid of CMS software, companies, especially new ones, can attract their target demographics easier and faster.

CMS makes content writing and uploading processes simpler and using theme-oriented designs and templates, makes them a great asset that increases productivity for businesses of all sizes. According to the Search Engine Journal (June 2022), 68.9% of websites have CMS with a market size of approximately 796 million websites.

To help you find the ideal CMS for your company, this guide will cover 15 of the best CMS software on the market. Decide which software is the most suitable by learning more about the benefits, features, and pricing of each platform.

Best CMS Software Table of Contents

1. CMS Software Statistics
2. CMS Software Trends
3. List of CMS Software Solutions

CMS Software Statistics

Content is king and it will always be. Make sure your content stays relevant by investing in the right tools and keeping up with industry trends. For instance, Statista (2021) reveals that the demand for content management software is poised to grow in the coming years:

• The global content management software application market is expected to reach $43.9 billion.
• Until 2025, the market is expected to grow at a 0.7% compound annual rate

As content is considered a driving force for customer engagement and conversion, it only makes sense that more marketing professionals are using technologies for content marketing efforts. Recent CMS software statistics from Statista (2021) also shows how a growing number of industry leaders are seeing this form of marketing as a revenue center.

• 52% of marketing professionals used content management systems to leverage their content marketing efforts
• 51% of content marketing professionals invested money in content management tools
• 44% of B2B marketers worldwide see content marketing as a revenue center

These CMS software statistics come as no surprise. After all, hand-coded websites can be expensive. So, businesses without the resources to hire in-house developers or outsource web development turn to CMS in order to help boost their online presence. According to W3Techs (2022), WordPress takes the top spot at 64.2% followed by Shopify at 6.3%. Wix is in third place at 3.4, Squarespace is fourth at 3%, and Joomla is at 2.5% in fifth place. From sixth to tenth place respectively are Drupal (1.8%), Adobe Systems (1.6%), Google System (1.4%), Bitrix (1.2%), and Webflow (0.9%).

CMS Software Trends

With the growing set of demands to deliver omnichannel innovation and content management system customization, flexibility and efficiency are top priorities needed to thrive in any industry in the same way modern transport and delivery companies are reliant on fuel management system and software providers. The following CMS software trends can help organizations succeed in the ever-changing digital environment:

• Personalization. Optimizing UX for customers and employees is attained using personalization. With CMS personalization, users can accomplish their goals and boost their productivity. Personalizing knowledge management by using smart recommendations flourished. With smart recommendations and AI-powered algorithms, it is easier to load tools, information, and contacts. Users save time and increase efficiency since these smart recommendations can offer relevant documents and contacts based on their past activities.
• Headless technology. Like business bookkeeping software, CMS software flexibility is essential to move content to various digital platforms. With headless CMS, the backend is enabled, improving flexibility. A headless system uses Restful APIs in content transport and eliminates the need for multiple CMS.

• Automation. Automation and artificial intelligence aid in saving the time of employees and the automation of emails. They also offer translation from speech to text as well as data extraction. It can be a struggle for organizations to build their own AI algorithm so many CMS vendors partner with cloud service providers to offer pre-packed algorithms or other AI services bundles such as contact center analytics, image classification, and document processing. With these bundles, organizations receive more automation and AI capabilities.
• Digital Transformation. The pandemic forced organizations into accelerated digital transformation. In the coming years, this will carry on. Remote work was quickly adopted, leading organizations to add and improve their digital foundations. As such, organizations need to adopt more tools and tactics. Digitized paper-based processes like e-signature are also something to look further into.

• Tool Integration. The dependency on technology is growing by the day. Frequent launching and switching between separate tools can hinder efficiency. Having a system with embedded tools in a single interface will help establish seamless access to different apps. An API-first approach will allow tool integration from various vendors to improve the UX. In this way, developers can build APIs for the existing system of an organization or can simply create new systems around these APIs. Organizations can purchase tools from specialized vendors and integrate these tools into one interface in the CMS.

The pressure to be flexible and productive will require organizations to stay agile and adapt to the changing demands of the industry. CMS software trends like headless technology, personalization, automation, digital transformation, and tool integration are all necessary to respond to these pressures. CMS buyers must consider these strategies and tools to find the best CMS software to help their organization succeed.

List of CMS Software Solutions

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1. HubSpot CMS Hub

HubSpot CMS Hub is a cloud-based content management system built to combine website creation and CRM functionalities. It offers tools for building customized websites, editing and creating web pages, and managing content. The platform also comes with SEO recommendations, content creation tools, and pre-built website themes that help attract website clients and visitors. Leveraging the best CRM system solutions, Hubspot also tracks site visitors and helps personalize customer experiences.

As a full suite of software, HubSpot CMS Hub is a flexible solution for marketers, allowing for effortless edits. It is a powerful coding choice for developers, a secure option for the IT team with 24/7 security monitoring, and the ideal platform for customers with its more personalized experience.

HubSpot CMS Hub Key Features

• Update and create pages without help from a developer or custom codes.
• Build a cohesive site without fear of mismatched design, navigation, or logos.
• Track site visitors in one place and uses CRM data to personalize digital experiences.
• Hosts website on a fully managed and optimized infrastructure that grows with your business
• Connects custom domains to your website that instill brand trust and authority
• Grow audience with SEO-friendly content.

Price

HubSpot CMS Hub has a basic plan available for free. However, for those in need of more advanced features, they have paid plans starting at $23/month.

2. WordPress.org

WordPress.org is a self-hosted CMS that powers almost half of all the websites on the Internet. WordPress.org is advanced and allows for complete customization and flexibility in building and managing simple to dynamic websites. It also allows you to earn money through your own advertisements.

Accessible using an intuitive web-based interface from your chosen browser, WordPress.org is a huge website management platform. It comes with thousands of integrations and plugins, all of which you can use on the go (via iOS and Android). This means teams can use the platform alongside project management tools and the best small business accounting software with ease. With its open-source nature, WordPress.org offers one of the largest website-building communities.

WordPress.org Key Features

• Offers flexibility to build and scale any type of website
• Comes with an extensive gallery of free and paid WordPress themes and amazing plugins
• Helps create SEO-friendly categories, URLs, and tags
• Gives valuable support via a reliable WordPress community
• Highly extensible, making it an ideal platform for both beginners and developers
• Allows for easy download of all your content via XML format for effortless importing

Price

WordPress.org is completely free to use. However, the site will not go live without a domain name, hosting service provider, and pre-made themes. Depending on how you want to manage your site, you may also need to use paid plugins and integrations.

3. Webflow

Webflow combines the power of a web designer and a content management system to give users fully-customized ecommerce experiences. With Webflow, you can build any website you can think of using HTML, Javascript, or CSS in a visual canvas. Moreover, it comes equipped with tools to help you manage any content that you publish on your site.

Webflow launches new campaigns faster, optimizes your site, and connects it to your key marketing tools. It is fast, accessible, comes with scalable hosting, offers advanced security, and takes pride in dedicated partnerships. Last but not least, it enables users to create web designs without any coding knowledge.

Webflow Key Features

• Design websites around any content type needed.
• Intuitive Editor publishes, updates, and edits content
• Builds and customizes online stores
• Crafts immersive experiences through animations and interactions
• Helps in search engine ranking with fine-tuned SEO settings
• Captures information, syncs CMS, and connects all your sites

Price

Webflow offers a free version that includes all of the necessary CMS features. It also has a paid version with more advanced functionalities. The Basic plan starts at $14/month when billed yearly.

4. Duda

Duda is a professional website builder that supports higher productivity and powers top-performing websites. Create websites twice as fast with automated workflows and versatile page creation.

With Duda, you can create designs with real content without relying on developers. You can write, edit, and update content on the page itself and leverage the one-click publish feature. It also allows users to easily scale their business with customer strategies that tailor to their unique needs. There are also built-in upsells that expand your revenue.

Duda Key Features

• Increases client retention with integrated analytics and results
• Simplifies client collaboration with tools that collect content for feedback and approval inside the platform
• Automates site creation using existing customer data
• Integrates with APIs so you can customize website creation flows
• Seamless syncing of relevant content
• Offers access to award-winning support and training

Price

Duda is priced at $19/site/month billed annually.

5. Pantheon

Pantheon is a cloud-based web hosting and CMS software. It revolutionizes the way organizations build, run, launch, and manage websites with design, innovation, and fast deployment. It is the most dependable WebOps platform for Drupal and WordPress sites. It offers enterprise-grade security and customer support.

Pantheon offers serverless CMS, low-code management tools, and enterprise hosting solutions. As such, it empowers users to quickly move from ideation to execution. It can also help you boost your website performance and accelerate growth using secure autonomy and tools that optimize the visibility of your brand.

Pantheon Key Features

• Creates rich and innovative digital experience for seamless scaling
• Empowers cross-functional collaboration of teams to innovate and deliver faster with confidence
• Builds, manages, and scales websites across all your brands and domains
• Deliver workflows with the use of the right tools for desired content and site changes
• Offers Autopilot that saves time and increases accuracy by automated upgrading processes

Price

Pantheon plans start at $41/month.

6. Storyblok

Storyblok is a headless CMS with a visual editor created for developers, marketers, and content editors. Storyblok helps teams tell stories, manage content for all uses, and improve enterprise-level performance, caching, and speed.

With its modern headless architecture, Storyblok offers a flexible page builder user experience. Editors will find it easy to use its self-explaining intuitive interface and developers can freely do as they wish. With Storyblok, you can build anything, publish everywhere, and integrate with any technology stack.

Storyblok Key Features

• Build your technology stack with compatibility with all frameworks.
• Comes with an API-driven flexibility that publishes to any framework or frontend
• Creates content collaboratively and intuitively
• Manages content easily using a central content hub
• Creates and serves unique content experiences for each language, market, or audience

Price

The Storyblok entry plan starts at €90.75/month.

7. Contentful

Contentful is a headless CMS and API-first composable content platform. It enables users to create, manage, and publish content on any digital channel. With this CMS in place, you can orchestrate content across various brands, regions, and teams quickly and efficiently.

In addition, it helps you save time and prevent the hassle of creating your own backend. With Contentful, you can manage content using tools to generate a website or an app. Enjoy a reliable central hub to streamline editing, authoring, assembling, and managing various content with consistency.

Contentful Key Features

• Builds content once and makes it accessible and reusable for multiple teams to scale resources
• Creates and syncs common components across any number of experiences without the need for code or migration scripts
• Delivers a solid out-of-the-box media handling for different images
• Boots powerful apps and tools digital builders can use to test, deliver, and maintain excellent customer experience
• Provides an advanced caching method that integrates with external CDNs

Price

Contentful lets you build for free. However, it offers paid plans starting at $489/month.

8. Butter CMS

Butter CMS is a headless CMS with easy-to-use marketing functionalities. This API-first CMS platform makes content management at any scale fast and effortless. Its Global Content API can integrate with any tech stack. With Butter CMS, you can save time with zero maintenance and security.

Butter CMS is a flexible solution that launches multi-channel experiences quickly. It comes with a centralized dashboard that helps manage all of your content in one place. Moreover, the platform has built-in SEO tools to help you improve the visibility of your campaigns.

Butter CMS Key Features

• Create more content scenarios with data collection.
• Rank faster with built-in SEO.
• Edit easier with custom field validation and additional helpful rules.
• Easily reorder page layouts using the smooth drag-and-drop option.
• Compress images by default with DAM Automatic Compression.
• Manage assets and stay on brand with a centralized media library.

Price

Butter CMS plan starts at $83/month for three users.

9. Joomla

Joomla is an open-source CMS with cutting-edge web technology and functionalities. Joomla helps create powerful websites while making content maintenance easy and seamless. With it, you can extend and customize as you wish as the platform comes with thousands of verified third-party extensions.

Joomla also comes with a robust codebase. The platform has an extensive security and a built-in two-factor authentication system to help you keep your important assets away from prying eyes. Lastly, the platform has a global community of developers and volunteers that can provide insights into how to use the platform.

Joomla Key Features

• Efficient management of suite with hundred of subpages.
• Monetize the website by creating advertising campaigns.
• Offers a multilingual setting, with over 70 languages available
• Comes with a built-in search tool or a smart search feature
• Provides a powerful and ready-to-use SEO toolkit

Price

Joomla is available for free.

10. Drupal

Drupal is an open-source and robust CMS with sophisticated APIs built for multi-channel publishing. Drupal is extremely powerful, functional, flexible, and secure. It is the ideal choice for content-heavy, complex, and high-traffic websites. When it comes to large and complex sites with huge resource databases and libraries, Drupal is the first to come to mind.

Since Drupal has an open-space nature, users can expect a collaborative community. This means you can get answers to your questions fast and get your site working just the way you want with the help of other users and developers.

Drupal Key Features

• Uses data from geolocation, device type, browser history, and more to personalize user experience.
• Supports more than 100 languages for automated language translation
• Increases reach with automated marketing campaigns.
• Comes with a built-in user management system that allows for roles creation and specified permissions
• Offers different modules you can add to your site just like plugins

Price

Drupal is free to use.

11. Contensis

Contensis is a next-generation CMS that combines the features of headless content management systems and traditional systems. Ultimately, it helps in creating, managing, and publishing multilingual content.

Contensis is built on a scalable architecture. This allows content delivery through multiple channels formatted for any device. It is a good CMS choice as it provides an elegant user experience. It allows for the structuring of any content using content types. With the power to create specific kinds of content, it offers an unbeatable sense of content ownership.

Contensis Key Features

• Conducts regular security tests for less vulnerability against threats
• Expands site functionality with built-in modules
• Speeds up content delivery using high-performing read-only API
• Offers intelligent image caching for lightning-fast services
• Easy to integrate with other systems such as museum collections, university research portals, etc.

Price

The Contensis plan starts at £725/month.

12. Brightspot

Brightspot is the leading CMS when it comes to digital transformation. It is an enterprise-grade platform that helps publishers move at lightning speed and with excellence. It utilizes an intuitive publishing process with flexible workflows. With this at your disposal, you can seamlessly deliver the content you want to your audience using pre-built content types and collaboration features.

Brightspot is a complete CMS solution that aims to make daily work simpler and more productive. It simplifies publishing with authoring and developer experience tools.

Brightspot Key Features

• Offers over 100 out-of-the-box content types
• Comes with a world-class publishing user interface the allows for easy publishing
• Provides collaboration tools that make real-time work with the team possible
• Manage media in one place for easier uploading, use, and reuse of images, documents, videos, and others.
• Seamless distribution of content anywhere.

Price

Brightspot offers a 30-day free trial. Its paid plans start at $7,500/month.

13. Solodev

Solodev is a content management platform that allows teams to build websites, power apps, and publish cross-channel content. It offers access to the latest digital marketing apps with 24/7 support powered by AWS.

With Solodev, organizations and developers can also build amazing customer experiences. It deploys blockchain apps and custom cloud, launches NFT marketplaces, and collaborates on digital transformation. Solodev expands the customer experience with user-friendly tools like native multisite, built-in SEO tools, integrated analytics, automated scheduling, and many more.

Solodev Key Features

• Provides pre-built themes and easy-to-use resources and tools
• Quick adding of functionalities like Blog, Careers app, landing pages, and more.
• Offers intuitive editing tools to easily manage content
• Allows for permission creation for users to draft or publish content
• Integrates with third-party apps through API

Price

Solodev plans start at $69/month.

14. Magnolia

Magnolia is an enterprise headless content management software with tied-in personalization and analytics. It uses a modular architecture and a powerful interface to manage digital experiences across markets, brands and channels.

Magnolia is the platform you need for seamless integration in any channel. It unifies content, data, and assets. With a headless approach, Magnolia gives the flexibility to create unique front ends by utilizing the development tools you want. With low-code development and the use of Java language, you can simplify and hasten development via file-based configuration.

Magnolia Key Features

• Manages content in one place and its publish everywhere feature allows for content reuse
• Offers great scalability to grow a site
• Creates targeted campaigns for optimized customer experience
• Comes with a future-proof tech stack you can freely swap in and out
• Accelerates integration with any other digital system using connector packs

Price

By quote

15. Titan CMS

Titan CMS is an easy-to-use, powerful, and intuitive CMS software. It is a flexible and scalable enterprise CMS that is ideal to meet IT and marketing’s changing needs. This cloud-based system works for novice users to the most technical ones.

Titan CMS delivers a robust data and content management system with a drag-and-drop functionality. The platform also comes equipped with granular security options, smart search capabilities, and WYSIWYG editing. Moreover, it supports a variety of third-party integrations, allowing you to extend its functionalities as needed.

Titan CMS Key Features

• Organize articles via content filtering through tags or keywords.
• Create and customize content with unified Titan CMS Block architecture.
• Access and edit multiple websites quickly to reduce work and increase productivity.
• Customizes SEO data on created pages and leverages Google algorithms to optimize search engine ranking
• Offers exceptional customer support, service, and personalized training

Price

Titan CMS plan starts at a $3,500 one-time flat rate payment.

Invest in CMS Software to Streamline and Scale Business

Content management systems makes the creation, management, modification, and publishing of content effortless in a user-friendly interface. By using CMS, all your web content will stay in one place. Motivate employees and grow your organization by investing in technology like the best CMS software. It supports team collaboration, accelerates updates, and offers extensions and templates for site customization.

With a CMS in place, you can streamline both your web design and content publishing to ensure site and workflow sync. Just make sure to choose the tools that align with your business goals and processes. In this way, you can let technology do the heavy lifting for you.

Add your brand to the list

References:

1. Search Engine Journal (June 2022). CMS Market Share Trends: Top Content Management Systems In 2022. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/cms-market-share/454039
2. Statista (2021). Content management software application market revenues worldwide from 2019 to 2025. https://www.statista.com/statistics/643850/worldwide-content-management-software-market-share
3. Web Almanac (2020). CMS. https://almanac.httparchive.org/en/2020/cms
4. W3Techs (2022). Usage Statistics of Content Management Systems. https://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/content_management
5. 360 Market Updates (2022). Global Headless CMS Software Industry Research Report, Competitive Landscape, Market Size, Regional, Status, and Prospect. https://www.360marketupdates.com/global-headless-cms-software-industry-research-report-competitive-landscape-market-22069369