OSI-licensed open source
A digital experience platform combines content management, personalization, portals and integrations to deliver websites and apps across channels. Open-source DXPs and CMSs give you the same building blocks without proprietary license fees.
Liferay and Drupal are the closest to full DXPs. Wagtail, Strapi, Payload, Sulu, Plone, Ghost and WordPress cover content-led and headless use. Licenses were verified from repositories; dotCMS is excluded because its repository uses the Business Source License.
Tools, licences and pricing checked against vendor and repository pages on November 7, 2026.
| Tool | Best for | Pricing | Licence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Liferay Portal | Enterprise portals and DXP | Free, open source (self-hosted) | LGPL-2.1-or-later |
| Drupal | Complex content sites | Free, open source (self-hosted) | GPL-2.0 |
| Wagtail | Django teams | Free, open source (self-hosted) | BSD-3-Clause |
| Strapi | Headless CMS in Node | Free, open source (self-hosted); paid cloud and enterprise - see vendor pricing | MIT |
| Payload | Code-first Next.js projects | Free, open source (self-hosted) | MIT |
| Sulu | Symfony teams | Free, open source (self-hosted) | MIT |
| Plone | Secure intranets | Free, open source (self-hosted) | GPL-2.0 |
| Ghost | Publications and newsletters | Free, open source (self-hosted); paid Ghost(Pro) - see vendor pricing | MIT |
| WordPress | General websites | Free, open source (self-hosted) | GPL-2.0-or-later |
Best for: Enterprise portals and DXP · Free, open source (self-hosted)
Liferay is a Java-based digital experience platform; the repo is LGPL-2.1-or-later with an alternative DXP license.
Best for: Complex content sites · Free, open source (self-hosted)
Drupal is a flexible PHP CMS for complex content models; core is GPLv2.
Best for: Django teams · Free, open source (self-hosted)
Wagtail is a Django-based CMS with BSD licensing.
Best for: Headless CMS in Node · Free, open source (self-hosted); paid cloud and enterprise - see vendor pricing
Strapi is a headless CMS; the repo is MIT except ee directories.
Best for: Code-first Next.js projects · Free, open source (self-hosted)
Payload is a TypeScript headless CMS and app framework, MIT licensed.
Best for: Symfony teams · Free, open source (self-hosted)
Sulu is a Symfony-based CMS, MIT licensed.
Best for: Secure intranets · Free, open source (self-hosted)
Plone is a mature Python enterprise CMS, GPLv2.
Best for: Publications and newsletters · Free, open source (self-hosted); paid Ghost(Pro) - see vendor pricing
Ghost is a publishing platform for blogs and newsletters, MIT licensed.
Best for: General websites · Free, open source (self-hosted)
WordPress is the most widely used open-source CMS, GPL-2.0-or-later.
One email a week with the tools, launches and releases added to TechLogHub. Unsubscribe in one click.
One email a week: new and trending developer tools, fresh comparisons, and what shipped. Unsubscribe in one click.
| If you need… | Start with |
|---|---|
| Full DXP and portal | Liferay, Drupal |
| Python | Wagtail, Plone |
| Headless API | Strapi, Payload |
| Symfony | Sulu |
| Publishing | Ghost, WordPress |
Quick answers to common questions
A platform unifying content, commerce, personalization and integrations.
A CMS manages content; a DXP adds portals, personalization and integrations.
Its repo uses BSL, which is not OSI.
Strapi and Payload are built for it.
List it on TechLogHub and we'll review it for this guide.
