Best CMS (2025)

Ranked picks for cms. No "it depends."

🧊Nice Pick

Sanity

Developer-first CMS. Customizable everything.

Full Rankings

Developer-first CMS. Customizable everything.

Pros

  • +Highly customizable
  • +Real-time collaboration
  • +Great DX
  • +GROQ queries

Cons

  • -Learning curve
  • -Can get complex
  • -Pricing scales

Enterprise CMS. Solid but expensive.

Pros

  • +Mature platform
  • +Enterprise features
  • +Good docs

Cons

  • -Expensive
  • -Less flexible
  • -Slow iteration
Compare:vs Sanity

Self-hosted Node CMS. Free but you manage it.

Pros

  • +Open source
  • +Self-hosted
  • +Customizable
  • +Free tier

Cons

  • -You host it
  • -Less polished
  • -Plugin quality varies

The e-commerce behemoth that can do anything, if you're willing to wrestle with its PHP spaghetti.

Pros

  • +Highly scalable for large enterprise stores
  • +Extensive marketplace of extensions and themes
  • +Built-in multi-store and multi-language support

Cons

  • -Steep learning curve and complex setup
  • -Performance can be sluggish without heavy optimization

The internet's default CMS. It'll get your site up fast, but good luck keeping it from turning into a plugin-filled mess.

Pros

  • +Massive ecosystem of themes and plugins for endless customization
  • +User-friendly admin interface that non-developers can actually use
  • +Built-in SEO tools and blogging features out of the box
  • +Strong community support and extensive documentation

Cons

  • -Security vulnerabilities are common due to outdated plugins and themes
  • -Performance can degrade quickly with too many plugins or poor hosting
  • -PHP-based architecture can feel clunky compared to modern frameworks

WordPress's e-commerce sidekick. It turns your blog into a store, but good luck keeping up with the plugin updates.

Pros

  • +Seamless integration with WordPress, leveraging its CMS for content and SEO
  • +Highly customizable with thousands of themes and extensions
  • +Open-source and free to start, ideal for small businesses on a budget

Cons

  • -Can get bloated and slow with too many plugins, requiring constant optimization
  • -Security and maintenance rely heavily on third-party extensions, increasing vulnerability risks

Head-to-head comparisons

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