CMS Made Simple is a free, open-source PHP content management system built on the Smarty template engine. See features, modules, and how it compares.
CMS Made Simple is a free, open-source content management system first released in July 2004 and licensed under the GPL. Built in PHP with the Smarty template engine, its core design principle is a strict separation between content, functionality, and templates, letting designers and developers work independently.
The project shipped a major version 2.0 overhaul in 2015 and won the CMS Critic award for Best Open Source Content Management in 2017. It remains community-maintained rather than backed by a single company, with distribution through its own site, GitHub, and SourceForge.
The core installation includes a real-time Content Manager, a News module for article-based content, a File Manager, front-end and back-end Search, a permissions-based Users manager, and a lightweight WYSIWYG editor for non-technical editors.
A large catalog of community-built modules — installable via the in-admin Module Manager — extends the base CMS with e-commerce, forms, galleries, and other functionality, while the Smarty template layer keeps custom front-end designs fully decoupled from PHP application code.
CMS Made Simple is entirely free and open source under the GPL-3.0 license, with no paid tiers, subscriptions, or commercial edition. It can be used for personal or commercial projects at no licensing cost.
Costs to site owners come from self-hosting infrastructure and any optional professional services or premium third-party modules/templates purchased from independent developers in the CMSMS community, not from the core software itself.
Yes, CMS Made Simple is completely free and open source under the GPL-3.0 license, with no paid tiers or commercial edition.
CMS Made Simple is built in PHP and uses MySQL as its database backend, with the Smarty template engine handling front-end templating.
CMS Made Simple was first released in July 2004 and has been continuously developed and maintained since then, with a major version 2.0 overhaul released in 2015.
CMS Made Simple uses the Smarty template engine to strictly separate content, functionality, and design, giving developers a different templating approach than WordPress's PHP-based theme system. It has a smaller ecosystem than WordPress but a lighter footprint and long-standing reputation for stability.
Yes, CMS Made Simple is self-hosted software that requires a PHP/MySQL hosting environment; the project does not offer an official managed hosting or SaaS version.
CMS Made Simple is maintained by a volunteer and contributor community rather than a single company, with development coordinated through its official website, GitHub organization, and SourceForge project.