SHSelfHostIndex

Craft CMS vs Winter CMS

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted content management systems options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
CR Craft CMS Flexible CMS for custom-designed websites VS WI Winter CMS Laravel-based CMS focused on simplicity and stability
FeatureCraft CMSWinter CMS
Deploy effortUnder-an-hour setupUnder-an-hour setup
Health score88 · Excellent84 · Excellent
CategoryContent Management SystemsContent Management Systems
LicenseMITMIT
LanguagePHPPHP
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM512 MB512 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metal, sourcedocker, bare-metal
GitHub stars★ 3,608★ 1,520
First released20132021
ReplacesWordPress, SitecoreWordPress

What are Craft CMS and Winter CMS?

Craft CMS

Craft CMS is a content management system focused on giving developers and designers complete control over content structure and markup. The core product is open source with optional commercial editions.

  • Flexible content modeling
  • Twig templating
  • GraphQL API
  • Plugin store

Read the full Craft CMS guide →

Winter CMS

Winter CMS is a free, open-source content management system based on the Laravel framework, created as a community-driven fork of October CMS. It offers a clean backend, a plugin marketplace, and developer-friendly tooling.

  • Laravel foundation
  • Plugin marketplace
  • Clean admin backend
  • Developer tooling

Craft CMS vs Winter CMS: key differences

Both projects are written in PHP. Craft CMS is the more established project (first released 2013), while Winter CMS arrived in 2021. Craft CMS has the considerably larger community, at 3,608 GitHub stars versus 1,520.

Why pick each one

Choose Craft CMS if…

  • Excellent for bespoke sites
  • Clean control panel

Watch out for

  • Pro edition is paid
  • Not ideal for non-developers
Craft CMS details

Choose Winter CMS if…

  • Released under the MIT license
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Active community (1.5k GitHub stars)
  • Written in PHP

Watch out for

  • Requires PHP knowledge
  • Smaller plugin catalog
Winter CMS details

Frequently asked questions

Is Craft CMS or Winter CMS better?

Neither is universally better. Craft CMS has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are Craft CMS and Winter CMS free and open-source?

Yes. Craft CMS is licensed under MIT and Winter CMS under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Craft CMS and Winter CMS with Docker?

Craft CMS: yes. Winter CMS: yes.

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