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Piranha CMS vs Statamic

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?
PI Piranha CMS Lightweight, cross-platform CMS for ASP.NET Core VS Statamic Laravel-powered flat-file CMS for custom sites
FeaturePiranha CMSStatamic
Deploy effortUnder-an-hour setupUnder-an-hour setup
Health score84 · Excellent89 · Excellent
CategoryContent Management SystemsContent Management Systems
LicenseMITMIT
LanguageC#PHP
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM512 MB512 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metal, sourcedocker, bare-metal, source
GitHub stars★ 2,196★ 4,897
First released20112012
ReplacesWordPress, UmbracoWordPress, Contentful

What are Piranha CMS and Statamic?

Piranha CMS

Piranha CMS is a lightweight, cross-platform content management system built for ASP.NET Core. It is designed to be embeddable in existing applications or run as a standalone CMS.

  • Cross-platform on .NET Core
  • Block-based content
  • Embeddable in apps
  • Lightweight design

Read the full Piranha CMS guide →

Statamic

Statamic is a content management system built on Laravel that can run flat-file or database-backed. It offers a friendly control panel and a developer-focused workflow for building custom websites.

  • Flat-file or database storage
  • Built on Laravel
  • Git-friendly content
  • Polished control panel

Read the full Statamic guide →

Piranha CMS vs Statamic: key differences

Piranha CMS is written in C#, while Statamic is built with PHP. Statamic has the considerably larger community, at 4,897 GitHub stars versus 2,196.

Why pick each one

Choose Piranha CMS if…

  • Easy to embed in projects
  • Modern and lightweight

Watch out for

  • Smaller feature set
  • Limited theme ecosystem
Piranha CMS details

Choose Statamic if…

  • Great for Laravel developers
  • Easy version control of content

Watch out for

  • Solo and Pro licenses can be paid
  • Best suited to developers
Statamic details

Frequently asked questions

Is Piranha CMS or Statamic better?

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

Are Piranha CMS and Statamic free and open-source?

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

Can I run Piranha CMS and Statamic with Docker?

Piranha CMS: yes. Statamic: yes.

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