Top 10 WordPress Alternative CMS For News Publishers

Written by : Rashmi Singh

Most news publishers go with WordPress when launching their websites. They choose it because it takes only a few minutes to install the WordPress CMS. But things start to seep out of their hands when they create dozens of pages every day. That’s when they realize they need a WordPress alternative CMS that comes with more powerful features.

If you are a news publisher, you should choose an enterprise-level CMS that is powerful enough to handle thousands of pages without any hitch.

1. Bold

Bold is a headless CMS that lets you create an easy workflow with news creation-specific features such as a live preview of articles across multiple platforms and content collections. With Bold, you do not need to publish stories on every individual platform as the CMS brings all the platforms together to your dashboard.

You can connect Bold seamlessly with its sister products and get features like layout customization, front-end management, monetization platform, and audience engagement.

2. SuperDesk

Supersesk is the successor CMS of Newscoop. It is known for its capabilities to integrate with various legacy systems. Just like WordPress, Superdesk is also open-source software. The main features of this CMS include customizable templates, document indexing, image and text editor, and full-text search.

3. Ghost

Yet another open-source CMS on the list, Ghost is known for its minimalist editor. Just like WordPress, Ghost comes with a number of themes that can be installed in minutes. However, one negative aspect of this CMS is that it is a generic blogging CMS so it does not come with news publication-specific features.

4. Contentstack

Contentstack is a powerful CMS that focuses on distributing content across multiple digital channels such as mobile, web, and even the Internet of Things (IoT). It is an API-first, headless CMS that also acts as a digital experience platform (DXP). Thanks to its capability to connect with APIs, publishers choose it for creating customer journeys.

5. Prismic

Prismic is a SaaS-based headless CMS with features such as multi-language support to reach a wider audience, scheduling, live previews, and the capability to integrate with other resources. Although Prismic is a powerful editor, it also has a drawback that news publishers without dedicated developers can not use Prismic.

6. Dot

Another robust WordPress alternative CMS in the list, Dot is a hybrid content management system that helps news organizations build, deploy, and manage websites and apps. The main features of Dot CMS include multilingual support, multi-site hosting, and easy content scheduling across multiple platforms.

7. Drupal

Drupal is one of the oldest CMSs in the industry. It is famous for being flexible and having thousands of customizability options. One can either get a free theme from Drupal’s official theme repository or get a premium theme from any theme marketplace on the internet. Just like with the case of Prismic, news publishers need to get the help of dedicated developers to use Drupal.

8. Joomla

Joomla is more user-friendly but lesser flexible as compared to Drupal. Publishers get more out-of-the-box features from Joomla than Drupal or even WordPress. With this CMS, one can configure the website’s settings on the backend, redirects, media, menus, and banners.

9. Agility

Agility is another content-first headless CMS that is very flexible. Justifying its name, the CMS connects with lightweight APIs and helps news publishers in creating and distributing news pieces at a fast pace. With Agility CMS, developers can use any programming language to build the front end of the website.

10. Butter

Butter is a well-known WordPress alternative CMS that can integrate into new or older projects within a few minutes. It is highly flexible and can integrate into any tech stack such as programming languages, libraries, tools, coding frameworks, or architecture.