OpenCms

OpenCms, from Alkacon Software, is a genuinely open source Java and database driven content management system, and the licence-free part is not a marketing qualifier: the vendor states plainly that as genuine open source software OpenCms is licence-free. For organisations managing extensive websites on a constrained budget, or those that need to avoid per-seat or per-site licensing entirely, that changes the calculation compared with commercial Java platforms in this category.

It is built for large websites specifically, described as centrally managed and multi-tenant, so multiple sites can run from one installation under common governance. The positioning throughout is ease of use for the people creating and managing content, rather than developer capability alone. That combination, centrally managed multi-tenancy with an editor-friendly interface, is what the product is actually for.

Development is active and the release notes are informative about direction. OpenCms 21 added AI and LLM-based translation directly into the XML content editor, with translation workflows for the OpenAI and DeepL APIs, and improved the upload dialogue so properties can be edited for multiple files at once. OpenCms 22 will move to Jakarta EE and run on Tomcat 11, with a legacy variant retained for existing installations, which is a meaningful signal for anyone planning a multi-year deployment. Alkacon OCEE is the accompanying enterprise edition. Commercial support, training and documentation are available, along with an Alkacon partner network for implementation projects. Community participation runs through a mailing list and a contributor licence agreement, and a live demo site is published. There is no licence cost.