Welcome to 2025, where CMS discourse somehow feels exactly the same as it did in 2015, except now everything is “headless,” “visual,” “composable,” or run by a VC-funded startup with a black-and-neon website promising to “revolutionize content.”
And yet developers are still out here saying:
“Magento, I enjoy suffering.” “Drupal cost me 10 years of my lifespan.” “WordPress is still the best (I’m so sorry).”
So let’s take a look atwhat CMSes are people really using in 2025, who they’re for, and whether you should hop ship from WordPress + ACF or stay in the cozy chaos you already know.
This isn’t a listicle. This is the developer-FOMO, real-opinions edition.
🧱 1. WordPress (Yes, Still. And Honestly? For Good Reason.)
Vibe: “I’ve been here 15 years and I can’t escape.” Best for: Small–medium businesses, clients who yell “I want to update the text myself,” and agency projects with small budgets.
WordPress in 2025 is like that toxic ex people keep going back to because:
- It’s cheap
- It’s everywhere
- It does everything
- Your clients are already familiar with it
- The plugin ecosystem is unmatched (Yoast, Mailpoet, WooCommerce, literally everything)
Developers swear by:
- ACF (with a death-grip level of attachment)
- ACF + Timber
- ACF + Timber + Bedrock if they’re feeling fancy
- Composer setups if they're masochists
- 0–5 plugins max for sanity
Some devs dream of escaping. Some tried. Some came crawling back.
WordPress remains the “default” because nothing else competes with its plugin ecosystem, client recognition, or flexibility.
🎨 2. Craft CMS – “WordPress, If WordPress Had Been Built by Adults”
Vibe: WP, but with fewer performance tears and cleaner architecture. Best for: Agencies with budgets, bespoke design, custom content models.
Craft is the one everyone wants to use more, but hosting complexity or plugin gaps stop them.
Why devs love Craft:
- Fewer performance issues
- Cleaner templating
- Better out-of-the-box authoring experience
- Less plugin bloat
Why devs curse Craft:
- Matrix fields need plugins for serious work (Neo, SuperTable)
- Updates sometimes come with breaking changes
- Conditional logic is still behind ACF
- Documentation can feel… interpretive
- Small community
But when it works? Craft is like WP, but without the existential dread.
If you can afford the license, Craft is still one of the best pure website CMSes.
✨ 3. Statamic – “What if ACF Was the CMS?”
Vibe: Laravel-powered ACF fever dream. Best for: Developers who love structured content, Twig-style templating, and Laravel ecosystems.
Statamic feels like someone took:
- ACF
- YAML
- Twig
- Laravel
- and smashed them together into a very elegant little package.
Why people love it:
- Extremely fast
- Structured like ACF but built-in
- Fantastic developer experience
- Flexible front-end templating
- Great for custom content, directories, complex layouts
Why some hesitate:
- Paid license
- No direct equivalent to Craft Commerce
- Not open-source (some don't care, some very much do)
Many say: “If you like WP + ACF, you’ll love Statamic.”
And they’re right.
🧩 4. Headless CMSes (Sanity, Strapi, Payload, Directus, Dato, Prismic)
Vibe: “We’re modern, composable, Jamstack, and vibing.” Best for: Web apps, large structured datasets, multi-channel content, Next.js or SvelteKit builds.
A quick breakdown:
Sanity
- Great UI
- Real-time collaboration
- Excellent content modeling
- Very dev-centric
Con: Harder for basic website stuff: routing, preview, multi-site.
Strapi
- Popular
- Solid
- JS-based
- Open-source
Con: Plugins and auth can get messy.
Prismic
- The "WordPress for modern stacks"
- Slices feel very ACF
Con: Pricing gets spicy.
Directus
- Loved by structured-data nerds
- Beautiful UI
- Great for multi-output content systems
Con: Not a website builder—data only.
DatoCMS
- Elegant
- Stable
- Extremely editor-friendly
Con: Price again (seeing a theme?)
Payload CMS
The current golden child of dev Twitter.
Why people are obsessed:
- Built in JS
- Everything is JSON-configurable
- Excellent modern admin UI
- Headless by default
- Great DX
- Hooks, APIs, components—super extensible
- Deep Next.js synergy
- Free to self-host
Payload 2 brings:
- Visual editing
- Improved previews
- Better relationships
If you’re already in JS land, Payload is a serious contender for “Next.js Official CMS.”
🐘 5. Drupal – “Universities Love It, Developers Fear It”
Vibe: “I’ve seen things.” Best for: Enterprise, universities, government, huge content ecosystems.
Among the opinions:
- “I love it, wish I could use it more.”
- “I hate it with a passion.”
- “It cost me 10 years of my life.”
Still, nobody denies Drupal’s strengths:
- Rock-solid content modeling
- Robust permissions
- Enterprise support
- Flexible API layer
- Security
But unless you’re doing enterprise: Don’t. Just don’t.
🧊 6. ProcessWire, Kirby, MODX, TYPO3, WinterCMS, Contao
Vibe: Niche CMS cult classics with dedicated believers. Best for: Developers who love simplicity, no-database setups, or lightweight templating.
Kirby
- File-based
- Lightweight
- Simple
- Dev-loved
- Very flexible
ProcessWire
- PHP but not painful
- Clean API
- Dev-friendly
WinterCMS
- Open-source successor to OctoberCMS
- Laravel-ish
- Good for hybrid app/CMS builds
Contao
- Symfony-based gem
- Amazing for complex user interfaces
- German-language community (can be a barrier)
These are great if you like manual control, not ecosystems.
🔥 7. Shopify, BigCommerce, Webflow & Wix Studio (Not Exactly CMSes But…)
Vibe: “E-commerce and visual builders, baby!” Best for: Designers, e-commerce stores, content-light sites.
Shopify
- The e-commerce king
- Liquid templating
- Strong ecosystem
Webflow
- Designers love it
- Export to static HTML
- Clean visual builder
Wix Studio (New Hotness)
- Shockingly competent
- Multi-site management is slick
- Agencies swear the feature pace is insane
These are great—until a client wants something “not out of the box.”
🧩 8. The Wildcards: 11ty + Decap, Custom Laravel CMSes, Homebrew Systems
Some developers absolutely said:
“I made my own CMS.”
And honestly? Respect.
But for most agencies, custom CMSes are:
- Time-consuming
- Hard to maintain
- Hard to sell
- Risky when clients outgrow you
11ty + Decap is a surprisingly powerful minimalist combo, though.
🔮 So… What CMS Should YOU Use in 2025?
Let’s match your needs:
If your clients are small–medium businesses:
➡️ WordPress + ACF (still king) ➡️ Statamic (if you can convince them) ➡️ Craft (if budget allows)
If you need structured data, automations, or a web app:
➡️ PayloadCMS ➡️ Directus ➡️ Sanity
If you need enterprise features:
➡️ Drupal ➡️ AEM (if you hate yourself) ➡️ Sitecore, Optimizely (expensive but powerful)
If you want pure developer joy:
➡️ Kirby ➡️ ProcessWire ➡️ Statamic
If the project is e-commerce:
➡️ Shopify (default) ➡️ BigCommerce (flexible but weird)
If the client wants to edit visually:
➡️ Webflow ➡️ Wix Studio
🛠️ Final Takeaway: The 2025 CMS Meta
The “Top 5 Actual Choices” agencies are really using:
- WordPress (whether they like it or not)
- Craft CMS
- Statamic
- Sanity / Payload / Strapi
- Shopify (for e-comm)
Everything else is niche, beloved, and valid—but not mainstream.