Decap CMS
The open-source Git-based CMS for static sites — an /admin UI that commits straight to your repo.
Rebranded
Rebranded from Netlify CMS to Decap CMS in February 2023, reflecting its vendor-neutral, community-run nature.
About
Decap CMS is the vendor-neutral continuation of Netlify CMS: it was renamed in February 2023 when the project moved to community stewardship. It is a single-page React app you mount at /admin on any static site; editors get a clean UI for creating and editing content that is stored as flat files (Markdown, JSON, YAML) in a Git repository, with authentication against GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket. Editorial workflow states (draft, in review, ready) map to Git branches and pull requests.
It is MIT-licensed and free, with roughly 19,400 GitHub stars (Aug 2026). Configuration is a single config.yml describing collections, fields, widgets, and media handling; it pairs with Hugo, Jekyll, Gatsby, Next.js, Astro, and other static generators. Honest limits: no database and no native scheduled publishing or webhooks, content modeling is simpler than database-backed CMSs, and development pace is community-driven rather than corporate (v3.9.0 released Nov 2025 per one 2026 review). No published performance benchmarks found.
What it can do
- Browser-based editorial UI at /admin for repo-backed sites
- Content stored as Markdown, JSON, or YAML in Git
- Editorial workflow via Git branches and pull requests
- GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket backends
- Config-driven content modeling in a single config.yml
- Custom widgets and editor components
Setup
Add the Decap CMS script to your site, create a config.yml describing your collections, and mount it at /admin with a Git backend.
Prerequisites
A static site with a Git repository and a build pipeline; a GitHub/GitLab/Bitbucket account for authentication.
Use cases
Works with
Trust score — 7/10
Scored 7/10 (VERIFIED tier, metrics-v1). Evidence: MIT license, ~19.4k GitHub stars, and the Feb 2023 Netlify CMS rename corroborated across four sources; Git-backed architecture and config.yml workflow consistent. Strengths: free forever, zero CMS infrastructure, Git as the system of record with real versioning. Docked for: (1) community-run pace — no corporate backing, no native scheduled publishing or webhooks; (2) simpler content modeling and weak relational data support versus database CMSs. License: MIT (open source).
★ 19,426 GitHub stars
How the trust score is built
Full methodology →- Adoption · stars/downloads, log-scaled vs peers
- 7.0/10
- Maintenance · recency, releases, issue load
- 7.0/10
- Openness · license + docs
- 10.0/10
- Manual review · sanity read + red-flag check
- 7.0/10
- · ~19.4k GitHub stars; single-page React app at /admin; config.yml collections; GitHub/GitLab/Bitbucket backends.
- · Editorial workflow via Git branches/PRs; pairs with Hugo, Jekyll, Gatsby, Next.js, Astro.
- · No DB, no native scheduled publishing or webhooks; simpler content modeling; community-driven pace (v3.9.0 Nov 2025).
Sources
Every fact above was checked against these sources. Where a claim comes from the provider and couldn't be independently verified, the text says so.