The CMS Landscape in 2025: How to Choose

Modern CMS fall into two camps: traditional (content + templates together) and headless (content decoupled, any frontend). Here’s a fast, practical overview to match your use case and budget.

Traditional CMS

WordPress (6.8.x) — unmatched theme/plugin ecosystem. More capable block editor, stable minors. Ideal for blogs, corporate sites, and WooCommerce stores. Start on Shared Hosting, move to VPS as traffic grows.
Joomla 5.x — clean architecture, strong multilingual core, task/media improvements in 5.3. Solid for corporate portals. Prefer VPS; small sites run fine on Shared Hosting.
Drupal 11 — the heavyweight for complex structures, permissions, and integrations. Faster installs and “Recipes.” Choose VPS or Dedicated for large projects.
TYPO3 v13 LTS — enterprise-grade with long-term support, multilingual and editorial workflows. Best on VPS or Dedicated.
Ghost 5 — minimalist platform with newsletters and paid subscriptions built-in. Great for media and creators. Runs well on Shared Hosting or a small VPS.

Headless CMS (for SPA/Next.js/mobile)

Strapi 5 — open-source headless with rich admin (Documents, preview, versioning). Perfect for omnichannel. Deploy on VPS.
Directus 11 — data-first on top of SQL: model your schema, get API + UI. Ideal for internal apps and content hubs. Use VPS with backups in S3 storage.
Payload 3 (Next.js-native) — a CMS embedded into your Next.js app. Maximum flexibility for JS teams; requires dev effort. Ship on VPS.

Quick chooser

  • Blog/media with newsletters: Ghost → Shared Hosting / VPS.

  • Corporate site/catalog, strong i18n: Joomla / TYPO3 → VPS.

  • Store + blog, huge plugin market: WordPress (+Woo) → start on Shared Hosting, scale to VPS.

  • Enterprise/gov, roles & integrations: Drupal 11 / TYPO3 → VPS or Dedicated.

  • React/Next custom front: Strapi / Directus / Payload → VPS.

Where to host

  • Shared Hosting — fastest start (WP, Ghost, simple corporate sites).

  • VPS — root access, headless stacks, workers and queues.

  • Dedicated — high SLA, heavy databases, multisite, and traffic.