Plone is a free, open source CMS written in Python and owned by the non-profit Plone Foundation. It has a workflow, permission and security model, and a REST API that lets it run headless. You host it yourself or use a third-party provider.
Plone was born in 2001. Most of the code is under the GNU GPL v2, and the Plone Foundation, a non-profit, owns and backs the project. There is no per-user subscription cost.
Plone has two frontends. Volto is a React frontend that talks to the backend over a REST API. Classic UI is the older server-rendered option. The same API lets Plone work as a headless CMS. Self-hosting is described as first-class, whether on-premise, in a private cloud or in containers. Managed hosting is available from several providers.
Strengths
Watch out for
What each plan costs and what the bill is counted by: seats, sites, usage or a one-off license. The bottom of each card shows what you pay on top.
Free
No licence fee and no per-user subscription cost.
Organisations that host Plone themselves or through a provider
Costs extra
Integrator work, customisation, hosting and upgrades cost extra.
Prices checked See current prices on the vendor's site
Free, included in the cheapest plan, on a higher plan, or enterprise only. Open a feature to compare it across every platform.
