February 25, 2023

The future of Netlify CMS

As a heavy user of Jamstack CMS systems (and the author of a Hugo CMS) I am very interested in everything that is going on in this scene. Netlify CMS (an open-source project by Netlify), has been deemed ‘dead’ for a while. Issues were no longer resolved and no new versions were published… untill now.

Netlify CMS has been ‘acquired’ by PM, a marketing agency with a techhub. On their website ( PM Techhub) I found the following:

We love Netlify CMS for multiple reasons. Its ease of configuration and how simple it is for editors to use. Additionally it ships with lots of features and is highly customisable. It is also an integral part of the great Jamstack and open source community. As the new maintainers of Decap CMS, our plan is to continue on the premise of a simple, easy-to-use, open source, git-based CMS. We are excited about the potential for this type of product and we strive that it remains a viable option for developers and editors alike.

As an agency I fully understand the appeal of ‘having’ your own CMS. I have created a Hugo CMS myself. However, this CMS is not theirs. It still belongs to the community. That can be a positive and a negative thing. The big advantage of ‘having’ an open-source CMS is that it could be a very valuable marketing instrument. PM will soon be seen as the authority in the open source community. This could lead to many interesting assignments. The risk could be that PM has not enough knowledge or funds to support this same open-source community, which could lead to negative publicity, thus no assignments. This puts them in a difficult situation. How much funds and time can they afford to spend/allocate? I will watch this closely as it unfolds in the next few months.

I believe that everybody wins with a healthy open source CMS eco-system, so it makes me happy to hear that there is a future for Netlify CMS. Let’s hope, for everybodies sake, it will be a success for PM as well!

()  Joost van der Schee