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Craft

by Pixel & Tonic · Since 2013
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ActiveAvailable globallyOn-premise
Quick facts
VendorPixel & Tonic
Year launched2013
StatusActive
LocationBend, Oregon US
Countries servedGlobal
Languages19
Integrations1+
Free tier
Free trial
Contact sales

About Craft

Craft is a content management system (CMS) from Pixel & Tonic that enables the entire creative process for creating custom digital experiences on the web and beyond. It offers content creation, content strategy, and design + development tools, so users can manage their digital content efficiently. Additionally, Craft supports ecommerce functionality to facilitate online sales. With a user-friendly interface and flexible architecture, Craft is designed to accommodate a variety of creative workflows. The platform is built on reliable technologies such as Vue, Yii, and Twig, ensuring reliable performance and extensibility. Key capabilities: content creation ecommerce support content strategy design + development community engagement Best for: web developers and designers that need a versatile CMS for building custom websites and applications.

Craft by Pixel & Tonic is a modern content management system (CMS) designed to deliver a flexible and efficient platform for building and managing digital content. Its primary purpose is to provide developers and content creators with a streamlined, user-friendly solution that supports a wide range of website projects—from simple blogs to complex enterprise sites. Among its key features are a powerful templating engine, customizable content modeling, and an intuitive control panel, all of which work in harmony to simplify the process of managing digital content. The user interface of Craft is one of its most celebrated attributes. Designed with simplicity and elegance in mind, the control panel offers a clean, modern layout that minimizes clutter while providing quick access to essential features. Navigation is intuitive, with clearly labeled menus and a logical hierarchy that guides users through the site-building process effortlessly. Unique design elements, such as real-time previews and drag-and-drop functionality, make content creation not only efficient but also visually engaging.

Pros & Cons

What users like
  • +Define content structures precisely to your needs.
  • +Manage complex, nested content effectively.
  • +Uses Twig templating and has a robust plugin ecosystem.
  • +Intuitive control panel with live preview and inline editing.
  • +Offers options for individuals to large organizations.
What users flag
  • Team and Pro versions require upfront and recurring fees.
  • Its flexibility might be initially overwhelming for beginners.
  • Requires PHP knowledge for deeper customization.
  • Advanced features often require installing and managing third-party plugins.
  • While Craft Cloud exists, the main focus is on self-hosting, requiring more technical setup.

Features

Key features

Flexible Content Modeling
Craft allows users to define custom content types, fields, and relationships to structure their content exactly as needed. This is emphasized throughout the text as a core strength.
Built-in Custom Field Types
Offers a wide range of 23 built-in custom field types (listed individually below) to handle various content needs.
Matrix Field Enhancements
The Matrix field is now more powerful, allowing for nested entries instead of just blocks, and offers different view modes (cards, entry lists, classic blocks) for managing complex content.
Field Instances
Enables the reuse of custom fields within the same field layout, each with its own unique name, handle, instructions, and conditions.
Improved Authoring Experience
The control panel has been redesigned to be lighter, crisper, and more user-friendly, including new breadcrumbs for easier navigation.
Multiple Authors
Entries can now have multiple authors, expanding collaboration possibilities.
Bulk Inline Editing
Element indexes now support editing visible elements directly in the table view, improving efficiency.
Live Preview
Users can instantly see how their content will look while editing and share preview URLs.
Twig Templating
Uses the Twig templating engine (from Symfony) for creating flexible front-end templates.
Relationships
Allows for relating any type of content to any other type, with the ability to edit related items without leaving the current context.
Asset Management
Provides tools to manage files locally or using cloud storage providers (Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, Craft Cloud), with the ability to add custom fields to assets.
Localization
Supports translating and localizing content at various levels.
User Management
Offers detailed permission settings for user groups and individual users, with public registration available in Craft Pro.
Headless Capabilities
Includes a built-in GraphQL API and a fully headless mode for decoupled content delivery.
Plugin Ecosystem
Features a Plugin Store for extending functionality with custom plugins and integrations.
Ecommerce Integration
Offers Craft Commerce (a first-party platform) and integrations with Shopify and Stripe for building online stores.
Form Building
Provides options for simple contact forms and integrations with powerful form builder plugins like Freeform and Formie.
SEO Features
Integrates with popular SEO plugins like SEOmatic and SEO by Ether Creative, as well as Retour for managing redirects.

Additional features

Matrix in Matrix
The Matrix field, used for creating repeating blocks of content, now allows for nesting entire entries within it, providing more complex content structuring possibilities. It also offers different display options like cards, entry lists, and the classic blocks view.
Field Instances
This feature lets you reuse the same custom field multiple times within a single field layout. Each instance can have its own unique name, handle (a unique identifier for developers), instructions for content editors, and conditional display rules.
Addresses and Icon fields
Two new built-in custom field types have been added: one for managing address information and another for easily selecting icons.
Lighter, crisper, and friendlier control panel design
The user interface of the Craft CMS backend has been visually updated for a more modern and intuitive experience.
New breadcrumbs
Improved navigation within the control panel with breadcrumbs to show the user's current location and allow for quick jumps to parent sections.
Multiple Authors
An entry in Craft can now be associated with more than one author, useful for collaborative content creation.
Bulk inline editing
In list views of content (like entries or users), you can now directly edit visible fields within the table without having to open each item individually, saving time.
Custom Fields are automatically organized
The management of custom fields in the control panel has been improved with automatic organization, making it easier to see where fields are used, search for them, identify them with icons, and reuse them.
Custom Fields
The ability to define unique data fields tailored to specific content requirements.
Live Preview
A feature that allows content editors to see a real-time rendering of their content as they edit it.
Templating (Twig)
The use of the Twig templating engine for designing the front-end of the website.
Relationships
The capability to connect different pieces of content together (e.g., linking an author to their articles).
Asset Management
Tools for organizing and managing digital files.
Localization
Support for creating and managing content in multiple languages.
User Management
System for creating and managing user accounts with different levels of access and permissions.
Headless
The ability to use Craft as a content backend and deliver content through APIs (like GraphQL) to various front-end applications.
Plugins
The architecture that allows developers to create and install extensions to add custom functionality.
Plugin Store
A marketplace where users can find and install both free and commercial plugins.
Craft Console
A command-line interface for developers to perform various tasks.
Craft Commerce
Pixel & Tonic's own comprehensive ecommerce platform built for Craft CMS.
Shopify
Integration with the Shopify platform to build content-rich storefronts.
Stripe
Functionality to connect and synchronize data with Stripe for payment processing and subscription management.
Formie by Verbb
A user-friendly, drag-and-drop form builder plugin.
Contact Form
Basic functionality for adding email contact forms.

Pricing

Free trial
Free version
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Promo Offer

Monthly plans

Team

USD 279

Pro

USD 399

Countries & Languages

Global
Countries served
19
Interface languages
14
Billing currencies

Interface languages

EnglishSpanishFrenchGermanDutchItalianPortugueseChineseJapaneseRussianArabicKoreanSwedishDanishNorwegianFinnishPolishTurkishGreek

Billing currencies

🇺🇸USD🇪🇺EUR🇬🇧GBP🇦🇺AUD🇨🇦CAD🇯🇵JPY🇨🇳CNY🇨🇭CHF🇸🇪SEK🇳🇴NOK🇩🇰DKK🇭🇰HKD🇸🇬SGD🇳🇿NZD

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