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CouchCMS vs CMS Made Simple: catalog facts
CouchCMS	CMS Made Simple
Free Free and open source; paid support is available.	Free Free and open source under the GPL-2.0 licence, funded by donations.
Self-hosted	Web, Self-hosted
Retrofits into existing static HTML sites No PHP knowledge required	Themes built from plain HTML and CSS with Smarty Modular with third-party modules and tags
Development pace is slow Less suited to large editorial teams or headless setups	Requires PHP hosting and some setup Smarty templating is a learning step for new designers
Self-hosted	Self-hosted
Open source	Open source
License: CPAL-1.0	License: GPL-2.0
No account needed	Not stated if an account is needed
Not stated if it works offline	Not stated if it works offline
Official website Full listing and sources Checked October 2, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Checked October 2, 2026

Catalog facts only. Anything “not stated” is unconfirmed. Check full listings for details.