Live most Wednesdays 11:30am Pacific
What shipped, what’s next, and your questions answered on air.
NEWTotal CMS 3.6 — Security fixes, Stock Photos and stronger watermarks
Agents build. Clients edit. Design holds.
A flat-file PHP CMS with a built-in MCP server. Build your site by hand, in your favorite web builder, or with a coding agent — your client edits only the parts you choose, and your design stays exactly as you built it. No database, no subscription, nothing leaves your server.
10+Years powering client sites
4,500+Licenses deployed
$0Monthly subscription
45Day free trial
In the wild
Built with Total CMS
A yoga studio in Japan, a car dealership in Germany, a newspaper association in Washington — same CMS. Different countries, different industries, front ends with nothing in common, because Total CMS never dictates the markup.
A Leap Above Dance
Education · aleapabovedance.com
Runs on Total CMS: EventsTeam or staffListings
by Joshua
Pronti AI
Software & Apps · pronti.com
by Mila Banerjee
Studio Jyoti
Health & Fitness · yogastudiojyoti.com
by Chaki
nuweb
Agency · nuweb.dk
Runs on Total CMS: Blog or newsPortfolioForms
by Jochen Abitz
stackswork
Software & Apps · stackswork.com
Runs on Total CMS: ProductsDownloadsForms
by Jochen Abitz
Chromatic Printing
Media & Publishing · chromatic.co.za
Runs on Total CMS: Blog or newsGalleriesPortfolio
by Warren Gurney
Speedy Websites
Agency · speedywebsites.com.au
Runs on Total CMS: Blog or newsPortfolioProducts
by Chris
Miserre Immobilien
Real Estate · miserre-immobilien.de
Runs on Total CMS: Blog or news
by Jochen Abitz
LAM Selbsthilfe Deutschland e.V.
Nonprofit & Association · lam-info.de
Runs on Total CMS: GalleriesTeam or staff
by Matthias Wolf
owamed AG
Professional Services · owamed-ag.de
Runs on Total CMS: GalleriesDownloads
by Matthias Wolf
Ristorante - Pizzeria Calimero
Food & Drink · ristorante-calimero.de
Runs on Total CMS: GalleriesTeam or staff
by Matthias Wolf
Autohaus Wallenwein
Automotive · wallenwein.com
Runs on Total CMS: Blog or newsTeam or staffDownloads
by Matthias Wolf
Backparadies Sprengel
Food & Drink · backparadies-sprengel.de
Runs on Total CMS: GalleriesProductsTeam or staff
by Jochen Abitz
Blutabnahme lernen
Education · blutabnahme-lernen.de
Runs on Total CMS: Blog or newsEventsForms
by Jochen Abitz
GEVU GmbH
gevu-gmbh.de
Runs on Total CMS: Blog or newsTeam or staffListings
by Jochen Abitz
Eight Seven
Agency · 87dash.com
Runs on Total CMS: Blog or newsPortfolioForms
by Joshua
A.M. Referral Partners
Nonprofit & Association · amreferralpartners.com
Runs on Total CMS: Blog or newsEventsGalleries
by Dr Bob
Doc Bob
IT & Computer Services · docbob.com
Runs on Total CMS: Blog or newsGalleriesPortfolio
by Dr Bob
PostOnly
postonly.app
Runs on Total CMS: Blog or newsListingsForms
by Joe Workman
Deutscher Fährverband e.V.
Nonprofit & Association · faehrverband.de
Runs on Total CMS: Blog or newsDownloadsForms
by Matthias Wolf
acelsis GmbH
Professional Services · acelsis.eu
Runs on Total CMS: Blog or newsProductsMenus
by Matthias Wolf
Graphic Gato
Agency · graphicgato.com
Runs on Total CMS: Blog or newsPortfolioMenus
by Chris Powers
Total CMS
totalcms.co
Runs on Total CMS: Blog or newsPortfolioListings
by Joe Workman
Grupo López-Rosa
Real Estate · lopezrosa.com
by Davide Fanchin
Liceo Villa Fontana
Education · liceovillafontana.education
by Davide Fanchin
Top Magazin Bonn
Media & Publishing · topmagazinbonn.de
by Hubertus Montgelas
AHG Hoffmann
Automotive · ahg-hoffmann.de
Runs on Total CMS: Blog or newsGalleriesProducts
by Matthias Wolf
Bright 'N Clean
brightncleanfl.com
Runs on Total CMS: ListingsForms
by Joshua
Goshin Karate
Health & Fitness · goshinkarate.de
by Hubertus Montgelas
WNPA
Nonprofit & Association · wnpa.com
Runs on Total CMS: Blog or newsEventsGalleries
by Joshua
See the showcase → Find a designer →
Built something with Total CMS? Send it in →
AI-Native
Your AI agent already knows Total CMS.
Total CMS ships with a built-in MCP server — not a bolt-on. Connect Claude Code, Cursor, or ChatGPT and your agent can query your schemas, search your content, and look up exact Twig signatures in real time. No hallucinated hooks. No guessed API shapes. A real CLI for terminal workflows, and agent skills that teach your AI the T3 way of doing things.
Built-in MCP server
Your CMS is queryable by your agent — schemas, content, docs.
Real CLI
tcms — collections, schemas, objects, deploys. All scriptable.
Agent skills
Install once. Your agent scaffolds T3 sites the right way.
Claude Code
Cursor
ChatGPT
> Add a testimonials collection and show the latest three on the homepage
⏺ totalcms — create_schema (MCP)
⎿ Created schema: testimonial (name, quote, role, rating, photo)
⎿ Created schema: testimonial (name, quote, role, rating, photo)
⏺ Bash(tcms collection:list)
⎿ blog · gallery · team · testimonials ✓
⎿ blog · gallery · team · testimonials ✓
⏺ Write(templates/partials/testimonials.twig)
⎿ {% for item in cms.collection.objects('testimonials')|slice(0, 3) %}
⎿ {% for item in cms.collection.objects('testimonials')|slice(0, 3) %}
✓ Done. Your client edits testimonials in the admin. The template stays yours.
Why Total CMS
Built by someone who got tired of the alternatives.
Rented platforms. Squarespace, Wix and Webflow hold your client’s content on their terms. If the pricing changes or the doors close, your client starts over.
Plugin roulette. A WordPress update, a conflict, a 2am call you didn’t sign up for and can’t bill for.
Open season on your design. Full admin access means your layout is only ever as safe as the client’s restraint.
Guesswork. Your agent invents hooks that don’t exist, because your CMS gives it nothing real to read.
I’ve been building tools for designers who hand sites to clients since 2009, and I’ve heard every one of those stories from them. Total CMS is my answer to all four.
I write the code, I ship every release, and I answer the forum and the support email myself. If you get stuck, you’ll be talking to me.
Joe Workman, founder of Total CMS · More about me · Come say hi
How it works
Get set up in minutes.
Stay in control forever.
Install it on any PHP host.
Drop the tcms directory on your server. No database setup. No complex configuration. Total CMS runs on flat-file JSON storage — meaning it works on virtually any host your clients already use, with nothing to configure and nothing that can break overnight. How it compares with other flat-file CMSs.
Build the content your site actually needs.
Start from the built-in content types — blogs, galleries, file downloads, styled text, and more. Or, on Pro, design your own schemas with exactly the fields you need. The result is a clean admin interface your clients can actually navigate on their own.
Hand it off. Walk away. Sleep well.
Content lives on the server you (or your client) controls. Flat files. No platform dependency. If they ever want to move hosts, change tools, or work with someone else — everything goes with them. That's what ownership actually means. The freelancer kit has the handoff checklist.
Guardrails
Control exactly what gets edited.
You decide which collections each client group can touch and what it can do there, and any field can be read-only. Clients update the content you want them to update. Employees add blog posts without touching anything structural. An agent signed in as your client gets your client’s access, no more. And the layout lives in your templates, where a client’s group never reaches — so your design stays exactly the way you built it.
The admin your clients edit in, on a laptop or a phone. A client signs in to a trimmed version of it: only the collections their group is allowed, and nothing structural.
In their words
From the people who build client sites with it.
Total CMS has become an indispensable tool for us as an advertising agency. It allows us to develop individual, sophisticated websites without compromising on design. We particularly value its flexibility and the ability to offer our clients simple, intuitive management of their website content. Combined with RapidWeaver and Foundation, we can efficiently implement almost any client requirement. For us, Total CMS is the perfect blend of creative freedom and professional content management.
Total CMS 3 leaves room for all kinds of scenarios that you might need when creating a professional website. After a short training period, you won't want to go back.
I've never had more control over my designs and the content I need to manage on the go. T3 is the most powerful CMS you'll ever find.
This isn't just a website builder, but the infrastructure of a web app builder… or even, a mini-platform builder.
TCMS3 has opened the door for me to build sites I honestly never would have thought possible before. The flexibility, structure, and freedom it provides changes how I think about content, scale, and long term site growth.
Everything you could do before is now cleaner, faster, and more resilient — and there's no going back.
Community
You won’t be figuring it out alone.
I’m live on YouTube most Wednesdays, we hang out on Zoom every Friday, and there’s a room full of designers who have been building client sites with these tools for years.
Ask in the forum
I answer the forum myself, and so do designers who have hit the same thing. Years of answered questions are there to search first.
Meet the designers
Studios and freelancers who build with Total CMS, with the sites they have made. Some are taking on new work.
See what they built
Real client sites from the community, each one reviewed before it goes up.
Platform
Extend it. Connect it. Keep your tools.
Extensions
Bundled in the download, not bought from a store. Access control, scheduling, A/B testing, push notifications and Algolia search all ship with Total CMS — each one sandboxed behind permissions you toggle individually. The extension API is public, so you or your agent can build your own from the starter repo.
Integrations
Total CMS never dictates your markup. Hand-code it, generate it, or design it in Stacks, Pinegrow, Bootstrap Studio, Blocs or the built-in Site Builder — then drop in Total CMS tags and the content becomes editable. A REST API, a PHP API and the tcms CLI handle everything else.
Pricing
Buy it once.
Own it forever.
No monthly fees. No subscription required. No pricing tier that makes your proposal awkward. One-time purchase, licensed per domain, with two years of updates included — and it keeps running after that. Bake it into your project cost and move on.
Standard
$195
One-time · per domain
- 30+ field types
- Blog with categories & tags
- Access Groups & permissions
- Image watermarking
- MCP server — public content, read only
- REST API (same-origin)
- White-label admin
Most Popular
Pro
$395
One-time · per domain
- Everything in Standard
- Custom schemas
- API keys & webhooks (external API)
- Deck repeatable fields
- MCP server — full access
- OAuth 2.1 server
- Data Views & Automations, including PHP
- Full white-label
Enterprise
Let’s talk
Custom licensing & hosting
- Everything in Pro
- Managed hosting on a dedicated VPS
- Volume & multi-domain licensing
- Priority support
- Custom terms & invoicing
No credit card required · Full Pro features during trial · Free for local development
Your content should belong to you.
Every file stays on your server, under a license you buy once. Try it free for 45 days and see why web professionals keep choosing ownership over dependency.
Start Your Free 45-Day Trial- No credit card required
- Full Pro features during trial
- Works on any PHP host
- Cancel anytime (it's free, but still)
Comparing tools? Read our honest head-to-head comparisons and CMS guides.