Updated August 2026
    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    1.5k

    Kirby: Maintenance, Licence and Alternatives

    File-based CMS. Easy to setup. Easy to use. Flexible as hell.

    TL;DR • Kirby • as of August 2026

    Kirby is an open-source content management systems (cms) project, with 1.5k GitHub stars and a health score of 96/100. It committed 820 times in the last twelve months across 12 of those months, and its status is actively maintained. Licence: ⊘ Proprietary. It has real momentum, so treat it as a live competitor rather than a stale repository.

    1.5k
    GitHub stars
    96/100
    Health score
    820
    Commits (12 mo)
    12/12
    Active months

    Maintenance health

    Status Actively maintained — Committed within the last 45 days.
    Last commit 2026-08-06
    Days since last commit 11
    Commits, last 3 months 182
    Commits, last 12 months 820
    Months with activity 12 of 12
    Last release 2026-07-28
    Archived No
    Licence ⊘ Proprietary
    Category Content Management Systems (CMS)

    Health score combines commit recency, twelve-month commit volume, months with activity, release recency and archive state. Metadata refreshed August 2026.

    What the licence lets you do

    ⊘ Proprietary

    Non-standard or mixed licensing. Check the repository before commercial use.

    This matters most when you plan to sell a hosted version. A permissive licence means anyone — including a competitor with more capital — can do the same, so your defensibility has to come from distribution, support or data, not from the code.

    What Kirby means for your idea

    Kirby is shipping code consistently, so a buyer comparing your product will find a maintained free option. Price and position against the total cost of self-hosting it, not against the paid incumbent's list price.

    Assume every prospect can find a free version in five minutes. Your wedge has to be something open source structurally cannot deliver: compliance, support SLAs, managed hosting at scale, or a workflow the maintainers refuse to build.

    Kirby: common questions

    Is Kirby still maintained in 2026?

    Actively maintained. Kirby recorded 820 commits over the last twelve months, with activity in 12 of those months and 182 commits in the last quarter. Last commit: 2026-08-06. Last release: 2026-07-28. Committed within the last 45 days.

    Can I use Kirby commercially?

    Kirby is published under ⊘ Proprietary. Non-standard or mixed licensing. Check the repository before commercial use.

    How crowded is the Content Management Systems (CMS) category?

    44 open-source implementations, 29 of them actively maintained, led by Strapi at 73k stars. Saturation score 75/100 — Crowded. Free, maintained alternatives already dominate this category.

    Kirby alternatives in Content Management Systems (CMS)

    Strapi

    Alternative to Contentful, Content Management System/ CMS

    73k

    The most advanced open-source Content Management Framework (headless-CMS) to build powerful API with no effort.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    Wagtail

    Content Management Systems (CMS)

    20k

    Django content management system focused on flexibility and user experience.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    BSD-3-Clause

    KeystoneJS

    Content Management Systems (CMS)

    9.9k

    CMS and web application platform.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    Competing with free? Check the market first.

    IdeaProof scores your idea against live competitors, market size and 1,000+ documented startup failures in about two minutes.