A completely-free CMS that’s flexible and versatile

Bolt is a free and open-source content management system tool that enables you to easily set up, configure, and manage your website. Developed by Two Kings and the Bolt community back in 2012, this lightweight CMS was designed to be easy for both editors and developers. From frontend to backend, Bolt allows you to create your website with a flexible ContentType structure and handle it on any type of device, anywhere you may be. This is a program that lets you be productive with your content.

Easy CMS at your fingertips

As far as most CMS go, Bolt is pretty standard with its focus on user-friendliness and extensively intuitive features. However, this open-source tool still has some cool tricks. Bolt was written in PHP and was built upon Silex with Symfony components. It also uses Twig for its templates so you can customize your own without needing PHP coding. For content-editing, it has a fully-customizable structure for user levels if you happen to have a team of editors. 

Your ContentTypes can use all kinds of different fields, allowing you to create varying content: from blog entries to multimedia pages. The user interface is straightforward for easy handling and avoids cluttering up your screen. Searching for content is simple, as well, and your uploads are quickly accessible using the Stack, lessening instances of double uploads. You can even upload photos from your current device’s camera. 

Your website’s themes are also highly customizable and its CMS name and URLs can be changed without much trouble. Lastly, Bolt is completely free, with no charges for any premium features. Its code can found on GitHub and has solid support from its community. Bolt requires PHP 5.5.9 and is fully compatible with PHP 7, but it can run on different types of database engines and can be installed on basically any web server. Compared to Grav, it’s better for large-scale projects.