Open Source Website Builders and App Builders in 2026

The leading open-source website builders in 2026 are WordPress with its Gutenberg block editor (for content sites), Webstudio and Silex (visual site builders), and GrapesJS and Puck (page-builder frameworks you embed in your own product). For apps rather than websites, the main open-source app builders are Appsmith, ToolJet, Budibase and NocoBase, all of which you can self-host with Docker, with Strapi, Payload, Directus and Supabase Studio covering the backend and admin-panel side. Check the license before you commit: several popular "open source" builders are actually source-available, with limits on commercial use.

This guide was first published for 2024 and is fully updated as of November 2026: every license below was read from the project's own LICENSE file, and every GitHub star count was pulled from the GitHub API on November 4, 2026.

Two different things: website builders and app builders

People search "open source builder" for two separate jobs:

• Website and page builders produce pages: marketing sites, landing pages, blogs. The output is HTML/CSS, often static.
• App builders (open-source low-code/no-code platforms) produce internal tools and business apps: admin panels, dashboards, forms and approval flows on top of a database or API.

There's a third group that sits between them: headless CMSs and backend platforms (Strapi, Payload, Directus, Supabase). They don't draw your pages, but they give you a database, an API and an admin UI that non-developers can use, which is often the part of a "web app builder" that matters most.

A quick way to decide which group you're in:

The sections below cover each. If you're comparing hosted, closed-source platforms like Bubble or FlutterFlow, see our no-code and low-code platform comparison.

Open source website and page builders

License data and activity are from each project's GitHub repository, checked November 4, 2026. Every project in this table had commits in the past month.

How to choose among them:

• You need a site you can edit, with a blog, today: WordPress. Gutenberg gives you drag-and-drop blocks and full-site editing, and the plugin and theme ecosystem is unmatched. You still have to keep it updated and secured.
• You're a designer who wants Webflow-style control without Webflow's lock-in: Webstudio. It exposes real CSS concepts (flexbox, grid, classes) and lets you export the site and host it yourself (Webstudio docs).
• You're building a SaaS product that needs a page builder inside it (a landing page tool, an email editor, a CMS for clients): GrapesJS if you want a framework-agnostic, HTML-based editor, Puck if your app is React and you want editors to use your design-system components.
• You want a lightweight static site with no server: Silex.
• You write the site in code but want designers to tweak it visually: Onlook (Next.js + Tailwind) or Plasmic (any React app).
• You mainly publish articles and newsletters: Ghost.

The open source sitebuilder most people end up with: WordPress

If you want an open source sitebuilder you install once and hand to an editor, WordPress is still the default answer. W3Techs measures it on 39.5% of all websites and 58.2% of sites that use a CMS it can detect, as of November 2026 (W3Techs). That share is why every host offers one-click WordPress and why almost any plugin you need already exists.

The other open source site builder options in that chart, Joomla (GPL-2.0) and Drupal, are full CMSs aimed at larger, structured sites. They're more work to theme than WordPress, and their share is much smaller, so pick them only if your team already knows them.

Open source website builder vs static site generator

A lot of developers searching for an open source website builder actually want a static site generator: you write Markdown or components, and it outputs plain HTML you can host for free. The two biggest are Hugo (Apache-2.0, 90.4k stars) and Astro (MIT, 63.7k stars). They have no drag-and-drop editor, but they're fast, cheap to host and hard to hack. Pair one with a headless CMS (below) if non-developers need to edit content.

Open source web design software (before you build)

If what you need is open source web design software for mockups and prototypes rather than a builder that publishes the site, use Penpot (MPL-2.0, 62.1k stars). It's a Figma-style design tool that runs in the browser, can be self-hosted, and uses CSS concepts such as flex and grid layout, so designs translate cleanly into code. For more open source web design and creative tools, see our guide to open source design tools and the free Figma alternatives.

Example: a drag-and-drop page builder in React with Puck

Puck stores pages as JSON and renders them with components you define, so editors can only use blocks you allow. Install it with npm i @puckeditor/core, then:

import { Puck, Render } from "@puckeditor/core";

const config = {
  components: {
    HeadingBlock: {
      fields: { children: { type: "text" } },
      render: ({ children }) => <h1>{children}</h1>,
    },
  },
};

// Editor page: editors drag blocks and click Publish
export function Editor({ data, onSave }) {
  return <Puck config={config} data={data} onPublish={onSave} />;
}

// Public page: render the saved JSON
export function Page({ data }) {
  return <Render config={config} data={data} />;
}

Save the JSON that onPublish receives to your database, and pass it back to <Render> on the public route (Puck docs). The same pattern, with an HTML/CSS output instead of JSON, is what GrapesJS gives you. More visual editors are listed in DevHunt's visual editing category.

Example: an open source page builder with GrapesJS

GrapesJS is the open source page builder to reach for when your app isn't React, or when you need HTML and CSS out at the end (email builders are the classic case). Install it with npm i grapesjs, then mount it on a div:

import grapesjs from "grapesjs";
import "grapesjs/dist/css/grapes.min.css";

const editor = grapesjs.init({
  container: "#gjs",
  fromElement: true,          // start from the HTML already inside #gjs
  height: "100vh",
  storageManager: false,      // turn off localStorage; save it yourself
});

// When the user clicks your Save button:
const html = editor.getHtml();
const css = editor.getCss();
const project = editor.getProjectData(); // JSON to reload the editor later

Store project to reopen the page in the editor with editor.loadProjectData(project), and serve html + css on the public page (GrapesJS docs). The core is BSD-3-Clause, so you can ship it inside a commercial product. The latest release is v0.23.9 (November 3, 2026).

Open source AI website and app builders

Prompt-to-app tools like Lovable, v0 and Bolt are hosted and closed, but there's now a set of projects that are the closest thing to an AI website builder: open source, self-hostable, and bring-your-own-API-key.

These are good for prototypes and for owning the generated code. You pay the model provider directly for tokens, and you review the output yourself, since nothing in these tools checks the generated code for security problems. For the bigger picture of AI-first building, see our vibe coding hub.

Open source app builders (low-code / no-code)

Open source app builders are web application builders for internal tools: you drag tables, forms, charts and buttons onto a canvas, connect them to a database or API, and write JavaScript where the visual editor runs out. Star counts and latest releases are from the GitHub API on November 4, 2026.

Notes from the licenses and pricing pages themselves:

• Appsmith is the most permissive of the group (Apache-2.0). Its free cloud plan covers up to 5 users, and the self-hosted Community Edition is free. The paid Business plan is $15 per user per month and adds audit logs, custom roles and workflows; SAML/OIDC SSO and SCIM are in Enterprise (Appsmith pricing).
• ToolJet's AGPL-3.0 license is fine for internal use. If you modify ToolJet and offer it to others over a network, you must publish your changes. Its cloud Free plan allows 2 builders, up to 50 end users and up to 10 apps; paid cloud plans start at $23 per builder per month (ToolJet pricing).
• Budibase says it can be considered GPLv3 overall, and that apps you build with it don't include GPL code. Paid features live in a separate package under the Business Source License. The self-hosted Community plan is $0 with unlimited users and apps; Budibase Cloud starts at $299 per month (Budibase pricing).
• NocoBase uses its own license agreement that incorporates Apache-2.0, with supplementary terms that take precedence. Read it if you plan to resell.

For a head-to-head of the two biggest projects, see Appsmith vs ToolJet. If you're mainly trying to get off Retool's per-seat pricing, see the free Retool alternatives.

Which open source app builder for which job

Open source dashboard builders with JavaScript control

If you're a developer building dashboards, there are two styles. Low-code builders like Appsmith and ToolJet let you drag charts and tables, then write JavaScript in any property ({{ Query1.data.filter(r => r.status === "open") }}) and in reusable JS objects. Code-first frameworks like Refine (MIT, 36.0k stars) and react-admin (MIT, 27.0k stars) give you React components and data hooks, so the whole dashboard is your code. If your dashboards are mostly SQL charts for analysts rather than apps, look at BI tools instead: Apache Superset (Apache-2.0, 75.4k stars) or Metabase. Browse more in DevHunt's charts category.

Open source headless CMSs and backends: Strapi, Payload, Directus, Supabase Studio

Many "open source web application builder" shortlists include these four. They don't build your frontend, but they generate the database, API and admin UI that a web app needs.

• Strapi: create a project with npx create-strapi@latest my-strapi-project, start it with npm run develop, and the admin panel opens at http://localhost:1337/admin. Strapi supports Node.js 22, 24 and 26 (LTS releases only) (Strapi quick start).
• Payload: npx create-payload-app, then pnpm dev and open http://localhost:3000/admin. It needs Node.js 22.23.4+ or 24.22.1+ and works with MongoDB, Postgres or SQLite (Payload docs). Because it lives inside your Next.js app, you deploy one project, not two.
• Directus: run the directus/directus image pinned to a version, set at least SECRET and your database settings, and open port 8055 (Directus self-hosting).
• Supabase Studio: the self-hosted Docker setup serves Studio at http://localhost:8000, behind the DASHBOARD_USERNAME and DASHBOARD_PASSWORD you set in .env. Supabase recommends at least 4 GB RAM (8 GB+), 2 CPU cores and a 40 GB SSD (Supabase self-hosting).

Compare more options in DevHunt's CMS tools category, or see our guide to Supabase's REST API if you pick Supabase.

Watch out for "source-available" tools

Several projects that often appear in "open source no-code" lists aren't OSI open source today:

• NocoDB (an Airtable-style database UI) uses the Sustainable Use License (license).
• Directus (a data platform and headless CMS) uses the Monospace Sustainable Core License. It allows internal use and services, but forbids offering Directus as a competing commercial product. Each version also becomes available under GPL-3.0 four years after its release (license).
• Strapi is MIT, except code in ee/ directories, which is under Strapi's Enterprise license. The free, self-hosted Community Edition is the MIT part (license).
• Baserow (another Airtable alternative) is MIT for its open source edition, with separate premium/ and enterprise/ folders under their own licenses (license).

These are all fine for most internal uses, and you can self-host them. But don't promise a client "it's open source, you can do anything with it" without reading the terms. More honest license notes for self-hostable tools are on DevHunt's free alternatives pages.

Self-host an open source app builder in five minutes

Appsmith's Community Edition runs as a single Docker container (Appsmith docs). Create docker-compose.yml, pinning a release tag (v2.6.0 is the latest as of November 2026):

services:
  appsmith:
    image: index.docker.io/appsmith/appsmith-ce:v2.6.0
    container_name: appsmith
    ports:
      - "80:80"
      - "443:443"
    volumes:
      - ./stacks:/appsmith-stacks
    restart: unless-stopped

Then:

docker compose up -d

Open http://localhost (startup can take up to 5 minutes), create the admin account, and connect a data source: PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, a REST API or Google Sheets. All data and configuration live in ./stacks, so back up that folder. Appsmith asks for at least 8 GB of RAM on the host for this all-in-one setup, because MongoDB, Redis and PostgreSQL run inside the container.

The same thing with ToolJet or Budibase

ToolJet's "try it" image bundles Postgres in one container (ToolJet docs):

docker run --name tooljet --restart unless-stopped -p 80:80 \
  --platform linux/amd64 \
  -v tooljet_data:/var/lib/postgresql/16/main \
  tooljet/try:ee-lts-latest

Budibase ships an official Compose file (Budibase docs). Download it with its .env and LiteLLM config, change the secrets, and start it:

curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Budibase/budibase/master/hosting/docker-compose.yaml
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Budibase/budibase/master/hosting/.env
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Budibase/budibase/master/hosting/litellm_config.yaml
docker compose up -d

Budibase then runs on port 10000.

Before you put it in production

For production, put it behind HTTPS on your own domain, restrict sign-ups to your company's email domain, and keep the image updated. Self-hosting moves the security work from the vendor to you. A short checklist:

1. Pin versions (v2.6.0, not latest) and upgrade on purpose, after reading the release notes.
2. Back up the data volume on a schedule, and test a restore once.
3. Change every default secret in .env files. Supabase's guide is blunt about this: never start a self-hosted instance with the example keys.
4. Use a read-only database user for dashboards that only display data.
5. Keep it off the public internet if only staff use it: a VPN or an identity-aware proxy is safer than a public login page.

To turn a docker run command into a Compose file, use our free docker run to Compose converter.

Open source vs hosted builders: the trade-offs

What you gain:

• No per-seat fees on the self-hosted community editions, which matters most for internal tools with many viewers.
• Data stays on your servers, which helps with GDPR, HIPAA or customer contracts.
• No lock-in: if the company behind the project changes direction, the code and your data are still yours.

What you give up:

• Ops work: updates, backups, uptime, and security patches are yours.
• Enterprise features such as SSO, audit logs and granular permissions are usually in paid editions, even for open-source projects.
• Polish: hosted platforms like Webflow and Bubble still have smoother editors and more templates.

A rough cost comparison for an internal tool used by 20 people, from the pricing pages as of November 2026: Appsmith Business would be 20 x $15 = $300 per month; Budibase Cloud starts at $299 per month for 2 creators and 20 end users; self-hosting the community editions of either costs only the server.

Best website build apps if you'd rather not self-host

Open source isn't always the right call. If you don't want to run servers, the best website build apps for non-developers are still hosted ones: Webflow, Wix, Squarespace and Framer for sites, Shopify for stores. The trade is the one above in reverse: less ops, more lock-in, and a monthly bill per site. For apps rather than sites, the best website build applications in the hosted world are Bubble and FlutterFlow, covered in our no-code platform comparison.

A sensible middle path: build in Webstudio's hosted editor and export the site, or use a hosted Appsmith or ToolJet plan to start and move to self-hosting when seat costs grow. Both projects are open source, so the move doesn't mean rebuilding.

Website development apps vs open source web development tools

If you're a developer, you may not want a builder at all. The usual open source web development tools stack is a framework (Next.js, Astro, SvelteKit), a headless CMS (Payload, Strapi) for content, and a backend (Supabase) for data and auth. That gives you more control than any builder, and every piece is self-hostable. Our guide to open source web frameworks compares the frameworks, and building your first web app walks through the steps.

To find more projects, browse DevHunt's open source tools, no-code tools and CMS tools.

FAQ

What is the best open source website builder?

For a content site or blog, WordPress with Gutenberg. For a designer-led marketing site, Webstudio. For embedding a page builder in your own product, GrapesJS (any stack) or Puck (React). For a simple static site, Silex, or a static site generator like Hugo or Astro if you're comfortable with code.

Is there a free open source no-code app builder?

Yes. Appsmith (Apache-2.0), ToolJet (AGPL-3.0), Budibase (GPL-3.0) and NocoBase all have free self-hosted editions you can run with Docker. Paid tiers add SSO, audit logs and support.

Is there an open source alternative to Webflow?

Webstudio is the closest: a visual builder with Webflow-style CSS controls, licensed AGPL-3.0, with site export. Silex is a simpler free option for static sites.

Is there an open source drag-and-drop website builder I can embed?

GrapesJS (BSD-3-Clause) is a framework for building your own drag-and-drop page or email editor. Puck (MIT) does the same for React apps, using your own components as blocks.

Can I use open source app builders commercially?

Yes for Appsmith (Apache-2.0) and generally for GPL/AGPL projects when you use them internally or build apps with them. AGPL requires publishing your changes if you modify the builder and offer it to others over a network. NocoDB and Directus are source-available and restrict some commercial uses, so read their licenses first.

What is the best open source web app builder?

For internal tools and admin panels, Appsmith or ToolJet: both have about 41,000 GitHub stars, releases every few weeks or faster, and one-container Docker installs. Choose Appsmith for the more permissive Apache-2.0 license, ToolJet if you want its built-in database and workflows.

What are the best open-source dashboard builders with JavaScript control for developers?

Appsmith and ToolJet if you want a drag-and-drop canvas where any property can be JavaScript. Refine (MIT) or react-admin (MIT) if you want the dashboard to be your own React code. Apache Superset if the dashboards are SQL charts for analysts.

Is there an open source AI website builder?

Yes: Dyad (Apache-2.0 apart from its pro folder), bolt.diy (MIT) and Open Lovable (MIT) generate apps and sites from prompts and run on your machine with your own model API keys. Onlook (Apache-2.0) adds AI editing to Next.js and Tailwind projects.

Is Strapi or Payload open source?

Payload is MIT-licensed. Strapi is MIT too, except the code in its ee/ folders, which is under Strapi's Enterprise license; the free Community Edition you self-host is the MIT part.

Is Supabase Studio open source, and can I self-host it?

Yes. Studio lives in the Supabase repository under Apache-2.0, and the official Docker Compose setup serves it at port 8000 on your own server, protected by a dashboard username and password you set.

What hardware do I need to self-host an open source app builder?

Appsmith asks for at least 8 GB of RAM for its all-in-one container. Self-hosted Supabase needs 4 GB RAM minimum (8 GB+ recommended), 2 CPU cores and a 40 GB SSD. A small VPS with 8 GB of RAM covers most single-team installs.