Latest Open Source CMS Updates – Early 2026 Comprehensive Report

The open source CMS landscape in early 2026 continues its rapid evolution. While WordPress maintains massive market share, headless CMS solutions like Payload CMS and Strapi are gaining strong momentum due to their developer-friendly architecture, performance, and modern stack (Next.js, TypeScript, React).



Here is the most up-to-date overview as of late January 2026.

1. WordPress (Most Popular CMS)

Current Stable: WordPress 6.9 (released December 2, 2025)

WordPress 6.9 "Gene" brought major improvements to the block editor, collaboration, and site editing. 2026 marks a return to three major releases per year (7.0, 7.1, 7.2 planned).

Key Recent Highlights (January 2026 Updates):

  • Responsive Grid Block → Now allows setting both minimum column width + fixed number of columns simultaneously for better responsive control.
  • Dedicated Fonts Admin Screen → New Appearance → Fonts screen for easier font management and uploading (previously buried in Global Styles).
  • PHP-Only Block Registration → Full block metadata support without JavaScript (still experimental).
  • Breadcrumbs Block → Significant progress, with alignment support, paged comments, and better homepage handling — expected in WP 7.0.
  • Navigation Overlay Experiment → Enables block-based mega menus via template parts (experimental).
  • New Image Cropper Package and major Data Views improvements.

Upcoming: WordPress 7.0 is expected March–April 2026. Early signals include real-time collaboration features, AI tools, and further editor/route enhancements.

WordPress remains dominant but faces increasing competition from headless alternatives.

2. Drupal

Current Stable: Drupal 11 series Latest: Drupal 11.3.2 (patch release) + Drupal 10.6.2 (released January 8, 2026)

Drupal 11 is the current long-term major version with active feature releases every 6 months.

Recent Status:

  • Drupal 11.3.0/11.3.1 introduced new minor features (details in official release announcements).
  • Drupal 10.6.x receives security support until December 2026.
  • Drupal 12 is scheduled for mid-2026.

Focus Areas: Performance improvements, modern Symfony components, better accessibility, and easier upgrades. Drupal remains the top choice for large-scale, complex, and highly customized enterprise websites.

3. Joomla

Current Stable: Joomla 6.0.2 (released January 6, 2026)

This was a combined security + bugfix release for both Joomla 6.x and 5.x branches.

Key Updates in 6.0.2:

  • Security Fixes:
    • Inadequate content filtering for data URLs (high risk)
    • XSS vulnerability in the Pagebreak plugin
  • New Feature: Full PHP 8.5 support
  • Multiple bug fixes in templates (Cassiopeia), menu handling, TinyMCE dark mode, language files, and dependency security.

Upcoming: Joomla 6.1 is in active alpha (Alpha 3 released mid-January 2026). Beta expected soon.

Joomla stays relevant for users wanting a traditional full-featured CMS with strong multilingual support.

4. Payload CMS (Fastest Growing Headless)

Current Stable: Payload v3.73.0 (released January 23, 2026) — extremely active development

Payload continues its explosive growth in 2026 as a TypeScript-first headless CMS + application framework.

Major Recent Additions:

  • Next.js 16 full support (including Turbopack)
  • SQLite WAL Mode + Busy Timeout — much better concurrency performance
  • Localized Status (Experimental) → Independent publish/unpublish per locale
  • Blocks as JSON migration tool for Drizzle/Postgres
  • Advanced Job Queue features (concurrency control, cancellation, supersede)
  • plugin-ecommerce major server-side improvements
  • Many DX and type safety enhancements

Payload is currently one of the most actively developed open source CMS projects, with releases almost weekly. Highly recommended for new Next.js/React projects.

5. Strapi

Current Stable: Strapi 5.x series

Strapi shifted focus heavily toward stability and quality in late 2025 / early 2026.

2025 Highlights Recap (Still Relevant):

  • AI Content-Type Builder, AI Media Library (auto alt text), AI Translations
  • Live Preview + Draft & Publish
  • Conditional Fields, Strapi Client SDK, OpenAPI support

2026 Priorities:

  • Heavy emphasis on bug fixes (70+ fixed recently)
  • Improved data migration tools
  • Better Media Library and editing UX
  • MCP (Model Context Protocol) for agentic/AI features

Strapi v4 support ends April 2026 → strong recommendation to upgrade to v5.

Key Trends in Early 2026

  • Headless Dominance → Payload and Strapi are seeing fastest adoption among developers.
  • AI Integration → Becoming standard (Strapi leads here).
  • Performance & DX → TypeScript, Next.js 16, better caching, concurrency.
  • Security → Regular security releases remain critical (especially Joomla & WordPress plugins).
  • Three Major Releases → WordPress moving faster in 2026.

Recommendation Summary:

  • Traditional sites → WordPress or Joomla
  • Enterprise/complex → Drupal
  • Modern apps/headless → Payload CMS (fastest moving) or Strapi

Would you like me to expand any specific section (e.g., deeper comparison table, upgrade guides, or focus on one CMS)?

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