DonkeyCMS vs Publii

Publii is an app on your computer that builds a static website and uploads it. DonkeyCMS lives on your hosting and you write in a browser. Both avoid the heavy machinery, in opposite ways.

Checked on 11 October 2026 against Publii’s own website. How we checked

The short answer

Choose Publii if one person writes, on one computer, and you want a free, static website with nothing on the server to look after.

Choose DonkeyCMS if the blog belongs inside your own website, existing or new, and you, your team or your client want to sign in and write from any browser.

DonkeyCMS and Publii, side by side

DonkeyCMS compared with Publii, fact by fact
The basics
	DonkeyCMS	Publii
What it is	A blog for a website built some other way	A desktop app that builds a static website
Where you write	In your browser, signed in to your site	In an app on Windows, macOS or Linux
Design	Your site’s own header, menu and footer	A Publii theme: a few free, premium ones €49 each when we looked
Price	Free for one site, paid plans from €6 a month	Free app. Premium themes and plugins are sold separately
License	Commercial	Open source (GPL-3.0)
Hosting	PHP 8.1 or newer and MySQL	Any static host. “No database. No PHP.”
Publishing
Going live	Press Publish	Press “Sync your website” to upload the built site
Where it can be hosted	Your own hosting	GitHub Pages, GitLab Pages, Netlify, Amazon S3, Google Cloud, FTP
Editor	Rich text, with a Markdown mode	Block, WYSIWYG or Markdown
Adding features	Built in, nothing to install. No plugins	Through plugins: analytics, search, comments, SEO and more
Search engines	Sitemap, structured data and RSS built in	Sitemap, structured data and Open Graph built in
Writing with others
Team	Each person signs in with their own account, on Pro and up	Authors are profiles attached to posts
Comments	Built in, on Pro and up	Through plugins such as Disqus
Backups	Built in, by hand or on a schedule	Built in, made by hand
Moving in from WordPress	From a WordPress export, on Pro and up	From a WordPress export

Where Publii wins

Nothing on the server to break

A Publii site is plain files: “No database. No PHP.” There is no admin panel online for anyone to knock on. DonkeyCMS is careful about security, but it is software running on your hosting.

Free, open source, and it hosts almost anywhere

The app costs nothing, the code is open under GPL-3.0, and the result runs on GitHub Pages, Netlify, Amazon S3 or any plain web space. Premium themes are extra, at €49 each when we looked.

It builds the whole website

Pick a theme and Publii gives you a complete site. DonkeyCMS adds the blog; the website around it is yours to build.

A block editor

Publii offers a block editor beside its WYSIWYG and Markdown ones. Ours is rich text with a Markdown mode, and no blocks.

Privacy tools are built in

A cookie banner and consent controls come with it. DonkeyCMS sets no visitor cookies of its own and leaves consent to the website it lives in.

Where DonkeyCMS wins

Write from anywhere

DonkeyCMS is in your browser: the office, the laptop at home, a colleague’s desk. Publii and your site live in an app on one computer.

A team can sign in

From Pro up, each person has an account, and on Business you decide who can publish and who can only draft. In Publii, authors are names on posts.

Clients get a login, not an app

Handing a blog to a client means sending an invitation by email. Nobody installs anything.

Comments without a third party

On Pro and up, comments are part of DonkeyCMS, with spam protection and a moderation queue.

It joins your own website

No theme to choose. The blog copies your header, menu and footer and sits in a folder of your site, whether that site is years old or still being built.

More is already inside

FAQ blocks that search engines and AI tools can read, pictures made lighter automatically, a report of which AI tools and search engines visit your blog (Pro and up), and a team board with plans and tasks (Business). All part of the product, none of it an add-on.

Who should choose which

Choose Publii if…

You are the only writer, and one computer is fine.
You want a static site with nothing on the server to maintain.
You want free and open source software.
You want to host on GitHub Pages, Netlify or similar.
You have no website yet and want a themed one quickly.

Choose DonkeyCMS if…

Several people write, or a client needs to sign in.
You want to write from any browser, not one computer.
You have a website, or are building one, and the blog should match it.
You want comments built in.
You want backups on a schedule and one-click updates.

Try DonkeyCMS free One site, no card, no time limit.

DonkeyCMS vs Publii: questions, answered

Still deciding? Ask us. We will tell you if Publii is the better fit.

Where they live. Publii is an app on your computer that builds a static website and uploads it. DonkeyCMS is installed on your hosting, inside your own website, and you write in a browser.

Plain files are about as quick and as hard to attack as a website gets, and that is Publii’s real strength. The price is that everything live, such as comments or several people signing in, has to come from somewhere else. DonkeyCMS keeps those in the box and stays light: no plugins, one small install.

Publii lets you add authors, which are profiles attached to posts. The app and the site live on a computer. DonkeyCMS gives each person their own sign-in from Pro up, with roles on Business.

Publii is free and open source. DonkeyCMS has a free plan for one site with no time limit, and paid plans from €6 a month.

Yes. Both read the export file WordPress makes. In DonkeyCMS the import is part of Pro and up.

How we checked

Everything this page says about Publii was read on Publii’s own website on 11 October 2026. Words in quotation marks are theirs. What it says about DonkeyCMS matches our full feature list.

Software changes faster than web pages do. If something here is out of date, tell us and we will correct it.

Publii belongs to its owner. DonkeyCMS is not affiliated with Publii.