The LocalGov CMS Directory was reviewed and updated in December 2024, a process which takes place every 6 months to keep it up-to-date and useful.
There have been a limited number of changes of CMS since the last version in July 2024 as shown in the table below. The only change in CMS is Contensis which has replaced WordPress in the top 5 most popular CMS used by local authorities.
Content management system
Number of councils
Drupal
95 (+6 since July 2024)
Jadu
70 (+1 since July 2024)
Umbraco
57
GOSS iCM
35 (-3 since July 2024)
Contensis
28 (New)
How was the review of the LocalGov CMS Directory carried out?
The review was carried out through a combination of:
checking individual council websites by reviewing the code and references to a specific CMS
using WhatCMS, a service which allows users to check a CMS
using Google search AI to reveal changes.
The latter option, namely using Google search AI to reveal changes, is a new departure and has proved helpful in revealing harder to locate CMS changes.
What changes have been made to the LocalGov CMS Directory?
1. CMS changes are now recorded
In this review I have started recording any changes to content management systems used by councils over the last 6 months. In this review five councils changed their CMS:
Council
New CMS
Previous CMS
Chorley Council
Jadu
GOSS iCM
Comhairle nan Eilean Siar
Drupal (LocalGov Drupal)
WordPress
Dumfries and Galloway Council
Drupal (LocalGov Drupal)
GOSS iCM
Laois County Council
Drupal (LocalGov Drupal)
WordPress
South Ribble Borough Council
Jadu
GOSS iCM
2. CMS are now ranked in popularity by Council type
In December the government published its English Devolution White Paper, Power and Partnership: Foundations for Growth, in which it states that it wants remaining two-tier areas in England to be restructured into single-tier unitary authorities. It states that the government wants to restructure all two-tier areas so that they become unitary council areas. The government also wants to restructure “unitary councils where there is evidence of failure or where their size or boundaries may be hindering their ability to deliver sustainable and high-quality services for their residents”.
In light of this local government reorganisation I thought it would be helpful to start ranking the current popularity of CMS by Council type in order to help inform any future reoganised councils when choosing a suitable content management system. The local government reogansation will only affect England but I have included all council types in the UK and Ireland for completeness.
The results below reveal that Drupal is ranked first in no less than seven of the ten Council types. Jadu comes second overall in this respect and Umbraco third.
At this stage we have no idea what new councils will be created or what areas they will cover. It will be interesting to find out how this works out and what CMS the new councils choose to use to develop their websites.
English District – CMS Ranking
CMS
Number of councils
Rank
Jadu
34
1
Drupal
28
2
Umbraco
28
3
GOSS iCM
18
4
WordPress
11
5
English County Council – CMS Ranking
CMS
Number of councils
Rank
Drupal
6
1
Contensis
5
2
Umbraco
5
2
Jadu
2
4
Squiz
2
4
SiteCore
2
4
English Unitary – CMS Ranking
CMS
Number of councils
Rank
Drupal
27
1
Jadu
20
2
Umbraco
13
3
Contensis
8
4
GOSS iCM
7
5
English London Borough – CMS Ranking
CMS
Number of councils
Rank
Drupal
13
1
Jadu
7
2
SiteCore
3
3
Umbraco
3
3
Contensis
2
5
Liferay
2
5
Scottish Unitary – CMS Ranking
CMS
Number of councils
Rank
Drupal
8
1
Jadu
7
2
GOSS iCM
6
3
Umbraco
3
4
Contensis
2
5
Welsh Unitary – CMS Ranking
CMS
Number of councils
Rank
Contensis
8
1
Umbraco
5
2
Drupal
2
3
GOSS iCM
2
3
WordPress
2
3
Irish County – CMS Ranking
CMS
Number of councils
Rank
Drupal
9
1
pTools
7
2
WordPress
4
3
DNN
1
4
Kentico
1
4
Percussion
1
4
Irish Unitary – CMS Ranking
CMS
Number of councils
Rank
Drupal
1
1
Squiz
1
1
Irish City – CMS Ranking
CMS
Number of councils
Rank
Drupal
1
1
pTools
1
1
Northern Irish – CMS Ranking
CMS
Number of councils
Rank
Kentico
4
1
ExpressionEngine
2
2
WordPress
2
2
GOSS iCM
1
3
Liferay
2
3
LocalGov CMS Directory
Access the LocalGov CMS Directory using the button below. You can also find CMS usage maps by country on this page.
