October CMS: a self-hosted Laravel CMS with an EULA instead of an open source licence

What October CMS is for, and who it is actually aimed at

October CMS is a self-hosted content management system whose foundation is the Laravel PHP framework. The README frames the motivation directly: it was born out of frustration with existing systems, and the stated mission is to show that web development is not rocket science. That is a positioning statement, not a feature claim, but it does tell you who the project is written for. The audience is a PHP developer who already knows Laravel and wants a CMS that stays out of the way, rather than a site builder aimed at non-technical editors.

The repository layout supports that reading. The top level holds app/, bootstrap/, config/, modules/, plugins/ and themes/ alongside artisan, composer.json and phpunit.xml. Those are Laravel conventions with two CMS-specific directories bolted on. Plugins and themes are files in the project tree, not rows in a database, which is the design decision everything else follows from. If you have ever tried to move a site whose theme lives in the database, you know why that matters.

It is the wrong choice for someone who wants a hosted service. Nothing in the repository describes a managed offering; installation is a command you run on a server you control. It is also the wrong choice for a team that needs an OSI-approved licence, which the next sections cover.

How the Laravel foundation and the plugin and theme directories fit together

The architecture is Laravel plus three additions. First, modules/: the CMS backend, the CMS front end rendering, and the system module live there. Second, plugins/: each plugin is a directory with its own registration, and plugins can extend the backend, register components, or add database migrations. Third, themes/: a theme holds templates and assets, and the demo theme is what ACTIVE_THEME points at by default.

Data flow on a front-end request is the Laravel pipeline with a CMS routing layer inserted. A request arrives at index.php, Laravel boots, and the CMS resolves the URL against the active theme's templates and any routes a plugin has registered. Rendering pulls content from the database through plugin-provided models, and the result goes back through Laravel's response handling. The .env.example file exposes the switches that sit on that path: CMS_ROUTE_CACHE, CMS_ASSET_CACHE and CMS_SAFE_MODE. CMS_SAFE_MODE is the interesting one. It is a documented escape hatch for when a theme or plugin has broken the site, and having it in the default environment file rather than buried in docs suggests the maintainers expect it to be used.

The backend is a separate concern at BACKEND_URI, which defaults to /admin. The package.json shows what the backend is built from: Vue 2, vue-router 3, Bootstrap 5, jQuery, Monaco editor and Chart.js, compiled through laravel-mix. That is a conventional admin stack, and it also tells you the backend is a JavaScript application talking to the PHP layer, not server-rendered forms.

Installing October CMS with Composer and running the first install command

The README gives a quick start for anyone with Composer available. The first command downloads the project into a directory named myoctober, and the second, run from inside that directory, walks through database configuration. The README states that the second command is the one to run if you plan on using a database.

composer create-project october/october myoctober

After that finishes you should have a Laravel-shaped project tree with app/, modules/, plugins/, themes/ and an artisan file at the root. Change into the directory before continuing.

cd myoctober
php artisan october:install

The installer is interactive and asks for database details. If you would rather configure by hand, the .env.example file lists every key the application reads. The defaults worth knowing are DB_CONNECTION=mysql, DB_HOST=127.0.0.1, DB_PORT=3306, ACTIVE_THEME=demo and BACKEND_URI=/admin. Copy it to .env, fill in APP_KEY and the database credentials, then serve the site.

cp .env.example .env
php artisan key:generate
php artisan serve

With the defaults untouched, the backend is reachable at /admin on the served host. The README points at the installation guide for anything beyond this, and notes that the guide lives under a versioned path, so check which version it documents before following it step by step.

The licence is the first thing to check, not the last

The repository's licence field is NOASSERTION, and the README is explicit about why. October CMS is described as source-available software licensed under an End User License Agreement, and the README repeats that the platform is licensed software. Source-available is not the same as open source, and the distinction is not cosmetic: an EULA can restrict redistribution, sublicensing or use in a commercial product in ways an OSI-approved licence cannot.

This is not legal advice, and the only reliable source is LICENSE.md in the repository root. Read it before you plan anything around this project. The practical consequence is that a company with a policy of using only OSI-approved dependencies will treat October CMS as an exception that needs sign-off, or as a blocker. The README does not summarise the terms, so there is no shortcut here.

The second thing to check is version drift. The README's installation link points at the 3.x setup guide, while the default branch of the repository is 4.x and the most recent releases are v4.4.0, v4.3.0 and v4.2.0. The README does not document a rollback path or an upgrade procedure between major versions. If you are starting fresh, confirm which version the guide you are reading actually covers before you follow it.

Where October CMS stops being the right tool

The plugin and theme model is the strength and the limitation. Because plugins are directories in the project tree, deploying a site means deploying code, and every plugin you add is a PHP package you now own the upgrade path for. The README does not document a plugin compatibility matrix or a rollback procedure, and there is no statement in the repository about how plugins are validated against a new major version. If a plugin you depend on stops receiving updates, the migration cost lands on you.

The second limitation is the front-end toolchain. The package.json pins Vue 2 and vue-router 3, both of which are older major lines, and the backend depends on jQuery alongside Bootstrap 5. That is a workable combination, but it means the admin interface is not the place to look for a modern component architecture. The build scripts are laravel-mix based: npm run dev, npm run watch and npm run production. Anyone expecting Vite or a current bundler will be adjusting expectations.

The third case is scale of content editing. The repository does not describe editorial workflows, multi-stage approval or content scheduling. October CMS gives you a CMS framework and a backend; the workflow features come from plugins you choose. A newsroom with a review chain should verify that a plugin exists for it before assuming the platform provides it.

October CMS against WordPress and against Laravel plus a headless CMS

The obvious comparison is WordPress. Both are self-hosted PHP CMS platforms where themes and plugins extend the core. The difference in approach is the foundation. October CMS is built on Laravel and inherits its service container, Eloquent-style models and Artisan command line; WordPress ships its own procedural APIs and its own plugin conventions. If your team already writes Laravel, October CMS is the shorter path, because plugins are Laravel packages and the CLI you use for migrations and queues is the one you already know. If your team does not know Laravel, WordPress has the larger body of existing themes and plugins, and that is a real cost difference.

The second comparison is using Laravel directly with a headless CMS behind it. That gives you full control of the front end and no CMS-specific layer, but you write the admin yourself or adopt a separate product for it. October CMS's contribution is the backend and the theme rendering layer already built, with the plugin system as the extension point. The trade-off is that you inherit the project's release cadence and its licence, and you accept its conventions for where themes and plugins live.

Neither comparison is settled by feature counts. The deciding factor is whether the file-based plugin model and the Laravel foundation fit how your team already deploys PHP.

Editorial conclusion

Adopt October CMS if you are a PHP developer who wants Laravel underneath and a file-based theme and plugin layer on top, and if the End User License Agreement in LICENSE.md is acceptable to your organisation. Do not adopt it if you need an OSI-approved open source licence, or if you want a hosted product where someone else handles upgrades. Before committing, read LICENSE.md in full and check the version the installation guide points at, because the README links to the 3.x setup page while the default branch is 4.x. Then run the two install commands in a throwaway directory and confirm that php artisan october:install completes against your target database.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

1. Issues
2. octobercms/october on GitHub
3. Project website
4. README
5. Releases