WoltLab
Web content management software
- Features
- Ease of use
- Ease of management
- Quality of support
- Affordability
- Market presence
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EUR 35.95 per month
Free Trial
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What is WoltLab
WoltLab is a self-hosted web publishing and community platform centered on its WoltLab Suite, which includes a CMS and applications for forums and user communities. It is used by organizations and individuals that want to run content sites with member accounts, discussions, and moderation workflows on their own infrastructure. The product is typically deployed on a PHP/MySQL stack and extended through apps, plugins, and themes.
Integrated community and CMS
WoltLab combines web content management with forum/community capabilities in one suite. This reduces the need to integrate separate products for publishing, user profiles, discussions, and moderation. It can be a practical fit for sites where community interaction is a primary requirement alongside pages and articles.
Self-hosted deployment control
WoltLab is commonly deployed on customer-managed hosting, which allows control over data location, server configuration, and update timing. This can suit teams with specific infrastructure or compliance requirements. It also enables customization at the server and application level that is harder to achieve with fully managed platforms.
Extensible via plugins and themes
The platform supports add-ons (apps/plugins) and theming to extend functionality and adjust the user experience. This helps teams tailor features such as community modules, content presentation, and integrations without building everything from scratch. The extension model is relevant for long-lived sites that evolve over time.
Requires technical administration
Because it is typically self-hosted, WoltLab deployments require ongoing server administration, backups, security patching, and performance tuning. Teams without in-house technical resources may need external hosting/managed services. This can increase total effort compared with fully managed enterprise CMS offerings.
Less enterprise CMS tooling
Compared with platforms focused on large-scale enterprise web operations, WoltLab may offer fewer advanced capabilities around multi-site governance, complex approval workflows, and enterprise-grade content operations. Organizations with extensive editorial teams and strict governance may need additional processes or custom development. Fit is strongest when community features are as important as enterprise publishing controls.
Smaller ecosystem for integrations
Integration options and prebuilt connectors can be more limited than in larger CMS ecosystems. Connecting to specialized marketing, analytics, personalization, or commerce stacks may require custom development. This can affect implementation time when a site depends on many third-party systems.
Plan & Pricing
WoltLab Cloud (tiered subscription):
| Plan | Price | Key features & notes |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | EUR 39.95 / month (paid monthly) or EUR 35.95 / month (billed annually — EUR 431.40 every 12 months) | 30,000 MB disk space; 600,000 page views/month; use your own domain; powerful search; included: Forum, Blog, Calendar, Database, Filebase, Gallery |
| Professional | EUR 79.95 / month (paid monthly) or EUR 71.95 / month (billed annually — EUR 863.40 every 12 months) | 100,000 MB disk space; 2,500,000 page views/month; all Starter features plus WebAuthn and extra support seats |
| Business | EUR 249.95 / month (paid monthly) or EUR 224.95 / month (billed annually — EUR 2,699.40 every 12 months) | 250,000 MB disk space; 5,000,000 page views/month; all Professional features plus priority ticket processing, no visible branding, white label error pages, higher SLA |
| Enterprise | Contact Sales | Tailor-made solution; SSO (SAML/OAuth2/OpenID Connect/Azure AD), consulting/training, customizations |
On-Premises (one-time license prices; each license includes updates & support for 1 year):
| Product / Add-on | Price | Key features & notes |
|---|---|---|
| WoltLab Suite Forum | EUR 129.99 | License incl. 1 year updates/support; lifetime use of software granted by license |
| WoltLab Suite Gallery | EUR 74.99 | incl. updates & support for 1 year |
| WoltLab Suite Calendar | EUR 74.99 | incl. updates & support for 1 year |
| WoltLab Suite Filebase | EUR 74.99 | incl. updates & support for 1 year |
| WoltLab Suite Blog | EUR 74.99 | incl. updates & support for 1 year |
| Branding Free (extension) | EUR 279.99 (first year); EUR 139.99 each following year | Remove visible WoltLab branding; annual extension required to continue hiding branding |
| elasticsearch integration (extension) | EUR 119.99 | incl. updates & support for 1 year |
| WebAuthn (extension) | EUR 59.99 | incl. updates & support for 1 year |
| Installation Service | EUR 109.99 | One-time fee for WoltLab employee to install software |
Notes: Prices shown on official site are inclusive of applicable German VAT and may vary by customer country. Additional storage/page-view increases available on request; payments supported: PayPal, credit card, SEPA (business EU), invoice. All info sourced from WoltLab official site pricing/cloud/purchase pages.
