Exponent CMS is a free open source content management system and web application framework: build pages and sections, model content with modules, and run the whole site from an admin toolbar on a classic PHP and MariaDB stack.
This product is available in the build below. Open it for the operating system, cloud and version detail, or read its deployment guide.
| Product | Cloud | Operating system | Version | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Exponent CMS 3 on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS | Azure | Ubuntu 24.04 | 3 | View · Guide |
Exponent CMS is a long standing free and open source content management system and web application framework. Instead of a fixed blog or page model it gives you sections and a library of pluggable modules, text and HTML, news, blogs, file and image galleries, forms, calendars, FAQs, navigation and more, that you drop onto pages and edit in place from an admin toolbar, so site editors build and rearrange a site visually while developers extend it with themes and modules. It ships a theme system, search engine friendly URLs, granular users and groups, a built in file manager and an optional e-commerce store, and runs on a classic PHP and MySQL compatible stack administered entirely through the browser.
It suits businesses, organisations, clubs and agencies that want a structured, self hosted website they fully control, from brochure and marketing sites to content rich, module driven sites maintained by a small editorial team.
Standing up Exponent CMS by hand means installing a web server, PHP and its extensions and a database, unpacking the application, setting file ownership, creating a database, running the web installer step by step and then deleting it. cloudimg ships that whole stack assembled and proven, nginx with PHP 8.3 and MariaDB, so a working site and admin toolbar answer within minutes of launch. Nothing ships with a known login: a fresh administrator account and the database password are both generated on the machine's first boot and written to a root only file, so no two deployments share a credential, and the installer is removed and blocked so a visitor can never re run it. A sample site is seeded so a real, styled page renders the moment you launch, and the appliance derives its address from the request so it answers on any IP or domain. The database and every uploaded file sit on a dedicated, independently resizable data volume that is re provisioned with every instance, the database listens only on the machine itself, the base is fully patched with unattended security updates enabled, and every image comes with a step by step deploy guide tested against the exact build and 24/7 cloudimg support.