prelo
WordPress alternative

The WordPress alternative for agencies who build with AI

Keep the admin your clients already know. Drop the PHP themes, the plugin sprawl and the update treadmill. Prelo is an open-source, self-hosted CMS designed to be built by AI agents and run by humans.

WordPress
Prelo
Building the site
Themes, page builders, PHP
Your framework + an AI agent
Client editing
wp-admin — familiar but cluttered
A studio with the same vocabulary, minus the sprawl
Hosting
LAMP stack, security patches, update Tuesdays
One container on any $6 VPS
Content access
REST API bolted on later
API-first — agents write through it
Cost
Hosting + premium plugins + builder licenses
$0 · MIT licensed
Maintenance
Weekly core and plugin updates
docker pull

Keep what WordPress got right

Twenty years of WordPress trained every client on the same vocabulary: posts, pages, media, drafts, users. Prelo keeps it on purpose. When you hand over a Prelo site, the client logs into a studio they have effectively seen before — no training call, no handover doc.

Drop what it got wrong

The build experience. AI agents fight PHP templates and click-driven builders. With Prelo they write pages and content through a typed API, in the stack you already use.
The plugin economy. Most WordPress sites carry 15+ plugins, each a paid license, an update risk and an attack surface. Prelo ships the essentials in core; anything custom, your agent writes against the plugin API.
The maintenance contract. A WordPress handover quietly includes you as the update department. A Prelo site updates with one docker pull — which the client can run.

Migrating from WordPress

Export your content as WXR, point your agent at it, and it imports posts, pages and media through the content API — types included. Most sites move in an afternoon. Comparing options first? See Prelo vs WordPress for the head-to-head, or the best headless CMS roundup.

Frequently asked questions

Is Prelo really free?+

Yes — MIT licensed and self-hosted, with no per-seat or per-editor pricing. Optional managed hosting is planned for clients who don’t want to run a server.

Can my client break the site?+

No. The studio edits content, not code. Roles scope what each person touches, and every change is audit-logged and reversible.

What about WooCommerce, forms, SEO plugins?+

E-commerce is out of scope — keep WordPress or use a dedicated platform. Forms, SEO metadata and redirects are core features, not plugins.

Ready to hand over your next site?

Free and open source. One command, and the client gets a login instead of a Loom.

Start a project — free