TYPO3
TYPO3 is a web content management system written in the programming language PHP. It is free and open-source software released under the GNU General Public License version 2.
TYPO3 is similar to other content management systems such as Drupal, Joomla!, and WordPress. It is used more widely in Europe than in other regions, with a larger market share in German-speaking countries, the Netherlands, and France.
TYPO3 was acknowledged as a Digital Public Good by the Digital Public Goods Alliance in April of 2025.
TYPO3 allows for the separate maintenance of code and content. It can be [|extended] with new functions without writing any program code. TYPO3 supports publishing content in multiple languages due to its built-in localization system.
History and usage
TYPO3 was initially authored by Kasper Skårhøj in 1997. It is now developed by over 300 contributors under the lead of Benjamin Mack.Calculations from the TYPO3 Association show that it is currently used in more than 500,000 installations. The number of installations detected by the public website "CMS Crawler" was around 384,000 in February 2017.
Features
TYPO3 provides a base set of interfaces, functions and modules. Most functionality exceeding the base set can be implemented via the use of [|extensions]. More than 5000 extensions are currently available for TYPO3 for download under the GNU General Public License from a repository called the TYPO3 Extension Repository, or TER.Compatibility
TYPO3 is able to run on most HTTP servers such as Apache, Nginx and IIS on top of Linux, Microsoft Windows, FreeBSD, macOS, and OS/2. It uses PHP 7.2 or newer and any relational database supported by the TYPO3 DBAL including MySQL/MariaDB, PostgreSQL, and SQLite. Some 3rd-party extensions not using the database API support MySQL as the only database engine. The system can be run on any web server with at least 256 MB RAM and a CPU appropriate for that RAM.The back end can be displayed in any modern browser with JavaScript. There is no browser restriction for displaying user-oriented content generated by TYPO3. A developer setting up a website with TYPO3 would need to work intensively with the Domain-specific language Typoscript.
System architecture
Conceptually, TYPO3 consists of two parts: the front end, visible to visitors, and the administrative back end. The front end displays the web content. The back end is responsible for administration and managing content. The core functions of TYPO3 include user privileges and user roles, timed display control of content, a search function for static and dynamic content, search-engine friendly URLs, an automatic sitemap, multi-language capability for front and back ends, and more.Like most modern CMS's, TYPO3 follows the policy of separation of content and layout: The website content is stored in a relational database, while the page templates are stored on the file system. Therefore, both can be managed and updated separately.
TYPO3 defines various basic types of content data. Standard content elements are described as text, text with media, images, HTML, video etc. Various added types of content elements can be handled using extensions.
The fundamental content unit is a "page". Pages represent a URL in the front end and are organized hierarchically in the back end's page tree. Standard pages serve as "containers" for one or multiple content elements. There are several added special page types, including:
- shortcuts
- mount points
- external URLs
- system folders
Design elements
Designing and developing with TYPO3 is commonly based on the following elements, among others:; Page tree
; Constants
; Template
; Typoscript
; Extensions
; PHP
Extensions
Extensions are the cornerstone in the internal architecture of TYPO3. A feature that was introduced with version 3.5 in 2003 is the Extension Manager, a control center managing all TYPO3 extensions. The division between the TYPO3 core and the extensions is an important concept which determined the development of TYPO3 in the past years. Extensions are designed in a way so they can supplement the core seamlessly. This means that a TYPO3 system will appear as a unit while actually being composed of the core application and a set of extensions providing various features.They can be downloaded from the online repository directly from the back end, and are installed and updated with a few clicks. Every extension is identified by a unique extension key. Also, developers can share new or modified extensions by uploading them to the repository.
Generally, extensions are written in PHP. The full command set of PHP 5.3 can be used, but TYPO3 also provides several library classes for better efficiency: Best known and most used is the Pibase library class. With introduction of TYPO3 4.3 in 2009, Pibase has been replaced by the Extbase library, which is a modern, model–view–controller based development framework. To ensure backward compatibility, both libraries can be used in the same TYPO3 installation. Extbase is a backport of some features of FLOW3, renamed Neos Flow, a general web application framework.
Notable projects
Several companies and organizations base their web or intranet sites on TYPO3. The majority are based in German-speaking countries, such as the state of Saxony-Anhalt, the German Green Party, the University of Lucerne, the University of Vienna and Technische Universität Berlin. International organizations running one or more TYPO3 sites are: Airbus, Konica-Minolta, Leica Microsystems, Air France, Greenpeace, and Meda.Releases
Version history
| Branch | Version | Release date | Major changes |
| 3.x | - | - | - |
| 3.x | 2001 |
| |
| 3.x | 17 May 2002 | ||
| 3.x | 3 June 2002 | ||
| 3.x | 18 February 2003 | ||
| 3.x | 30 April 2004 | ||
| 3.x | 24 September 2004 | ||
| 3.x | 23 May 2005 | ||
| 3.x | 14 November 2005 | ||
| 4.x | 7 April 2006 | ||
| 4.x | 6 March 2007 | ||
| 4.x | 24 May 2008 | ||
| 4.x | 30 November 2009 | ||
| 4.x | 22 June 2010 | ||
| 4.x | 26 January 2011 | ||
| 4.x | 25 October 2011 | ||
| 4.x | 24 April 2012 | ||
| 6.x | 27 November 2012 | ||
| 6.x | 30 April 2013 | ||
| 6.x | 25 March 2014 | ||
| 7.x | 2 December 2014 | ||
| 7.x | 4 August 2015 | ||
| 7.x | 29 September 2015 | ||
| 7.x | 10 November 2015 | ||
| 8.x | 22 March 2016 | ||
| 8.x | 3 May 2016 | ||
| 8.x | 5 July 2016 | ||
| 8.x | 30 August 2016 | ||
| 8.x | 18 October 2016 | ||
| 8.x | 20 December 2016 | ||
| 8.x | 14 February 2017 | ||
| 8.x | 4 April 2017 | ||
| 9.x | 12 December 2017 | ||
| 9.x | 30 January 2018 | ||
| 9.x | 10 April 2018 | ||
| 9.x | 12 June 2018 | ||
| 9.x | 4 September 2018 | ||
| 9.x | 2 October 2018 | ||
| 10.x | 23 July 2019 | ||
| 10.x | 1 October 2019 | ||
| 10.x | 3 December 2019 | ||
| 10.x | 25 February 2020 | ||
| 10.x | 21 April 2020 | ||
| 11.x | 22 December 2020 | Support PHP 7.4 and 8.0 / MySQL 5.7+ / MariaDB / Postgres / SQLite | |
| 11.x | 23 February 2021 | ||
| 11.x | 4 May 2021 | ||
| 11.x | 13 July 2021 | ||
| 11.x | 7 September 2021 | ||
| 11.x | 5 October 2021 | Long Term Support Release, fully supported for three years until October 2024 | |
| 12.x | 4 October 2022 | First release of TYPO3 12.0 | |
| 12.x | 6 December 2022 | Interoperability with third-party systems | |
| 12.x | 7 February 2023 | Improved Back-end UI | |
| 12.x | 28 March 2023 | Last-Minute Features | |
| 12.x | 25 April 2023 | Long Term Support Version with 3 years of official security and maintenance support | |
| 13.x | 30 January 2024 | First release of TYPO3 13.0 with breaking changes and new system requirements | |
| 13.x | 23 April 2024 | Reusable components for creating new sites | |
| 13.x | 2 July 2024 | Content blocks and new APIs for integrations | |
| 13.x | 17 September 2024 | Feature freeze | |
| 13.x | 15 October 2024 | LTS release |