The anticipation for Total CMS 3 has been building for years! If you attended the WS Summit this year, you were lucky to get early access to Total CMS 3. With beta 8 shipping last week, I think that it’s ready to let more people in.
This is a pay-to-play beta. This means that you will need to pre-purchase Total CMS 3 in order to get access to the beta. I am doing this because I want to make sure that the users that are using it are serious.
Total CMS will come in 3 flavors: Lite, Standard, and Professional. Here is brief list of some features that will be available in all three editions of the software.
New Pre-built admin area
New Imageworks API for on-demand image processing and manipulation.
New Factory API that can quickly create test data for your site while you are designing it.
Powerful Twig macros system to integrate your data seamlessly into your website designs.
Lite - $TBD per domain
This version will be akin to Easy CMS but with more features. For example, it will have access to galleries and feeds. This version is not currently available during the beta access.
Standard - $159 per domain
Purchase Total CMS 3 Standard License
The standard edition of Total CMS 3 will be similar to current version of Total CMS. You will have access to all the standard out of the box collections like blog, depot, files, etc. There are even some new data types such as SVG.
Professional - $359 per domain
Purchase Total CMS 3 Pro License
The professional edition of Total CMS 3 has the features that so many of you have wanted for years. You will have the ability to create your own custom collections! This means that you can create objects with as many fields as you want. And you get the name those fields whatever you want! No more trying to remember what blog field you are using for price, address, etc.
The pro version will also give you access to Total CMS through its powerful API so that you can seamlessly integrate it with other online services and automations.
FAQs
Here are some FAQs to get us started. I am sure that more questions will come up, and I will add to this list.
Is Total CMS licensed per domain?
Yes. Total CMS 3 will still be licensed as a one time fee per domain.
Will there be upgrade pricing?
Yes. But I have not determined what that will be yet. In order to access the beta, you will need to purchase a full license.
I also plan on providing a path to re-activate older licenses for projects that no longer use Total CMS.
Why is Total CMS 3 so expensive?
Because it rocks!
Total CMS is comparably priced to other CMS solutions on the market. And it does not have a subscription component like most others have.
Is it ready for production use?
This is beta software. You are welcome to use it on a live website. However, while we are in beta, I am not scared to pivot features and modify them in order to make the final shipped product better.
Can I use Total CMS 1 + 3 on the same website?
I would not recommend it. However, technically this can work but using them on the same page will definitely break things.
Will my existing Total CMS get updated?
Total CMS 3 is completely new. It literally contains zero code from the existing production version.
The Total CMS 3 stacks will exist in your library as completely different stacks. For existing projects, you will need to replace the stacks with Total CMS 3 versions or just start a new project file.
In the final shipped version, I do have plans to have a data migration for your existing data. However, this is not available at this time. I am open to feedback on how we can make migration of existing sites as simple as possible.