Cockpit vs Bolt CMS
A side-by-side comparison of Cockpit and Bolt CMS — pricing, license, deployment, and where each tool wins.
Cockpit
getcockpit.com
Simple content platform to manage any structured content.
Bolt CMS
boltcms.io
Content Management Tool, which strives to be as simple and straightforward as possible.
| Feature | Cockpit | Bolt CMS |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| Model | Open-source | Open-source |
| License | CC-BY-SA-3.0 | CC-BY-SA-3.0 |
| Deployment | Self-hosted | Self-hosted |
| Category | Content Management Systems (CMS) | Content Management Systems (CMS) |
| Self-hosted | ✓Yes | ✓Yes |
| Free tier | ✓Yes | ✓Yes |
Pick Cockpit if…
- ✓You prefer Cockpit's feature set or ecosystem fit.
Pick Bolt CMS if…
- ✓You prefer Bolt CMS's feature set or ecosystem fit.
16–80hhigh risk
Treat as a project — 16-80 engineering hours plus user training and parallel-run period.
Export from Cockpit: XML, JSON, Database dump
3 things to watch
- ⚠URL preservation = SEO survival
- ⚠Re-render templates
- ⚠Media file paths