CMS Summit 2025 in Frankfurt

Together with our colleagues from dkd, I attended the first European CMS Summit in Frankfurt on May 13, 2025. CMS enthusiasts, vendors, and agencies gathered at Frankfurt’s TechQuartier to discuss the latest trends in the CMS market. Whether open source or closed source, the demands placed on a modern CMS are growing just as rapidly as customer expectations in the age of AI.

This was the first time the CMS Summit had been held in this format in Europe, and it provided an excellent platform not only to discuss local trends but also to address global challenges and gain insights—through engaging presentations—into how CMS platforms such as WordPress and Drupal are tackling current challenges.

This includes WordPress, which is currently embroiled in ongoing legal disputes that are far from easy for the agencies involved, and Drupal, which is, among other things, undergoing organizational restructuring in Europe.

In addition to the very interesting case studies from customers about their CMSs—such as DB and Dr. Oetker—I found two topics particularly interesting.

First, of course (how could it be otherwise), there was the topic of AI and how the various CMS providers are addressing their customers’ new requirements. Second, the topic of AI Experience, which focused heavily on trust, transparency, and the user-centered application of AI in client projects—all with the goal of deriving real added value from AI and ultimately achieving increased productivity. Understanding workflows and processes is becoming even more important here than it has been in past projects.

The second topic I found very interesting was the sustainable development of web applications, which was presented very well by Thorsten Jonas (Sustainable UX Network). In an excellent presentation, he addressed the responsibility for sustainability in development and how even small things—such as choosing the right image formats—can have an enormous impact on resource consumption when operating web applications.

For example, many projects still use .jpg, even though formats like .png or .webp can significantly reduce a web application’s resource consumption. It’s often the little things that can make a big difference, and I hadn’t realized the scale of this impact before. It’s definitely a topic I’ll be bringing up with our development teams.

At the end of the day, several CMS projects had the opportunity to present themselves once more in a 6-minute pitch format (“CMS Idol”). It was very exciting to see what’s currently happening in the market and where the individual CMS platforms see their advantages. I think it’s a very good format.

Of course, I’d also like to thank Søren, Olivier, and Emina from dkd for taking me to the conference, for the great conversations, and for Søren’s excellent presentation!

I would be delighted to see this series of events continue in 2026 to foster international exchange within the CMS community. I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank Janus Boye (Boye & Company).