Accessibility in Content Management Systems (CMS)

This page collects link to articles and other resources about accessibility in Content Management Systems (CMS). There are two sides to the accessibility of a CMS: firstly, the content presented to the website user, and secondly, the tools available to content authors. This means that the accessibility of a CMS should take two sets of guidelines into account:

Consequently, accessibility statements that only reference WCAG are insufficient.

For public authorities in the European Union, the relevant accessibility requirements are defined in chapters 5 (Generic requirements), 9 (Web) and 12 (Documentation and support services) of the harmonised European standard EN 301 549. (The WCAG success criteria at levels A and AA are represented in chapter 9 of this standard.)

Comparisons and Other Articles

There are very few recent comparisons of the accessibility features in content management systems. Most of the comparisons below are outdated; they only show which systems took accessibility into account in the previous decade. The topic of CMS accessibility is sometimes also raised on accessibility mailing lists, for example on the WebAIM mailing list in October 2015. (The articles and resources below are listed in reverse chronological order and are mostly out of date.)

WYSIWYG Editors

Content management systems typically contain a WYSIWYG editor to facilitate the creation and modification of web content. These editors should conform to the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG mentioned above. The list below is far from exhaustive.

CKEditor

See Accessibility Support in CKEditor.

TinyMCE

See Accessibility and the older page TinyMCE 3.x: Accessibility.

Individual CMSs

WordPress, Drupal and Joomla are probably the three systems for which the greatest number of accessibility resources is available. However, discussions about CMS accessibility also mention many other systems. Below is a list of such systems, and of systems with an accesssibility statement. They are listed in alphabetical order; inclusion in this list does not imply endorsement of any kind.

CMS Made Simple

(Homepage: www.cmsmadesimple.org.) The Features page at one point mentions "Accessibility WAI, WCGA, Section 508". As of April 2022, the website does not mention accessibility, WCAG or Section 508 anywhere on the website.

Ametys

(Homepage: www.ametys.org.) See the French blog post “Accessibilité, enjeux à court terme pour les collectivités locales et les sites publics” and the whitepaper Livre blanc : Guide pour la conception de sites web accessibles

Contao

(Homepage: contao.org.) Contao defines itself as an “Accessible Open Source Content Management System”. The project has a German accessibility and usability group.

DotClear

(Homepage: dotclear.org.) See “accessibility” in the Guided Tour and Dotclear News: Dotclear 2.7.

DNN (Formerly DotNetNuke)

(Homepage: www.dnnsoftware.com.) This community discussion from 2012 says that it is possible to create skins for sites that meet WCAG or Section 508. It refers to the article DotNetNuke 5.0 xhtml compliance : Part 1 (15 July 2008), where xhtml refers to XHTML 1.0 (2002), not the more recent XHTML5. Another discussion from 2014 relegates the issue to skins. See also ADA Compliance in DNN (September 2013).
In the new community forum, see DNN WCAG (May 2020) and Accessibility Question (March 2021).
The release notes for DNN 9.10 claim that, DNN complies with accessibility requirements defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Anonymous site visitors with those requirements can now use accessibility tools to browse and interact with any DNN site. Authenticated users can additionally use an accessibility tool to navigate the Persona Bar and to perform other actions. However, there is no VPAT for the product. (Accessed on 15.04.2022.)

Drupal

(Homepage: www.drupal.org.) See: Accessibility Statement (claiming conformance with WCAG 2.0 and ATAG 2.0), Issue 2864791: Implement new Success Criteria from WCAG 2.1 (created in 2017; open and unassigned as of April 2022), Accessibility (Drupal module) (June 2097, updated in April 2022), Contribute to accessibility, Accessibility Group, Nomensa Accessible Media Player (2014), YouTube Video Accessibility Controls (2015), Plyr Media Player (2022) Able Player (2021).

EzPublish

(Homepage: ez.no.) No accessibility statement or other accessibility-related information.

Joomla

(Homepage: www.joomla.org.) This Accessibility Statement promises compliance with WCAG 1.0 Priority 2 and Section 508 by release 1.5. Joomla 1.5 was released in January 2008.
Accessibility category in the Joomla extensions directory.

See also:

Mezzanine

(Homepage: mezzanine.jupo.org.) The website has accessibility statement or other accessibility-related information.

Christophe Buffenoir : Créer un blog accessible avec Mezzanine, Capitole du Libre, November 2014. As of April 2022, presentations are no longer available on the website.

MODX

(Homepage: modx.com.)
See Help Us Bring MODX to Everyone (MODX blog, 6 February 2015) (and MODX Makes Noble Move Towards True Accessibility, CMS Critic, 12 February 2015).

mojoPortal

(Homepage: www.mojoportal.com.) The mojoPortal website states that accessibility is an important goal; the site also has many accessibility resources.

Neos

(Homepage: www.neos.io.)
See: Tobias Gruber: Neos website gets WCAG 2.0 accessibility certification, 17 July 2015. The Neos features list mentions accessibility: While accessibilty depends on the individual implementation and the editors' care, Neos doesn't obstruct you in building accessible websites. It even has options and tools to assist proper accessibilty and leaves any freedom necessary to build highly accessible websites. (Accessed on 25.04.2022.) The website contains no other accessibility-related information.
See also Neos on GitHub.

Redaxo

(Homepage: www.redaxo.org.) Redaxo is a German CMS. Its website has no accessibility statement (last accessed on 25.04.2022). (The German documentation used to contain an article about Accesskeys.)
According to Stephan Heller, Redaxo gives developers full control over its templates, which is helpful when you want to make them accessible. See the discussion about content management systems on the website of the German organisation Webkrauts.

SilverStripe

(Homepage: www.silverstripe.org.) See Making your content accessible in the “Web content best practices”.

SPIP

(Homepage: www.spip.net.) This CMS is “incontournable” in discussions about content management in France.

Typo3

(Homepage: typo3.org.) This system is well-known in the German-speaking world. See the Typo 3 Accessibility Team and the article TYPO3 and its Accessibility in the Backend by Alexa Kreßmann (13.02.2022, accessed on 25.04.2022). There is a typo 3 repository on GitHub, but that is not the place where issues are registered. For information about its accessibility features, see for example the release notes of an older version.

WordPress

(Homepage: wordpress.org.) See WordPress Codex: Accessibility, Test for web accessibility and Make WordPress Accessible (blog), Accessibility in the Theme Review Handbook, “accessibility-ready” themes in the WordPress theme directory.
Articles, blog posts and tools: