Contao


Contao is a free content management system for medium to large websites. The program specializes in back-office and front-office accessibility, and observes XHTML, HTML5 and CSS standards, according to W3C/WAI guidelines, to generate pages. The program is an open-source project, published in its original form in 2006 by Leo Feyer.

Minimal/suggested installations

As of 4.2.0, Contao requires an Apache, Nginx or IIS web server, PHP, the MySQL relational database management system and the PHP extension GDLib and SOAP. Contao runs successfully with current versions of major browsers like Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer.

Product name

As of the pre-release version 2.9. RC1 on June 6, 2010, the TYPOlight product was renamed Contao. Developer Leo Feyer justified the change on the grounds that TYPOlight had often been confused with TYPO3, a different CMS originally developed by Kasper Skårhøj, whilst the word “light” was sometimes misunderstood to imply that the CMS was suitable only for small projects.
In his instructional book on the CMS, Websites erstellen mit Contao, Peter Müller writes that the software name “Contao” has “a good ring”, pointing out that C, O, N are the first letters of “content” and that tạo is a Vietnamese word that means “to model, generate or shape.” The name is appropriate, he suggests, because the program “allows content to be generated, shaped and managed.”

Reviews, awards and critiques

In 2007 Packt Publishing named TYPOlight, as it was then known, as the second-place winner in its awards category of “Most Promising Open-Source CMS”.

Versions

SoftwareMajor releasesMinor releasesBugfix releasesGeneral corrections toSecurity relevant corrections to
TYPOlight1.x1.0.0
TYPOlight2.x2.0.0
TYPOlight2.x2.1.0 to 2.1.22
TYPOlight2.x2.2.0 to 2.2.12
TYPOlight2.x2.3.0 to 2.3.4
TYPOlight2.x2.4.0 to 2.4.7
TYPOlight2.x2.5.0 to 2.5.9
TYPOlight2.x2.6.0 to 2.6.8
TYPOlight2.x2.7.0 to 2.7.7
TYPOlight2.x2.8.0 to 2.8.4
Contao2.x2.9.0 to 2.9.5
Contao2.x2.10.0 to 2.10.4
Contao2.x2.11.0 to 2.11.17
Contao3.x3.0.0 to 3.0.6
Contao3.x3.1.0 to 3.1.5
Contao3.x3.2.0 to 3.2.21
Contao3.x3.3.0 to 3.3.7
Contao3.x3.4.0 to 3.4.5
Contao3.x3.5.0 to 3.5.40 June 2018May 2019
Contao4.x4.0.0 to 4.0.4 December 2015
Contao4.x4.1.0 to 4.1.3 June 2016
Contao4.x4.2.0 to 4.2.5 December 2016
Contao4.x4.3.0 to 4.3.11 June 2017
Contao4.x4.4.0 to 4.4.50 December 2020December 2021
Contao4.x4.5.0 to 4.5.14 August 2018
Contao4.x4.6.0 to 4.6.14 February 2019
Contao4.x4.7.0 to 4.7.7 August 2019
Contao4.x4.8.0 to 4.8.8 February 2020
Contao4.x4.9.0 to 4.9.4 February 2023February 2024
Contao4.xFebruary 2021
Contao4.xAugust 2021
Contao4.xFebruary 2022
Contao4.xFebruary 2025February 2026

Learning Contao

Instructional books

The following books on Contao are available.