Application Framework

Most platforms limit what you can build. Sulu is a full Symfony application: extend it, own it, and never hit a ceiling. Manage your own business entities in the same admin as your content, reuse Sulu's auth, permissions and UI, and tap the entire Symfony ecosystem. When your project outgrows "just a website," you don't switch platforms.

Why it's different

Outgrowing the CMS doesn't mean switching platforms

Your domain model, first-class

Bring your own Doctrine entities. Editors create, edit and manage them in the same intuitive admin as pages, with no separate backend to maintain.

The full Symfony ecosystem, not a walled garden

Thousands of bundles, standard PHP, your own business logic. No proprietary abstractions to fight.

One platform from website to application

Portals, booking systems, intranets, custom workflows and content, in a single installation with one auth and permission model.

Platform Capabilities

The same infrastructure, now for your own data

Bring your own entity

Your business data, managed in the same admin as your content. Define custom Doctrine entities, expose REST endpoints, and describe the admin view in metadata, with no custom JavaScript needed since Sulu 2.0. Editors manage your data with the same UX as content.

Custom entities defined in standard Doctrine ORM
Admin views configured in metadata, not hand-coded
REST endpoints exposed alongside CMS APIs
Editors use the same interface for content and business data

Reuse the Sulu admin UI

A polished backend for business data, without building a frontend from scratch. List views, form views, tabs and permissions: configured, not hand-built. Give any business entity a structured admin interface that feels consistent with the rest of the platform.

List and form views declaratively configured
Tabs, filters, bulk actions and sorting included
Consistent UX across content, assets and custom entities
No bespoke frontend needed for non-content data

Roles, Permissions & Workflows

Define exactly who can edit what and on which site. Sulu's role model lets you assign granular permissions per webspace and action. Editors see only what they need to manage. Sensitive content stays protected without complex configuration. Publishing workflows keep content moving through review and approval before it goes live, without requiring a separate tool to manage the process.

Enterprise auth & granular permissions

One role model across content and custom features, no second auth layer. A single permission system covers content and custom entities, with security contexts, Single Sign-On and two-factor authentication built in (SecurityBundle). Reuse Sulu authentication for your own APIs.

Role-based permissions apply to content and custom modules equally
Single Sign-On and two-factor authentication included
Security contexts extensible for your own access rules
API authentication reused across all endpoints

Routing & audit for your entities

Clean URLs, a complete change log, and recoverable records for any entity. Give custom entities history-aware URLs (RouteBundle), track every change with the activity log (ActivityBundle), and recover deleted records via the Trash. The same infrastructure that powers content, applied to your own entities.

Custom-entity URLs managed by the RouteBundle
Full activity log per entity, per user
Deleted records recoverable via the TrashBundle
Consistent behaviour with content pages

Pure Symfony, your way

No framework inside a framework. Just Symfony, all the way down. Keep it lean following Symfony Best Practices, or go full DDD. Sulu doesn't enforce how you implement your API or domain logic. It gives you the foundation, not a straitjacket.

Standard Symfony service layer, no proprietary wrappers
Compatible with hexagonal architecture, DDD or simple CRUD
Full access to the Symfony ecosystem of bundles
Business logic stays in your code, not locked in a CMS module

Built to scale, no lock-in

Deployment is your decision. License is never a constraint. Sulu runs on anything from a single server to a Kubernetes cluster. Git-versioned, full test suite, MIT-licensed: no viral copyleft, no license fees, no vendor exit cost.

Deployment-agnostic: shared hosting to container orchestration
Git-versionable configuration and templates
MIT license: no usage restrictions, no license audits
Open source all the way down, including the application framework

For Developers

Standard Symfony architecture, immediately familiar to you

Since Sulu 3.0, content lives as standard Doctrine ORM entities with JSON fields: query it with SQL/DQL, debug it in your database, use the Doctrine tools you already know. No PHPCR to learn or maintain. Roughly double the throughput and half the latency compared to the previous storage layer. If your team knows Symfony, they know Sulu.