Software Alternatives & Startups

Medium VS DonkeyCMS

Compare Medium VS DonkeyCMS and see what are their differences

Medium

Welcome to Medium, a place to read, write, and interact with the stories that matter most to you.

Rating
0 reviews
Pricing
Open source
DonkeyCMS

A self-hosted blog for any website that isn't WordPress, existing or new. It keeps your site's own design and is ready for SEO and AI search. Free plan, no time limit.

Rating
0 reviews
Pricing
Freemium €6 / Monthly (Pro tier, 1 website, 5 seats)

Which is more popular?

Based on our record, Medium seems to be more popular. It has been mentioned 3158 times since March 2021.

social mentions
3,158 vs 0
Blogging popularity
100% vs 0%
alternatives listed
240+ vs 17

Base details

Website, pricing, platforms and company facts side by side.

Medium
DonkeyCMS
Website medium.com donkeycms.com
Pricing
Open source
Freemium €6 / Monthly (Pro tier, 1 website, 5 seats) Official pricing
Platforms —
Self Hosted PHP Web
Company Startup from the United States Startup from Romania · 1 - 9 employees · 2026
Listed in

About Medium and DonkeyCMS

In their own words, as submitted to SaaSHub.

Medium
DonkeyCMS

No description of Medium yet.

DonkeyCMS is a lightweight, self-hosted blog system for websites that are not built on WordPress. It installs into a subfolder of your site and takes on your own header, footer and design, so the blog looks like part of your website instead of a separate product. It works with a website you...

Read more about DonkeyCMS

Features and specs

What each product offers, as listed by its team.

Medium 5 features
DonkeyCMS 8 features
  • User-Friendly Interface
    Medium offers an easy-to-use interface that makes it simple for anyone to start writing and publishing content without any technical knowledge.
  • Built-in Audience
    The platform has a large and active user base, so new content has the potential to reach a wide audience quickly.
  • Publishing Tools
    Medium provides versatile publishing tools that support text, images, and various media formats, which helps in creating rich and engaging content.
  • SEO Benefits
    Articles posted on Medium tend to rank well in search engine results, thanks to the platform's high domain authority.
  • Community and Interaction
    Medium encourages reader engagement through comments, claps, and highlights, fostering a sense of community among writers and readers.

Possible disadvantages

  • Monetization
    While Medium has a Partner Program, it may not be as lucrative as other methods of monetization available on independent blogging platforms.
  • Control and Customization
    Medium offers limited customization options compared to dedicated blog platforms like WordPress, restricting how you can brand and personalize your blog.
  • Content Ownership
    By publishing on Medium, you agree to their terms and conditions, which may include giving up some control over how your content is used and distributed.
  • Paywall Issues
    Some articles are placed behind a paywall, which might limit the reach of your content if you want it to be freely accessible to everyone.
  • Dependency on Platform
    Relying solely on Medium means that any changes to the platform's policies or algorithms can directly impact your reach and engagement.
  • Fits your existing site
    Installs into a subfolder of a custom-coded website and uses your own header, footer and design
  • SEO and AI ready
    Structured data, sitemap, RSS feed and social share tags on every plan, plus a check that search engines and AI tools can read your blog
  • Editor
    Rich text or Markdown, scheduled publishing, categories, tags and per-post SEO and FAQ fields
  • WordPress import
    Bring posts, images, categories and tags over from a WordPress export file
  • Backups and updates
    Full backups with cloud destinations, and one-click updates from the admin
  • Team and roles
    Team accounts with custom roles and permissions, and review before publishing
  • Privacy-friendly analytics
    Built-in visit statistics without cookies or third-party scripts
  • Requirements
    PHP 8.1 or newer and MySQL, on standard shared hosting

Analysis

An editorial look at what each product does well and who it suits.

Medium
DonkeyCMS

Overall verdict

  • Medium can be considered a good platform for those who enjoy a wide array of content and appreciate quality writing on diverse subjects. However, the value of Medium depends on individual preferences and whether the topics and writing styles align with what the reader is looking for.

Why this product is good

  • Medium offers a diverse range of articles from both professional and amateur writers, providing readers with numerous perspectives on various topics. Its clean user interface and ease of use make it an appealing platform for both writers and readers. The platform also supports monetization for writers, allowing them to earn from their content.

Recommended for

    Medium is recommended for avid readers seeking a variety of topics ranging from personal development to technology. It's also ideal for writers looking to publish their work to a broad audience and potentially earn revenue through the platform's Partner Program.

No analysis of DonkeyCMS yet.

Videos

Walkthroughs and reviews on video.

Medium 5 videos + Add
DonkeyCMS 0 videos + Add

Medium Review - with Tom Vasel

More videos

  • - Starting a blog on Medium.com? Watch this FIRST.
  • - The Medium Review
  • - The Medium - Before You Buy
  • - I recommend: The Medium (Review)

No DonkeyCMS videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

Category popularity

How often each product is chosen within a category, 0–100% relative to the other.

Score bands 0–20 21–40 41–50 51–60 61–100
Medium
DonkeyCMS
100% 100%
0% 0%
0% 0%
100% 100%
100% 100%
0% 0%
99% 99%
CMS
1% 1%

Questions & Answers

As answered by people managing Medium and DonkeyCMS.

What makes your product unique?

DonkeyCMS's answer:

It adds a blog to a website you already built, instead of asking you to rebuild the site around a CMS. DonkeyCMS installs into a subfolder of a custom-coded HTML site and takes on that site's own header, footer and design, so visitors never feel they left your website. There is no theme to convert and no plugin collection to maintain.

Why should a person choose your product over its competitors?

DonkeyCMS's answer:

Choose it if you have a custom-coded website and only want a good blog on it. WordPress would mean converting your design into a theme and keeping plugins updated. Static site generators and headless CMSs need a developer for every change. DonkeyCMS sits in between: it installs in minutes on ordinary PHP hosting, anyone on the team can write and publish from a clean admin, and the SEO groundwork (structured data, sitemap, RSS, share tags) is built in on every plan, including the free one.

How would you describe the primary audience of your product?

DonkeyCMS's answer:

Freelance web designers, small agencies and small businesses whose websites are custom-coded rather than built on WordPress, and who want to add a blog without changing how the site is built. Agencies can run it across many client sites and white-label it.

What's the story behind your product?

DonkeyCMS's answer:

I'm a designer, not a programmer. The websites I make for my own projects and for clients are custom HTML sites, not WordPress ones, and I wanted the perfect blog system to plug into them. It had to be as strong as WordPress for SEO, but without the weight: very light, fast, and good-looking out of the box. Nothing I found did all of that inside a site that was already built, so I decided to have it made, at first just to use for my own clients. Version 1.0 was released in October 2026.

Which are the primary technologies used for building your product?

DonkeyCMS's answer:

PHP and MySQL, so it runs on standard shared hosting. The post editor is built on Tiptap. The admin and the blog use plain HTML, CSS and JavaScript, with no front-end framework, which keeps pages small and fast.

User comments

Share your experience with using Medium and DonkeyCMS. For example, how are they different and which one is better?

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Reviews and articles

External articles and on-site reviews we used to compare the two products.

Medium no reviews yet
DonkeyCMS no reviews yet

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We have no reviews of DonkeyCMS yet. Be the first one to post

Social recommendations and mentions

Recommendations tracked on public social media and blogs since March 2021.

Medium 3158 mentions
DonkeyCMS 0 mentions
  • Free Until Thursday: Claude Code, Codex and OpenCode on MiniMax M3.1 Flash
    This article first appeared on Medium: https://medium.com/@r3dtuxedo/free-until-thursday-claude-code-codex-and-opencode-on-minimax-m3-1-flash-41292135b0da. - Source: dev.to / about 20 hours ago
  • Claude Duet
    That's almost a compliment because my comments are giant stream of consciousness rants that absolutely don't follow best writing practices and are all just massive run on sentences :) I do use - hyphens a lot, but not em-dashes because... - Source: Hacker News / 4 days ago
  • Beta Agent Gateway – Anyone want to try it out?
    Thanks for your comment by the way. I still won't open source the code just yet, but I have written a Medium article about it (https://medium.com/@stevef1uk/managing-ai-agents-and-your-claws-0bdc598c3b84) which provides more explanation... - Source: Hacker News / 9 days ago

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Tracking DonkeyCMS since Oct 2026.

Alternatives to Medium and DonkeyCMS

When comparing Medium and DonkeyCMS, you can also consider the following products.