Is TYPO3 Free? Kind Of – Exploring the Hidden Costs

"Is TYPO3 free?" 

We are sure this question would have come up in your mind if you consider choosing TYPO3  as the CMS for your future business needs. 

The appropriate response can be complicated here, which is why individuals get confused here. A TYPO3 site can be free or can have some cost connected to it. However, the TYPO3 platform itself — called TYPO3, Open Source CMS — is free and consistently will be. Furthermore, this isn't just about the monetary expense of TYPO3: it's additionally free as in you are allowed to change and extend it and to utilize it as you wish.

In this article, we'll answer the inquiry "Is TYPO3 free?" absolutely. We'll walk you through TYPO3’s hidden expenses, and go over how you can set up a TYPO3 website while spending as little as could reasonably be expected. Let’s proceed!

Today, TYPO3 is one of the most popular and secure content management systems in the world. TYPO3 CMS is built by an open-source community and it is released under GPL (General Public License). The GPL license makes TYPO3 an open software that is free to distribute, modify, share, and so on. GPL follows these four essential freedoms:

• Freedom to use the software for any purpose;
• Freedom to learn how the software works and make any modifications for it;
• Freedom to distribute the software;
• Freedom to fix errors, make improvements, generate tricks, and distribute all of these to the communities so that all of the users can experience the same benefits.

TYPO3 is and continues to be free because it is managed by a dedicated community and not by a company. Instead, it’s owned by the non-profit TYPO3 community, whose mission is to provide a fully-fledged amazing TYPO3 CMS for generations to come and to educate people about TYPO3. The TYPO3 community doesn’t make any profit from developing or distributing TYPO3: it’s all voluntary work.

After all, it costs money to host the TYPO3 site itself. It costs money to run the infrastructure that enables large teams to collaborate on TYPO3. And it costs time for people to get involved.

Well, thousands of companies, developers, and enthusiasts benefit from TYPO3.

They recognize that without the support of people like themselves, TYPO3 wouldn’t exist and they wouldn’t have this awesome software with which they earn a living. That’s why we choose and recommend everyone to give something back to the TYPO3 community: by contributing by every possible means. Read this article about how you can pay appreciation to this great TYPO3 CMS.

Although you can get this version of TYPO3 for free, you still need to pay for its technical environments such as domain and hosting. To accomplish that, you need to, at a minimum, pay for web hosting and a domain name. Fortunately, there are great hosting companies that offer a domain name for free, even when you buy the cheapest hosting plan. But do you know there is an all in one TYPO3 solution that handles your TYPO3 site from its hosting, domain, installation, customization, and everything you need to launch your TYPO3 website in a few minutes!

Never heard of it? It’s a TYPO3 SaaS!

TYPO3 SaaS is conceptualized to serve you everything ranging from TYPO3 CMS, TYPO3 Template, Hosting, Customization, Installation, and everything you need to have a perfect TYPO3 website but in an AUTOMIZED and the INSTANT way so that you don’t have to rely upon service providers and agencies to get your work done.

TYPO3 SaaS is often a great solution for companies and individuals that aren’t looking to invest in costly and complex TYPO3 website development models. It’s easy to use and simple, with immediate access and few updates. The cost to launch your TYPO3 website is now pocket friendly! 

So basically apart from all other factors that may or may not cost you but hosting is something you need to pay to get your website running on the web.

TYPO3 Support Services

If you are a TYPO3 lover and have experience using TYPO3, there’s no reason you should need to pay for professional development or support services, you can easily get solutions from the available free guides, documentation, resources, social media channels, and from active TYPO3 community. But somehow in a condition, if you realize the technical issues that you can’t resolve by yourself, then you might need to spend a little amount for the same.

If you ever find yourself in a position where you need to hire a professional developer for custom work or bug fixing, Fortunately, TYPO3 support services tend to be affordable and reasonable, and there are plenty of free support options online as well.

For a much deeper look at what it costs to re-launch or upgrade your TYPO3 website, check out full breakdown of how much a website costs here: https://typo3.com/blog/cost-factors-of-a-typo3-website/.

TYPO3 Development Services

If you can’t find any of the free or premium TYPO3 extensions and templates that are able to meet your needs, and you don’t have the time or the skills to code your own, then an option is to hire a developer and develop your requirement from scratch.

This can range from anything to designing and creating your site, to the development of an extension, to customizing your TYPO3 template. It all varies on your specific needs, time, and budget.

Eager to know how a TYPO3 website is developed from scratch, we recommend reading this article.

TYPO3 CMS is designed so that you don’t need to hire an expert and pay extra to get yourself a great website. But if you’re creating a highly bespoke site or you’re running a business and don’t have the time or skills to do it in-house, then hiring a TYPO3 development partner can be a good option.

Again, this is optional. But for some TYPO3 users, it is something they choose to pay for.

Interesting duh? To get trust and real experience, we recommend having Free test-drive of TYPO3 SaaS solution for 15 days at https://t3planet.com/typo3-saas

The TYPO3 core CMS will always be free: it was, it is, and will be!

The TYPO3 Open Source CMS is free to download and free to use in any way you want to. You can customize it, extend it, or redistribute it.

Even with TYPO3, you will need to spend some money to get your website up and running on the web, with at least a domain name and hosting.

And if you need an amazing extraordinary TYPO3 website, chances are that you need to spend some amount for it. 

On the contrary side, TYPO3 offers very limited free templates to choose from to build your business website. When it comes to website development, the best templates options are almost always premium if you need a genuine amount of functionality for it. 

However, in the case of TYPO3 extensions, there are thousands of options and variety on offer. So you can save a lot of money by relying on free extensions to add extra functionality to build your TYPO3 website. 

Anyways, how much you get for free and how much you’ll end up paying for is up to you. But given that the amazing TYPO3 CMS itself is free. And it’s well worth paying a little extra for a high-performing, professional website.

Do you have any questions about getting your TYPO3 website on the web? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below!