Government Site Builder 11 relies on TYPO3
The Government Site Builder (GSB) is the primary content management system of the German federal administration. It enables ministries, authorities and other federal institutions to efficiently maintain their websites. The GSB aims to set standards, ensure compliance with accessibility, security and data protection requirements and thus offer a standardised solution for public administration.
WinWin
Until version 7, the GSB was based on the commercial and proprietary CMS software CoreMedia, which resulted in licence costs for all installations. From version 10 onwards, an open source framework was used, and from the planned version 11 for 2024, TYPO3 will serve as the basis.
In my view, this decision represents a strategic gain for both sides: GSB benefits from the long-established TYPO3 CMS and the developer community behind it. At the same time, TYPO3 gains additional significance and image that goes far beyond the public sector.
It is not only the fact that TYPO3 does not incur any licence costs that should help to reduce costs. The federal government is now relying on a flexible, easily scalable system that is suitable for a wide range of application scenarios. In addition, TYPO3 guarantees predictable and reliable security updates based on a stable ecosystem that is supported by the community and the TYPO3 GmbH.
Next Steps
According to our information, a release of Gouvernement Site Builder 11 is planned for approximately mid-2024 in two distributions: One hosted by the ITZBund, the other is a variant that can be installed at external hosters. This version will also allow the system to be expanded with extensions, for example, while the ITZBund version will presumably be much more limited and focus more on fast updates and additional security aspects.
We will continuously monitor the progress of the government site builder and look forward to future developments. If you are already interested in a project based on GSB11 or have a project in the public sector, please do not hesitate to contact us directly!