Silex

What it is

Silex is a free and open source visual website builder for static sites. Its home page sums it up as "Visual editor, CMS integration, hosting included" in "one free/libre and open-source platform," and describes the project as "Born free and open-source in 2009," maintained by the non-profit organization Silex Labs, based in Paris, France. It is written for web professionals building multiple sites, freelancers and agencies scaling client work, students learning design, and teams that need static site performance, the audiences the home page names. The team's own language is that its mission is "to liberate web creation using no-code," and the home page adds: "No investors, no exit strategy."

Silex is a project of OW2, the European open-source community, and the home page says it "won the OW2 Best Project Award 2026 in the Technology category at OW2con in Paris." It is funded by the NGI0 Commons Fund, sponsors and volunteers.

What you build and how

Where it runs. You can start on v3.silex.me with "nothing to install," and the home page adds: "Self-host Silex anytime." The company's open-source article describes three ways to use it: as an online SaaS, a Desktop app, or a fully self-hosted instance, and says the project counts "Over 22,000 accounts."

The editor. Silex is a visual design tool that "exposes HTML and CSS concepts to you, nothing more," so what you learn transfers to any web work. A Trustpilot reviewer quoted on the home page says the workflow "makes it easy to iterate over design and add components with drag and drop." The home page says sites built with it are "fast, accessible, SEO-optimized, eco-friendly," and lists blogs, small business websites and e-commerce websites as things people build.

Templates. The community template gallery says "All templates are free under the Creative Commons licence," with some marked with a lock because their release is funded through crowdfunding. Examples include Open Source Docs, Privacy First and Apex Consulting, tagged agency, corporate, saas and startup, each with Download, Preview and Edit template buttons. One campaign on the home page, a template pack for agencies and freelancers that would release 4 production-ready templates publicly, showed €295 raised toward €2000 from 24 contributors.

The data layer. Silex does not ship its own database. It reads from a CMS or API: the home page names WordPress, Strapi, Squidex, Supabase and "Your API," under the line "Design with dynamic data that your clients can edit." The company's CMS article explains the model: "Your CMS owns it. Silex learns it by reading the GraphQL schema." You add a data source in the settings dialog, Silex introspects the schema, and fields appear as tokens with autocomplete. You bind a component's content, attributes, classes or visibility to those tokens. The article lists working GraphQL sources as WordPress via WPGraphQL, Strapi, Squidex, Directus, KeystoneJS and Supabase. A REST-only backend needs a wrapper such as GraphQL Mesh or Graphweaver first, which the article calls "real setup work."

Logic and expressions. The expression editor builds values by clicking. Tokens can be piped through Liquid filters, and "you never write Liquid yourself": Silex generates it. An example is an SEO-friendly alt attribute that combines an image name with the page title. Collection pages generate one page per item in a list, each with its own URL and SEO, driven by the 11ty pagination object.

Publishing and hosting. When you publish, Silex generates Eleventy (11ty) pages that query your API at build time, and the build "produces a plain static site." The CMS "is not exposed at runtime at all," so visitors never reach it. The article is open about the trade: content is as fresh as the last build, so live updates mean a rebuild, usually triggered by a webhook. The home page says "Try Silex for as long as you like" and "You can publish, host, and enjoy all the features." It also promises "No tracking nor third-party cookies in the websites you create" and says the official instance "runs on eco-friendly servers that we control," hosted in Europe.

Code export and ownership. The company's article lists the export as standard HTML, CSS and JavaScript files, "No proprietary format," that you can open in any code editor and upload to any host. It frames open source as: "You own your output. Standard HTML/CSS. Host anywhere. You can self-host."

E-commerce. The same article says e-commerce works "Via integrations like Snipcart and headless CMS connections."

AI and Silex Desktop. An alpha page describes designing websites with AI: "Describe what you want, see it built live." Silex Desktop, an early prototype for Windows, macOS and Linux, works offline with no account and includes an MCP server. You connect "Claude Code, Goose, OpenCode, or any MCP client," or local models via Ollama, and the page says "Silex doesn't bundle a specific AI." Through the bridge an AI tool can create and edit pages, content and styles, read the document structure, manage assets and data sources, and trigger builds and previews. Output is "the same HTML/CSS you'd write by hand," and the page says small language models on consumer hardware, with no GPU, are enough for web design.

The evidence from the pages

Price. The home page says "All features are free of charge, Silex is 100% free and open source." The CMS article repeats that there is "no premium tier, no CLA, no feature held back for a paid cloud." For managed hosting or personalized advice, the home page says to join the chat and talk directly with the maintainer.

License. The footer says "Silex is licensed AGPL and copyright Silex Labs non profit organization," and the home page says that going without a Contributor License Agreement ensures "the AGPL license remain unchanged." Site content is under Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0.

Funding. Development runs on donations and feature crowdfunding. Sponsors listed on the home page include BairesDev, N-iX, BrowserStack, Internet 2000, Feedbucket and LITSLINK, and the project says "Every donation funds concrete project needs, never marketing." The AI page points to OpenCollective for general donations, and the roadmap shows community votes on AI features.

Reviews. The home page quotes Trustpilot reviewers. One calls Silex "a good webdesign software for makers, designers, web dev beginners," and another, who has built "a number of websites over a period of several years," calls it "the most powerful and graphically precise website builder that I have experienced."

Support. Help comes from the community: Forums, Chat, Meetups with replay videos, a Documentation Wiki, a newsletter, a Fediverse account and a Roadmap.

Who it suits and who it does not

Silex suits a designer or freelancer who wants a visual builder without a subscription, and an agency that would like to hand a client plain files and a CMS they can edit. It suits a developer who wants a headless CMS such as Strapi or Directus behind a static site, and anyone who cares that the tool is AGPL and run by a non-profit.

The project is frank about the trade-off. The home page says "You might prefer something else if you need zero learning curve or a site live in 10 minutes," and the open-source article says "you will benefit from knowing HTML and CSS basics. Not for complete beginners." It also lists "more technical setup, less polished onboarding, smaller support teams." There is no built-in database, so you bring a CMS, and help comes from the community rather than a SaaS support desk.