Imagine your content management system was good enough for an entire country. Not one city, not one ministry - but 250 government websites of an entire state. Sounds ambitious? That's a reality. And the CMS that masters this task is TYPO3.
As a TYPO3 agency, we experience every day how underestimated this platform still is among some decision-makers. Yet projects such as the German Government Site Builder 11, the digital sovereignty debate in Europe and the ground-breaking Rwanda project prove in black and white that TYPO3 is not a niche CMS for tech-savvy agencies. It is an internationally proven, stable and modern system to which even entire governments entrust their digital face.
What does that mean for you? A lot. Read on to find out.
Federal authorities, ministries, local authorities: anyone who operates a government website in Germany will be familiar with the Government Site Builder (GSB). This standardised modular system enables public bodies to efficiently implement professional, accessible and data protection-compliant websites - without having to reinvent the wheel every time.
With the GSB 11 version launched in 2024, the project marks a real milestone: for the first time, the Government Site Builder relies on TYPO3 as its technical foundation. This decision affects ministries, municipal and higher-level authorities throughout Germany - and is a direct response to the end of support for GSB 10 in 2025.
TYPO3 was chosen because the ITZBund - the Federal Information Technology Centre - cited reliability and flexibility as decisive criteria. What particularly characterises TYPO3 is its vibrant open source community: a dynamic ecosystem in which users collaborate, share knowledge and drive innovation.
This is no small footnote in the history of German e-government - it's a statement. When the Federal Information Technology Centre comes to the conclusion that TYPO3 is the platform of choice after a long and careful selection process, that says more than any marketing promise.
The first results are already publicly accessible: websites such as those of the Federal Commissioner for Culture and the Media (kulturstaatsminister.de), the Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety (zkbs-online.de), the Federal Criminal Police Office (innerersicherheitsfonds.de) or the Federal Environment Agency (bundespreis-umwelt-bauen.de) are already running on GSB 11 with TYPO3.
These are not pilot projects - these are running, public websites of central federal authorities. Visible and verifiable for everyone.
You may have heard the term "digital sovereignty" a lot recently. It sounds like dry political vocabulary - but it is in fact one of the most important strategic issues of our time, with implications that extend far beyond the public sector.
The core of the debate: Europe has become heavily dependent on American technology companies over decades. Microsoft, Google, Amazon - these providers dominate the digital infrastructure of public authorities, companies and organisations across all sectors. That wasn't a problem for a long time. Today it is.
The public debate about digital sovereignty and the continued use of software from large technology companies has now also reached the EU Parliament - the call for a new strategic direction is louder than ever. In January 2026, the French parliament announced that it would introduce its own national alternative to Microsoft Teams and Zoom as part of a broader strategy to reduce dependence on foreign technology.
That sounds like France, but it strikes a chord with a pan-European movement. At a regional level too, many local authorities and federal states are driving the use of open source - most notably the state of Schleswig-Holstein, which is leading the way in switching to open source technologies, combining efficiency with digital sovereignty.
But why exactly is open source the answer to this challenge?
Proprietary technologies often act like a "black box": development cycles are less transparent, updates are more difficult to calculate and accountability to users is limited. Open source projects, on the other hand, disclose their source code - which means that any expert worldwide can check and improve the code and test it for security gaps.
In the long term, dependence on a proprietary system can lead to a vendor lock-in - where a change is hardly realisable due to high migration costs and technical hurdles. Open source solutions such as TYPO3, on the other hand, allow unrestricted access to source code and centralised databases. This creates real freedom: you are the master of your own data and your own infrastructure.
The Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) passed by the EU Parliament in 2024 defines binding security and resilience requirements for digital products and services. Open source products such as TYPO3, which adhere to strict security standards, with clear update cycles and active community support, offer a competitive advantage over proprietary technologies where security standards are unclear and not available for transparent assessment.
In short, digital sovereignty is not an abstract policy goal. It is a question of who ultimately has control over your digital infrastructure. Open source gives this control back to you.
More information on digital sovereignty
There are many open source CMS systems. WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Contao - the list is long. So why TYPO3?
The answer lies in the combination of maturity, security, scalability and community. TYPO3 has been around since 1997 - almost three decades in which the system has been continuously developed, professionalised and hardened. This is no coincidence. It is the result of an active, global community of developers, agencies and companies working together towards one goal.
For public authorities, reliability is paramount when it comes to providing important information to the public. TYPO3 ensures that information is always up-to-date and available through predictable release cycles. This sounds obvious, but it is not: many CMS systems have unpredictable update cycles that present operators with sudden migration challenges.
TYPO3 also offers long-term support for its feature-rich core - this allows operators to update their websites securely and at their own pace.
TYPO3 places a strong focus on security. It protects sensitive data, provides granular user access rights and adheres to in-built privacy and security standards. These are not marketing phrases - this is the basis for federal authorities and ministries to use the system.
TYPO3 offers multisite functionality that enables consistent information provision across different sites and platforms. This is a decisive advantage for international companies, groups with several brands or organisations with complex web infrastructures.
What sets TYPO3 apart from many other CMS systems is the quality of its community. Thousands of developers worldwide actively contribute to the system - as part of their work, their voluntary commitment or as users who solve problems themselves and share their solutions. This means that when a bug is discovered, it is quickly fixed. If a new requirement arises, it finds its way into the system.
The list is impressive. In addition to the German federal authorities, cities such as Leipzig, Chemnitz and the Verband Region Stuttgart also rely on TYPO3. The federal state of Baden-Württemberg has consolidated its web presence in an innovative open source solution based on TYPO3. The French Senate operates its official website with TYPO3. The telephone companies, the AOK, the German Red Cross and Lufthansa - they all rely on TYPO3.
This is the kind of reference list that inspires confidence in decision-makers.
Now we come to the project that still amazes even hardened TYPO3 fans.
Since 2019, 250 Rwandan government websites have been planned, built and gone live with TYPO3. Many more are in the pipeline. Working with the TYPO3 community, the TYPO3 Association has provided local expertise and training - but the impact goes far beyond technology.
250 websites. Of an entire country. On TYPO3.
In collaboration with the TYPO3 Association, agencies from the TYPO3 community and GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH), the Rwandan government and local companies have developed a successful model for implementing government websites - based on a coherent strategy, sound governance and a parallel programme of local skills development.
This is not an old-school development aid project where Western corporations export solutions and create local dependencies. It is something fundamentally different.
The project has shown that TYPO3 is uniquely positioned to go beyond a secure, powerful, cost-effective and user-friendly CMS - and deliver real positive social impact.
The project generates business opportunities for local companies, creates new employment prospects for young people in the country, kicks-start sustainable, non-exploitative local economies and promotes civil society initiatives around an open source project based on democratic principles and practices.
This is the open source idea in its purest form: Technology that is not simply licensed and sold, but shares knowledge, builds capacity and creates real social value. This model can be reused anywhere - and the TYPO3 community is already working to replicate the success of Rwanda in other countries.
The next time you are evaluating a software provider, ask yourself: How much government expertise is behind this product? How transparent is the development? How strong is the community? And: Could this system be just as relevant tomorrow as it is today?
With TYPO3, the answers are clear. This is not software that was developed by a start-up team in a garage and may be sold or discontinued tomorrow. This is a platform that has been growing continuously for almost 30 years, that is supported by one of the most committed open source communities in the world and to which entire governments now entrust their digital infrastructure.
More information about TYPO3 in Rwanda
At this point, some of you may be thinking: "Interesting - but I'm not a government official. I run a medium-sized company / an international NGO / a corporation / an educational institution. What does all this have to do with me?"
The honest answer: more than you might think.
The requirements that made GSB 11 and the Rwanda project successful are exactly the same requirements that private organisations should also place on their CMS:
Scalability: your organisation is growing. Your website must grow with it. TYPO3 scales from a small company website to a complex multi-site infrastructure with hundreds of subpages and multiple language versions.
Data protection and compliance: GDPR is not an option, it's a must. TYPO3 was developed with data protection as a core principle - not as an add-on.
Long-term stability: You don't want to introduce a completely new CMS and retrain your employees every three years. TYPO3's long-term support strategy gives you planning security for years to come.
Individual customisability: No two companies are the same. Thanks to its extensive extension ecosystem and professional agency partners, TYPO3 can be tailored precisely to your requirements - without locking you into proprietary structures.
Total Cost of Ownership: No licence fees, no forced upgrades, no sudden price increases. TYPO3 is yours - in the sense that you are never dependent on a single provider.
Whether healthcare, education, e-commerce, tourism, industry or non-profit: Wherever a professional, secure and future-proof web presence is important, TYPO3 is an excellent choice.
Let's be honest: there are many CMS systems on the market, and there are many agencies that claim to be experts in something.
What makes TYPO3 stand out from the crowd is what you have read in this article: almost 30 years of continuous development, one of the most active open source communities worldwide, international deployments at government level in Germany, Europe and Africa, a clear commitment to security, data protection and transparency - and a growing strategic relevance in a time when digital sovereignty is no longer an optional extra, but an obligation.
The German Government Site Builder 11 proves this: When even the German government concludes, after a long evaluation process, that TYPO3 is the right platform for its digital infrastructure, that's a seal of approval that's hard to beat. The Rwanda project proves that TYPO3 is not only technically convincing - it can support entire economies in the development of their digital infrastructure. And the European debate on digital sovereignty proves it: The decision in favour of or against open source is no longer a technical side note. It is a strategic decision.
And now?
We are aemka - a specialised TYPO3 agency with a genuine passion for this system and real experience in the implementation of demanding web projects. We know what TYPO3 can do. We know what it takes to use it properly. And we know how to turn a technical system into a website that advances your goals - whether that's lead generation, brand communication, information dissemination or e-commerce.
If you are planning a web project - whether it's a relaunch, new build or migration from another system - then we look forward to hearing from you. Not because we collect orders, but because we love good projects. And because we know that TYPO3 is really something special in the right hands.
Get in touch with us. We look forward to your project.
