New here?

Welcome! If you are new to Umbraco or the Umbraco Community, you have arrived at the right place! This page will help you understand the basics of Umbraco, learn your first skills, and discover the community that supports it all.

The communityFAQ
Umbraco
Your first steps with Umbraco

Umbraco the CMS

A woman holding CMS balloons

What is Umbraco?

Umbraco is a free, open‑source content management system (CMS) that helps you build and manage websites of any size. It’s built on the .NET framework and uses C#, which makes it powerful, flexible, and a great fit for modern web development.

Umbraco is friendly to work with and supported by a global community of people who share knowledge, tools, and ideas.

Read more on umbraco.com

Creating your first project

There's two ways to get started with Umbraco.

  1. Umbraco Cloud
    Umbraco Cloud is the easiest and fastest way to get started with Umbraco. Umbraco Cloud handles hosting, updates, maintenance, and infrastructure for you - so you can focus on building great websites instead of managing servers.

    You can start a 14-day free Umbraco Cloud trial and see if Cloud is something you'd like by visiting this link:

    Try Umbraco Cloud for free

  

  1. Install Umbraco locally

    If you prefer to install Umbraco on your own machine, you can install it locally and explore the CMS at your own pace. All you need is a simple development setup - and once it’s running, you can get started.

    This is a completely free way to use Umbraco - but if you want your website to be live and accessible to others, you’ll need to host your project somewhere.

    Visit our documentation to get help setting Umbraco up locally on your machine:

    Umbraco local install guide

The people behind the CMS

The Umbraco Community

This is the Umbraco Community

The Umbraco Community is a big, diverse group of friendly people who all care deeply about building, sharing, and growing together. Whether you're a developer, designer, content editor, or something completely different - there's a space for you here.

The community is built on Umbraco's core values: Trust, Respect, Openness, Hunger and Friendliness. You don’t need permission to belong in the community. You’re already part of it just by being here!

People standing in front of a sign saying Welcome to Codegarden

Codegarden is Umbraco's iconic annual conference

Codegarden is the place to be for developers, content editors, designers, marketeers and anyone who is or wants to be part of the Umbraco community.

Codegarden is a multi‑day tech conference filled with talks, workshops, hacking, social gatherings, and plenty of conversations. It’s also where we celebrate the new Umbraco MVPs (Most Valuable People) - a highlight of the event and a moment the whole community looks forward to.

Read more about Codegarden at the official Codegarden website:

Read about Codegarden

How to get involved

Umbraco is an open‑source project, which means anyone can help shape it. If you’re a developer, you can contribute directly to the codebase by fixing bugs, improving features, or building packages that others can use.

But contributing goes far beyond code. You can help write documentation, translate content, share knowledge, report issues, organize meetups, or support others in the community.

If you need inspiration for how your unique skillset can make a difference, visit our Find Your Path page:

Find your path

Frequently Asked Questions

We have collected and answered some of the questions you might have as a new person to the Umbraco Community.
If you still have unanswered questions, please contact us! We're happy to help.

Yes! The Umbraco CMS is open-source and completely free to download and use.

If you want us to handle the hosting and automated updates for you, it is a paid service through Umbraco Cloud.

Umbraco is often called "The Friendly CMS". It means we prioritize people over pixels. We operate on five core values: Trust, Respect, Openness, Hunger, and Friendliness. Whether you’re a beginner or an expert at Umbraco, you will be treated with kindness and respect.

Contributing to the community is all about making it your own. You can join our social channels, meet up with other Umbracians at events, or simply dive into the forums and help answer questions.

The best way to start is to do more of what you already like to do! If you’re looking for inspiration on how your specific skills fit in, check out our "Find your path" section below. It’s designed to help you find the right contribution path for you.

Find your path

Absolutely! While Umbraco is built on code, the community is built on people. We need designers, content editors, project managers, and even just enthusiastic and friendly people cheering others on. If you care about making the web a better place, there’s a seat at the table for you.

For help on technical questions, the best place to go is the Forum. The forum members consists of friendly people, and no question is too small.

If you're not in need of help but would like someone to discuss the CMS with, you can join our Umbraco Discord server and post in #umbraco-chat to get in touch with other community members. 

Get in contact with us

Would you like to discuss how you can get more involved in the Umbraco Community? Please contact the Umbraco Developer Relations team via the button below.

Contact DevRel