Developer Tools
Prelo
Last updated 2026-08-25 · benchmark measured 2026-09-27 — deterministic & reproducible
Self-hosted, MIT-licensed open-source CMS for handing websites over to clients.
Prelo at a glance
Prelo is a self-hosted, open-source headless CMS that lets developers build a website and hand over a familiar editing dashboard to clients, with content addable by humans or AI agents through an API.
Good for
- Developers who need to hand a finished website over to a non-technical client without a training call
- Agencies or freelancers who want to white-label a client-facing content dashboard
- AI-driven projects where an agent writes site content through an API alongside human editors
Pricing
Free, MIT licensed, self-hosted, no per-seat or editor limits. Typical self-hosting cost is about $6/month VPS. Managed hosting is planned as an optional paid add-on (waitlist).
Questions people ask
Is Prelo really free?
Yes, it is MIT licensed and self-hosted with no per-seat or per-editor pricing. Optional managed hosting is planned for clients who would rather not run the server themselves.
Can my client accidentally break the site using Prelo?
No, the studio only edits content, not code. Roles limit what each person can touch, and every change is logged in an audit log and reversible.
Which frameworks and databases does Prelo work with?
It works with Next.js, Astro, Remix, SvelteKit and Nuxt, using SQLite or Postgres, and installs into an existing repo.
Where can Prelo be hosted, and what does it cost to run?
It runs anywhere a container can run, such as a $6/month VPS or a client's existing cloud; backups are a volume snapshot and migration is a docker pull.
Can an AI agent still write content after the site is handed over?
Yes, agents write through a scoped API key with an author role, and their writes appear in the studio as drafts attributed to that key alongside human edits.
Written by Legit.Show from prelo.dev on 2026-09-30. It does not change the score.
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To cite this score: legit.show/s/prelo-dev/2026-09-27. That address never changes; this page moves with every re-measure.
Legit.Show scored Prelo 68/100 on 2026-09-27, measured across all 7 frames from its public surface. legit.show/s/prelo-dev/2026-09-27
Is Prelo production-ready?
Legit.Show scores Prelo 68 out of 100 — the simple average of its 7 measured frames. Legit.Show ran its deterministic 7-Frame production-readiness benchmark on Prelo (public-surface assessment), measured from the public surface with no LLM in the scoring path. Its strongest frame is Reliability; its weakest is Privacy. Every frame it averages is published with its evidence on the Legit.Show listing.
The 7 Frames
- Performance — 88/100
- Accessibility — 95/100
- Security — 45/100How this compares across the catalogue: The Web Security Baseline
- Privacy — 25/100How this compares across the catalogue: The Privacy Gap
- Reliability — 100/100
- Standards — 89/100
- Discoverability — 35/100
What we measured
- Security headers present: HSTS.
- No Content-Security-Policy.
- Served over HTTPS with a valid certificate.
- Real Lighthouse performance run — 373 ms to first byte.
- Returns a proper 404 for unknown routes.
- 3 of 3 sampled routes reachable.
- No privacy policy found.
- Sets cookies / loads scripts with no consent prompt.
Who it's for
AI developers · Agencies · Freelance designers · Website builders · Client-facing projects
Pricing
Free. MIT licensed, self-hosted. Optional managed hosting planned (waitlist). $6/month typical VPS cost for self-hosting.
Sources and updates
- Description
- Taken from prelo.dev's own website on 2026-08-25.
- Operator
- Prelo, as named in prelo.dev's terms, privacy page or footer.
- Benchmark
- Measured by Legit.Show from the live site, the way any visitor sees it — with no access to its code or accounts. Same method for every product, and no AI decides the score. Last checked 2026-09-27.
Put together from public information, without Prelo's involvement. If anything here is wrong, tell us and a person will check it.
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