# Silex review: a free/libre website builder built on GrapesJS

*Source: https://www.editorstack.cc/libraries/silex — last updated 2026-08-19. Licensed CC BY 4.0 with attribution to EditorStack.*


## Summary

- Silex is a free/libre website builder maintained by Silex Labs, a French non-profit, dual-licensed GPL-3.0 or MPL-2.0 and built on top of the GrapesJS engine.
- It is an application rather than a library: you host Silex and publish sites from it, whereas GrapesJS is the engine you embed inside your own product.
- Choose it when you want a complete free builder to run yourself, and choose GrapesJS directly when the editor has to live inside another application.

## Quick facts

| Fact | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Type | library |
| Licence | GPL-3.0 OR MPL-2.0 |
| First release | 2019-04 |
| Language | TypeScript |
| Frameworks | Any (framework-agnostic) |
| SSR support | none |
| Bundle (min+gzip) | Not measurable |
| Pricing | Free (open source) |
| npm weekly downloads | 159 |
| GitHub stars | 2,973 |
| Latest version | 3.0.0-alpha.17 |
| Last verified | 2026-08-19 |
| Drag & drop canvas | Yes |
| Responsive breakpoints | Yes |
| Visual style manager | Yes |
| Custom components | Yes |
| Data binding | Yes |
| E-commerce blocks | No |
| Email HTML export | No |
| AI generation | No |
| Editor i18n | Yes |
| White label | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes |

## What Silex is, and who it is for

Silex is a website builder you run, not a library you import. It wraps the GrapesJS engine in a
complete application: a project workspace, hosting connectors, and a publication step that pushes
the result to a host or a repository.

The audience is people who want the Webflow experience without Webflow's business model: agencies
producing client sites, non-profits with no budget for per-site subscriptions, and organisations
whose policy favours copyleft software maintained by an association rather than a venture-funded
vendor. Silex Labs is a French non-profit, there is no contributor licence agreement, and the
licensing is structured so that it cannot be relicensed later.

It is in this dataset because it appears on shortlists next to embeddable engines, and it is
important to be clear that it answers a different question. If your product needs an editor inside
it, Silex is the wrong layer and [GrapesJS](/libraries/grapesjs) is the right one.

## Architecture

Silex builds on GrapesJS, so the editing model — an iframe canvas, a component tree, a style
manager — is inherited. What Silex adds is everything around it: the application shell, project
management, and a connector interface that abstracts where files are stored and where sites are
published.

That connector interface is the most interesting extension point for developers. Adding your own
storage backend or publication target is a defined integration rather than a fork, which is how
agencies wire Silex into their own hosting.

The relationship with GrapesJS also sets expectations for plugins: the underlying component and
plugin model is familiar to anyone who has used the engine, but compatibility with arbitrary
GrapesJS plugins is not guaranteed, because Silex has its own application-level assumptions.

## Getting started

We did not run Silex as part of our hands-on benchmark, because it is an application rather than an
npm-installable editor comparable with the others, and we do not publish code we have not executed.
What we can state from primary sources: the `silex-website-builder` package has been on npm since
April 2019, and the project publishes v3 with its own installation documentation.

For an evaluation, the honest advice is to run the hosted instance the project offers before
deciding to self-host, because most of what distinguishes Silex is the application experience rather
than the engine underneath it.

## Strengths

**A complete free builder.** Not a toolkit — a working product with a publication workflow, at no
cost.

**Governance you can inspect.** A non-profit steward, no CLA, and dual licensing designed to keep it
free. For organisations that have been burned by a licence change, this is a substantive difference
rather than a philosophical one.

**Static publishing.** Output goes to a host or a repository, so sites are portable and cheap to
serve, with no runtime dependency on the builder.

**Familiar engine underneath.** Teams who know GrapesJS recognise the editing model immediately.

**Connectors are a real extension point.** Storage and publication targets are pluggable, which is
what makes it viable for agencies with existing hosting.

## Limitations

**Not embeddable.** This is the headline limitation for readers of this site. Silex is not designed
to be mounted inside another application, and the copyleft licensing makes a commercial embed a
question for your lawyers rather than your architects.

**Copyleft licensing needs review.** GPL-3.0 or MPL-2.0 is fine for many uses and a blocker for
some. Compare with GrapesJS's BSD-3-Clause, which asks nothing of you.

**Thin developer documentation.** User-facing documentation is reasonable; connector and plugin
documentation is thinner and version-specific details lag as v3 evolves.

**A small ecosystem.** A committed community, but plugin supply is limited and mostly produced by
the maintainers.

**No commercial support contract.** For teams that need a contractual response time, a non-profit
project is not the right procurement shape.

## Pricing

Free software, no licence fee, no usage ceiling. An optional paid cloud instance funds the project,
and donations go through the association. The cost of self-hosting is operational: someone patches
it, someone runs the storage behind it, and someone answers when the editor is down.

If what you actually want is the engine inside your own product,
[GrapesJS](/libraries/grapesjs) is free of both the licence question and the application layer —
[Silex vs GrapesJS](/compare/grapesjs-vs-silex) sets the two out side by side.

## Who it fits, and who it does not

**Good fit**

- Agencies and non-profits that need a complete free website builder application rather than an editor library
- Static site workflows where the output is published to a host or a git repository rather than served from a vendor
- Organisations with a policy preference for copyleft-licensed, non-profit maintained software

**Poor fit**

- Embedding an editor inside another SaaS product, which is what the underlying GrapesJS engine is for
- Teams that need commercial support with a contractual response time
- React-native component editing, since the canvas is DOM and HTML based


## Silex against its nearest neighbours

| Product | Type | Licence | Frameworks | Bundle (min+gzip) | Price from | Self-hosted | White label | Score |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [Silex](https://www.editorstack.cc/libraries/silex) | library | GPL-3.0 OR MPL-2.0 | Any (framework-agnostic) | Not measurable | Free (open source) | Yes | Yes | not scored |
| [GrapesJS](https://www.editorstack.cc/libraries/grapesjs) | library | BSD-3-Clause | Any (framework-agnostic) | 294.6 kB gzip | Free (open source) | Yes | Yes | 7.5 |
| [CKEditor 5](https://www.editorstack.cc/libraries/ckeditor) | library | GPL-2.0-or-later OR commercial | Any (framework-agnostic) | 161.2 kB gzip | from $144/mo | Yes | Unverified | not scored |
| [Editor.js](https://www.editorstack.cc/libraries/editorjs) | library | Apache-2.0 | Any (framework-agnostic) | 64.3 kB gzip | Free (open source) | Yes | Yes | 7.7 |


## Our scores

Not scored. We publish scores only for products we have run hands-on; see the methodology page.


## Alternatives

- [Silex vs GrapesJS](https://www.editorstack.cc/compare/grapesjs-vs-silex)


## Frequently asked questions

### Is Silex free?

Yes, and it is free software in the licensing sense as well as the price sense: dual-licensed GPL-3.0 or MPL-2.0, maintained by a non-profit, with an optional paid cloud instance that funds the project.

### What is the difference between Silex and GrapesJS?

GrapesJS is the editor engine; Silex is a complete website builder application built on it, with hosting connectors and a publication workflow. If you are building a product, you want the engine. If you want a builder to use or host, you want Silex.

### Can I embed Silex in my SaaS?

That is not what it is designed for, and the copyleft licensing needs legal review for a commercial embed. For embedding, use GrapesJS directly under its BSD-3-Clause licence.

### Does Silex support static site publishing?

Yes — publishing to a host or a git repository is the intended workflow, which is what makes it attractive for static sites with dynamic data.


## Sources

1. [npm registry metadata for silex-website-builder (licence, first publish date)](https://registry.npmjs.org/silex-website-builder) — accessed 2026-08-19
2. [Silex source repository](https://github.com/silexlabs/Silex) — accessed 2026-08-19
3. [Silex project website](https://www.silex.me) — accessed 2026-08-19