Birds of a Feather: Wagtail Space 2025 Offers 3 Days of Open Source Exploration

Wagtail is literally for the birds. Because everything about it is fly.

If you haven’t tried it, you’re in for a treat. 

First, it’s Python-based, which is universally popular and offers a fun framework for creative play. In minutes, you can use their starter kit to spin up a virtual environment, isolate your dependencies, and install the CMS package from GitHub. 

The docs are clean and easy to follow, and there are simple templates for kicking things off. Oh, and there’s a great community backing things up via Slack (and more). 

Like it said, it’s fly.

As a former builder who sometimes pines for Dreamweaver and still gets giddy at the sight of code, Wagtail is a great open source tool for managing content at enterprise scale. It’s trusted by tens of thousands of organizations worldwide, including visible brands like NASA, Google, and MIT. It’s also earned nearly 20,000 stars on GitHub. 

So it’s fun – but it’s also fully equipped to power some serious sites. 

From a usability perspective, Wagtail brings a clean, intuitive, and inviting UX to the table, offering some nice bells and whistles to make the editing experience a breeze. Everything is within arm's reach, so you can really stretch your wings when managing pages, editing blogs, and more. 

Creating and editing a blog in Wagtail CMS. Source: Wagtail YouTube channel.

Wagtail appeals to a diverse range of organizations, from governments to businesses to cultural organizations. As an open source project, it has carved a unique niche in the landscape, often as an alternative to more established staples like WordPress or Drupal. It also focuses keenly on accessibility as a foundational tenet.  

What’s in a name? The word is the bird. The brainchild of UK-based Torchbox – a global agency that offers digital marketing solutions for charities and public sector organizations – the identity was fashioned after the charming Wagtail bird. These avians were fixtures on the lawn outside the company’s offices, and reflected the light, easy, and delightful sensibilities of the software.

Torchbox is part of that rare breed of mission-focused businesses. It’s employee-owned, B Corp Certified, and has cultivated a culture that’s dedicated to making a difference in the world. They have an inspiring story, and Wagtail is just one chapter of it. 

Wagtail has flown into our CMS Critic Awards over the last few years, rallying its global community to participate. It’s clear that the platform has amassed a loyal “flock” of users, and that’s a tribute to its flexibility and ease of use. 

Along with its Django-style models for customizing data structures and functions, Wagtail’s CMS has some great features in its 7.0 release. I spoke to Meagen Voss, a member of the Wagtail Core Team and the Partnership and Community manager at Torchbox, and she shared some of the latest “chirps” from the platform. From workflow enhancements to its Streamfield updates that power improved previews, you can get a tight overview of what’s taking flight in this latest version:

Learn more at Wagtail Space 2025

Whether you’re a veteran user or new to Wagtail, you can get the lowdown on current innovation and what’s ahead at Wagtail Space 2025 – the organization’s annual shindig. It’s a free virtual event designed for creators aiming to learn more about the platform or level up their Wagtail skills. 

The event is happening next week from October 8 – 10, and is drawing a collective of educators, publishing professionals, developers, open source evangelists, and digital leaders from across the globe. The format offers an array of talks from community members, some dynamite use cases, and networking with fellow Wagtailians. 

Highlights include sessions like The State of Wagtail with Thibaud Colas of the Wagtail Core Team, Matt Westcott on Where Next for Wagtail Search?, and Juan Aguayo sharing the Bogotá Digital Library’s Wagtail success story. 

With AI being a central focus across the CMS industry (and everywhere else), Wagtail Space is weaving it into the conversation. Sage Abdullah and Tom Usher will lead a session called Wagtail: Responsible Innovation for Content Editors, while Trish Thomas will share strategies for creating connections between stories and objects using AI.

Other talks dive into AI-driven content editing, government design systems, and innovative approaches to publishing. You can check out the full schedule here.

If you’ve been curious about Wagtail, this might be a good “first flight” in a friendly formation. The community is fun and welcoming, which is one of the great benefits of open source projects like this. It’s also a breeze to get started, so I encourage checking it out. 

Interested in joining the flock? Learn more and register on the event website.

Looking for guidance on Wagtail? Talk to an expert.

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