Quick overview
One platform for faster media publishing
Labrador CMS combines editing, asset management, AI, integrations, and high-performance hosting to help professional media publish faster.
Labrador CMS is a prebuilt full-stack publishing platform exclusively for professional media. It offers all the flexibility you expect in a headless system and includes a front-end rendering engine. The system is designed to speed up publishing, simplify your tech stack, and enable publishers to reduce costs. It is delivered as Software as a Service. This means that we maintain the core code for you with continuous upgrades at no additional cost.
The CMS
Labrador CMS runs in the browser and is hosted in the cloud by our professional hosting partners. Editors and reporters access the system by single sign-on, either Google Account or Microsoft AD (now Entra ID).
Reporters write their stories directly into the page template, enabling a WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) experience with a mobile-first approach. Content is stored automatically in the background while you edit. Users can style the article and add images, slideshows, graphics, and videos. The system can automatically generate summaries, translations, SoMe and SEO text, titles, and captions using AI in any language. This speeds up publishing while respecting the manually written article.
Users can access the high-res original image in the editor when placing images on articles and front pages. This enables zooming and cropping, and the system supports different crops on desktops and mobile devices. You can also manipulate images, change hue and saturation, create a “red circle” on top of an image, add a gradient, and place text on top of the images. In some places, you can also have images in images. The included image server automatically ensures the right crop is always used.
When ready for publishing, the article is sent for approval using the approval process of your choice. A typical workflow would be draft, ready for approval, approved, and published. The system supports articles that will be automatically published in the future.
Labrador CMS has a world-class front-page editing tool built into the system. While maintaining full flexibility over layout, brand design, and page composition, the system supports fully manual or fully automatic front pages. You can also combine these modes, having some automated placeholders where the content flows through with some manually placed stories on the same page. Subsections and tag pages are created automatically.
We also support personalized content. This can be solved in several ways. We can render personalized plugs based on the customer's custom data layer using our flexible rendering engine. We can also deliver recommended stories for you or perform similar functions.
If customers have several front-page editors working at the same time, we suggest a workflow where the subeditors work on subfrontpages, e.g., sports, that deliver stories to the main page.
The Built-in DAM
Labrador CMS has a built-in Digital Asset Management system that mainly supports images. 5 Terabytes of storage are included for free,. More storage is optional.
The Labrador DAM stores all your pictures in original high-res format. This allows for cropping and zooming. When an article is exported for reuse in print, all the full high-res images attached are sent to the print system, including images not placed on the web article but still attached to the article in the CMS.
You can use the built-in DAM system for any images that are in production and will be published on any channel. If you have a lot of images that should be stored but not used, we still recommend you use a separate DAM system for this. Labrador will help you integrate any external or internal DAM system. We will also integrate your image wire services or stock photo services. The system already comes with access to free stock photos from Pixabay.
The Labrador DAM system is connected to the Labrador Image Server, which, based on your editorial users' input and your design, generates the proper version, crop, and resolution of all images for all channels. This happens live, also in editing, and is cached on our front servers for lightning-fast delivery to end users.
Developer Platform and Frontend Developer Framework
Labrador is a fully programmable CMS. We offer the Labrador Developer Platform for large sites and large media groups. This gives you access to custom development on the CMS (the editor) and the Front end-user pages. You can create your own functions, your own layout tweaks, or your own integrations.
Developers will be provided with personal developer servers and a staging environment. You also get access to a full two-way API, and Team Labrador will train your developers and set up a shared Slack channel for direct communication. We also have a developer support center and a Developer Documentation Chatbot for first-level developer support. With the Labrador Developer Platform, you also get full access to the unique Labrador Rendering Engine that supports fast rendering of all your content. The rendering engine supports rendering both Labrador content and external content.
The Frontend
Labrador CMS is a full-stack CMS that fully hosts your entire website. The CMS and the Front-End Servers are hosted in the cloud, primarily on Amazon AWS, which spans more than 37 geographic regions and 120 Availability Zones worldwide. We also work with OVHcloud for additional European hosting capacity. There are no limits on traffic or geography; we can host any site with any traffic volume. We already deliver several billion pageviews to our customers every month.
Labrador CMS also includes caching. We use Varnish as a middleman between your users and our cached content. We use AWS CloudFront to provide CDN on edge-locations close to your audience. All these and other layers and custom magic also make up our DDoS and hacker protection.
Our infrastructure and backend team will help you with any special requests, such as custom cache layers, and also help you decide on the primary geographic server location.
The Integrations
Normally, Labrador CMS delivers the system with pre-built integrations of the customer's choice. We have working integrations with a large number of partners that we usually reuse in new projects.
AI: Labrador CMS has native, built-in integrations with the leading AI providers — OpenAI (GPT-5.6, the default model), Anthropic (Claude Sonnet 5) and Google (Gemini 3.5 Flash) — plus Mistral AI as a European-hosted alternative for publishers with data residency requirements. Models are updated continuously as new versions ship. Advanced customers can also connect their own custom AI models.
Content Planning: For larger organizations, we sometimes recommend integrations with Slack and/or DeskNet for advanced planning needs. External planning flows can be integrated with APIs and WebHooks.
Print and publishing: Labrador supports a digital-first workflow and articles can be sent to print, including high-resolution images, or you can search in Labrador from your print system. We have integrations with Roxen, Aptoma, WoodWing, CMSPublisher/InDesign, Naviga and VG Wort, and can connect to any print system, including custom home-built solutions.
Advertising: We add your ad system of choice. Publishers use Google Ad Manager either directly or through a third party such as Holid, Livewrapped, PubMatic, Yieldbird or Snigel. We also collaborate with Adnuntius. If you prefer another ad provider, we will implement that.
Paywalls and subscriptions: We integrate with all significant paywall and subscription platforms, including Piano, Sesamy, ConnectID, Tulo Payway, Google Reader Revenue Manager, Iteras, Flowy, Connect (formerly Mediaconnect) by Unite, Infosoft, Subrite, UpScore and Newzware. If the customer has a custom or home-built paywall, we also integrate with that.
Analytics and optimisation: Labrador comes with a standard, simple integration with Kilkaya, which can also be used for top lists, A/B testing, recommendations and publishing metadata. We can also connect with any other data layer, such as Piano Analytics, Google Analytics, Chartbeat or Google Tag Manager, or with your custom data layer if desired.
Personalization: Personalization can be done easily or in a more advanced way. We can provide a simple Kilkaya personalization built in, or you can choose your own algorithm and just let us know what content you want us to render for your users.
Video: There is a sample YouTube integration in place, but we integrate with your in-house video system the same way. We also have integrations with Vimond, JW Player, Remote Productions, Dina and On Network TV.
Newswires and image services: We connect through resellers and directly to wire agencies, including AP, DPA, NTB, Ritzau, TT, News1, Yonhap, NINJS and Fotoware. Newswire content can be imported, filtered, edited and, where permitted by the agreement with the provider, published automatically.
Newsletters: Labrador integrates directly with many newsletter providers, including Mailmojo. Newsletters are created in Labrador with a simple user interface — add article teasers and manually written text, preview the page, then send it to your newsletter system of choice.
Mobile apps and e-paper: Several customers of Labrador CMS have bought standard mobile apps and e-paper solutions from vendors including BuyAndRead, Prenly, Appdog, PUGPIG and Boomerang by Unite. Labrador content can also be delivered to native apps and webapps through APIs, JSON and RSS feeds.
Language and editorial tools: Tansa and other external language services can be connected to the editorial workflow.
These are just examples of systems we integrate with.
