Froala vs ContentTools in 2026: Is ContentTools Even Still Maintained?

Choosing a WYSIWYG editor used to come down to a fairly stable set of questions: what features does it have, how good are the docs, what’s the license going to cost you. In 2026, there’s a new filter that sits in front of all of that: is the project still alive, and does it do anything with AI?

That second question matters more than it used to, because AI-assisted writing and editing have become table stakes in content tooling, not a future nice-to-have. So this update to our original Froala vs ContentTools comparison isn’t just a refresh of old numbers. It’s also a gut check on whether ContentTools is still a reasonable choice for a new project at all. Zero licence cost carries its own bill, which our guide to WYSIWYG sets out — the functionality, browser support and help you quietly give up.

Key Takeaways

• Froala includes built-in AI tools for writing, rewriting, tone adjustment, and translation.
• ContentTools has seen little active development and should be considered a legacy editor.
• Froala offers ongoing updates, support, accessibility features, and modern integrations.
• ContentTools remains lightweight, free, and suitable for simple editing needs.
• For AI-powered or future-facing applications, Froala is the stronger choice in 2026.

What is ContentTools in 2026?

ContentTools is still the open-source WYSIWYG editor originally built by Anthony Blackshaw of Getme Limited, written in JavaScript and CoffeeScript. The core pitch hasn’t changed: edit HTML content directly on the page, in editable regions, with a floating toolbar, rather than inside a boxed-in editor widget.

What has changed is the project’s trajectory. A “ContentTools 2” roadmap repository was opened years ago to gather feature requests for the next major version, but there’s no evidence that the release ever shipped. Getme’s own GitHub activity in 2026 is concentrated on a separate, unrelated suite of form-field libraries (date pickers, typeaheads, asset managers), not on ContentTools itself.

For a project that was genuinely interesting in 2016, that’s a long stretch of quiet. If you’re evaluating it today, you should treat it as a legacy library: usable, MIT-licensed, but not one where you should expect new features, security patches on a predictable cadence, or, obviously, any AI capability to show up.

What is Froala in 2026?

Froala has gone the opposite direction. It’s still the same lightweight, commercially licensed JavaScript WYSIWYG editor it always was, but the most consequential change since our last update is the AI Assist plugin, introduced in Froala v5.1. Two toolbar buttons let users chat with AI, adjust tone, and translate content without leaving the editor, and the integration isn’t locked to one vendor: you can wire it up to OpenAI, Gemini, Claude, a self-hosted model, or your own backend, using a direct-API pattern for prototyping or a custom-backend pattern for production traffic that keeps API keys off the client.

Froala vs. ContentTools: which has the best features?

ContentTools’ feature set is essentially unchanged from its 2021 description: editable regions activated by keyboard shortcut, multiple ways to add and convert content, drag-and-place content positioning, automatic cleanup of empty elements, image upload with rotate and crop, undo/redo, and an inspector bar for viewing element properties. It remains framework-agnostic, built from five independently usable libraries, extensible, and small (the full bundle is still in the low hundreds of KB). None of that has improved or regressed; it’s the same feature list as five years ago, which is exactly the point.

Froala’s feature list has kept growing. Beyond what was true in 2021 (track changes, advanced styling plugins, mobile optimization, full customization via API, markdown support, 100+ country language support, iframe content isolation), it now adds the AI Assist plugin described above, plus continued framework support for 15+ modern stacks and native Filestack integration for file handling, image transformation, and CDN delivery. This growing divergence in technical sophistication is why our WYSIWYG editor comparisons consistently highlight Froala’s ability to outpace older, static libraries in modern production environments.

Feature comparison: Froala vs ContentTools in 2026

Here’s a quick feature comparison:

Feature	Froala	ContentTools
AI Assist (chat, rewrite, tone, translate)	Yes (v5.1+)	No
Active development	Yes	No (Limited/unclear)
Customization	Yes	Yes
Cross-platform	Yes	Yes
Code view	Yes	No
Custom editable regions	No (region concept differs)	Yes
Code mirror	Yes	No
International / RTL support	Yes	No
Track changes	Yes	No
Markdown support	Yes	No
508 / WCAG 2.0 / WAI-ARIA compliant	Yes	No
License	Commercial (subscription or perpetual)	Free (MIT)
Bundle size	Larger, plugin-based	Small (~240KB full bundle)

Is there a real AI comparison between Froala and ContentTools?

Not really, and that’s worth saying plainly rather than dressing up as a close call. Froala built a dedicated, provider-flexible AI plugin with developer-facing controls for intercepting and validating AI output before it’s inserted. ContentTools has nothing comparable, and given that the project shows no sign of active feature development at all, there’s no reason to expect that to change. If AI-assisted editing is anywhere on your requirements list, this alone should settle most of the decision before you even get to pricing or bundle size. Since modern feature parity is so critical, our Froala vs Amaya comparison provides additional context on how specialized editors handle similar technical requirements.

Documentation and Support

ContentTools documentation hasn’t materially changed: on-page getting-started guide, API reference for the library family, a FAQ section, and a community forum. It’s serviceable for the feature set it documents, but there’s no expectation of new guides being added, since there’s nothing new to document.

Froala’s documentation has kept pace with the product. Beyond the quick-start guide, 60+ examples, how-to guides, and FAQ that existed in 2021, the AI Assist plugin now has its own dedicated integration guides covering direct-API, custom-backend, and endpoint-configuration patterns, plus a support team that remains active for paying customers.

Which is easier to use?

ContentTools is still relatively easy to get running for what it does, and its reference documentation covers most of what a developer needs. The honest caveat in 2026 is that “easy to use” for a dormant project also means you’re on your own if you hit an edge case modern browsers have changed underneath it.

Froala remains the more guided experience: a quick-start guide, an explorable demo before you commit to downloading, an active support team, and now a documented path to adding AI without re-architecting your app.

Pricing and Licensing

ContentTools is still free, with no official pricing and (as before) no formal support channel, if the docs and community forum don’t answer your question, you’re likely hiring a developer to dig into a codebase that hasn’t seen fresh eyes from its original maintainers in years. While ContentTools offers a zero-cost entry point, similar questions regarding long-term support and modern feature parity are addressed in the full Froala vs Tiptap breakdown.

Froala’s pricing structure has consolidated since 2021. It now offers Professional and Enterprise plans as either annual subscriptions or perpetual licenses, while the Architect plan is available only as a perpetual license.

Professional suits for non-SaaS, non-redistributed products with broader domain coverage and standard support.

Enterprise is required for SaaS, subscription products, or redistribution and removes the domain constraints entirely.

Architect is new since our last update: it includes everything in Enterprise plus unminified source code, priced on consultation rather than a fixed rate, aimed at teams that need to audit or deeply customise the underlying code.

The AI Assist plugin sits on top of this structure rather than its own separate tier, though you’ll need your own budget or API key for whichever AI provider you connect it to.

Which WYSIWYG editor should I use in 2026?

The gap between these two editors, which was already wide in 2021, has only grown. ContentTools is free and does its narrow job the same way it always has, which is fine if your requirements are genuinely narrow and you don’t mind betting on a project with no visible forward momentum.

But if you want active development, AI-assisted editing, accessibility compliance, or a vendor you can actually call when something breaks, Froala remains the clearer choice, and the AI Assist plugin specifically makes that gap harder to close with custom engineering than it was before. Froala is not the only actively maintained option, though our roundup of the best WYSIWYG editors covers the others worth a look before you commit.

Ready to use a maintained WYSIWYG editor with AI-ready workflows? Start your free Froala trial and test it inside your project today.