Birkly publishes and maintains a set of official plugins on the marketplace. They are free or paid offers from the Birkly team, kept compatible with each CMS release. Third-party plugins come from independent providers with their own support and trust levels.
Official Birkly plugins — Commerce, Events, Automation, and User Management — are free marketplace offers installed in one click from Plugins → Hub with no visible key. Additional official extensions (for example SEO Basics, Analytics Pro) may be paid, freemium, trial, or subscription offers where Birkly is merchant of record. Third-party plugins are published and sold by independent providers; review trust level, permissions consent, and reviews before installing. CMS downloads ship without bundled plugins — install what you need from the Hub.
Beginner
Free official plugins
These four plugins cover common site needs and are maintained by Birkly:
| Plugin | What it adds | Install |
|---|---|---|
| Commerce | Products, cart, checkout, orders, payments | Plugins → Hub → Install |
| Events | Events, RSVP, paid tickets (uses Commerce for sales) | Same |
| Automation | Workflows, triggers, conditions, actions | Same |
| User Management | Registration, login, tiers, permissions | Same |
No checkout, visible license key, or marketplace buyer account is required for these four.
Recommended install order
- Commerce first if you sell anything.
- Events next if you run ticketed events (install Commerce first for paid tickets).
- Automation when you need workflows.
- User Management when you need public registration or member tiers.
Paid official plugins
Some Birkly-published extensions are paid one-time, freemium, trial, or subscription offers on the marketplace. They show a price badge and Purchase / Start trial button in the CMS Hub tab. Complete checkout when payment is required, install from the entitlement, accept permission consent, then install. A fallback activation key is available for paid recovery/manual activation.
Third-party plugins
Community and partner plugins are published by independent providers, not Birkly. Before installing:
- Check the provider name and trust level on the offer page.
- Read reviews from verified purchases.
- Review the permission consent screen carefully.
- Prefer verified-tier offers for production sites.
Third-party support goes to the provider's contact email on the listing. Third-party providers are the seller and merchant of record for their paid offers; Birkly platform support covers official plugins and marketplace infrastructure.
Official vs third-party — quick comparison
| Official (Birkly) | Third-party | |
|---|---|---|
| Publisher | Birkly team | Independent providers |
| Core four plugins | Free, one-click | N/A |
| Updates | Tied to Birkly releases | Provider publishes versions |
| Support | Birkly platform | Provider |
| Trust | Verified by default | Community, trusted, or verified |
| Pricing | Free, paid, trial, freemium, or subscription | Provider sets pricing; Stripe Connect only in P55 |
Grandfathered installs
Sites upgraded from older Birkly builds that already had plugins in plugins/ keep working. Use the Marketplace Update action to sync with registry checksums and entitlements going forward.
Advanced Users
Source and release pipeline
Official plugin source is built and published to the marketplace registry on tag (plugin/{name}/v*). CMS release zips exclude plugin folders — production installs always pull artifacts from the registry API.
Source of truth (maintainers)
Plugin source of truth lives under the Birkly-Other-Things GitHub org — not in the public CMS repo. Maintainers should work in these SoT repos:
| Plugin | SoT repository |
|---|---|
| Commerce | Birkly-Other-Things/Birkly-Plugin-Commerce |
| Events | Birkly-Other-Things/Birkly-Plugin-Events |
| Automation | Birkly-Other-Things/Birkly-Plugin-Automation |
| User Management | Birkly-Other-Things/Birkly-Plugin-User |
| Studio | Birkly-Other-Things/Birkly-Plugin-Studio |
Raaakete/Birkly is the runtime host only. Install plugins under plugins/{id}/ (marketplace zip or copy); do not symlink SoT checkouts into plugins/.
Never edit the Ops mirror (Birkly-Marketplace/internal/cms/packages/official-plugins/) — it is frozen for deletion (P71). All maintainer work happens in the SoT repos above.
Marketplace v1 readiness (Wave 3)
As of Wave 3 release-readiness work, the five official plugins above are hardening toward Marketplace v1, not declared fully production-released end-to-end. In-repo P0 hardening, packaging scripts, and local test gates have advanced; residual items remain — for example clean marketplace install/update smoke, recorded visual walkthroughs, and CMS host hooks that some plugin features still depend on (such as a shared public-read filter contract for User Management list/detail visibility). Treat SoT docs/WAVE3-RELEASE-EVIDENCE.md (and related readiness docs in each plugin repo) as the current status notes for maintainers.
Marketplace slugs (official)
| Folder | Slug |
|---|---|
commerce | birkly-commerce |
events | birkly-events |
automation | birkly-automation |
user_management | birkly-user-management |
studio | birkly-studio |
Dependencies
Events declares a soft dependency on Commerce for paid ticket flows. User Management integrates with Commerce membership tiers when both are installed. Check requires_plugins in each release's plugin.json.
API gating
Core routes that depend on a plugin return 404 or 503 when the plugin is not installed — for example automation webhooks or commerce APIs — instead of fatal errors.
Dev installs
Local development uses scripts/install-dev-plugins.sh in the Birkly platform repo to install plugin zips without the marketplace UI. Production and staging should use the CMS marketplace client.
Compatibility
Each release declares requires_birkly and requires_php semver ranges. The CMS preflight blocks install when the site core is too old. Keep Birkly updated before installing new plugin major versions.