TYPO3 was conceived by Danish developer Kasper Skårhøj in 1997. The idea was to solve what had emerged as a problem for the young internet—as websites grew, the need to separate the management of design and content became apparent.

By August 2000, the core components were distributed to a development community that extended the concept and functionality of TYPO3 into the robust, and richly featured CMS that it is today.

TYPO3 now runs more than 500,000 websites worldwide and powers sites for many esteemed institutions, including Cisco Systems, General Electric, Mercedes-Benz, and Harvard University.