Pick Sanity
You publish a lot, want real-time collaborative editing, and value a deeply customizable Studio.
The right CMS for your team.
There's no single best headless CMS — only best fit. Compare the four we deploy most across editing, hosting, preview, modeling, and cost. Hover a column to focus it.
Side by side
Four engines, compared
Sanity
Payload
Strapi
Contentful
Editor experience
Real-time, customizable Studio
Clean, brandable admin
Friendly, conventional panel
Stable, enterprise UI
Hosting
Managed (SaaS)
Self-hosted / Cloud
Self-hosted / Cloud
Fully managed (SaaS)
Preview workflow
Excellent
Strong
Good
Good
Modeling flexibility
Very high
Very high
High
Moderate
Long-term cost
Usage-based
Predictable infra
Open-source + infra
Higher, tiered
Best for
Content-rich teams
Own-your-data TS stacks
Open-source self-hosters
Enterprise governance
Not sure? The audit ends with a recommendation matched to your team — not our preferences.
Quick guide
When to pick which
Pick Payload
You're a TypeScript shop that wants to own its data and infra with a clean, brandable admin.
Pick Strapi
You want open-source, self-hostable, and a familiar admin your team can run.
Pick Contentful →
You're enterprise: many teams, strict governance, and you want a fully managed platform.
Still deciding?
Let the audit pick for you.
We'll match the engine to your team, content volume, and budget — and tell you why.