Sanity vs Contentful vs Strapi vs Payload
Four headless CMS options with very different free tiers — a real-time structured content store with an edge CDN, an enterprise-grade content platform, an open-source self-hostable Node.js CMS, and a TypeScript-native Next.js-first CMS — compared on free records, users, and self-hosting.
| Sanity | Contentful | Strapi | Payload | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free tier note | Structured content store with real-time GROQ querying and an edge CDN; free Developer plan for 3 users with 10 GB assets. | Enterprise-grade headless CMS with a free Community plan for 5 users, 10k records, and a GraphQL + REST content API. | Open-source Node.js headless CMS — fully free to self-host; Strapi Cloud has a 14-day trial then paid, no forever-free cloud tier. | TypeScript-first headless CMS — open-source and fully free to self-host with Next.js; Payload Cloud has a trial, no forever-free cloud tier. |
| Bandwidth | included | included | n/a | n/a |
| Builds | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| Requests | 100k CDN requests/month, 10k documents | 10k records, 1k assets, 10 locales, 2 spaces | Open-source self-host free (MIT); Strapi Cloud 14-day trial | Open-source self-host free (MIT); Payload Cloud trial |
| Custom domains | limited | limited | n/a | n/a |
| Paid from | $99/mo | $300/mo | $15/mo | $35/mo |
| Generosity ★ | 42 | 42 | 4 | 4 |
| Last verified | 2025-09-01 | 2025-09-01 | 2025-09-01 | 2025-09-01 |
| Visit site | Sanity ↗ | Contentful ↗ | Strapi ↗ | Payload ↗ |
Data verified 2025-09-01.