Pick Payload if you want the CMS inside your own Next.js codebase, with content in a Postgres or MongoDB database you run. Pick Sanity if you want content in a hosted store that you query from anywhere, a Studio editors can use together in real time, and no backend of your own to patch.
Both are code-first. In both, a developer defines the content schema in TypeScript or JavaScript, and both suit teams who would rather write a schema than click one together. Where they part ways is where the content lives and who runs it.
How do Payload and Sanity differ in architecture?
Payload is an open source, MIT licensed framework written in TypeScript. Since version 3 it installs into a Next.js app: the admin panel, the REST and GraphQL APIs and your public pages share one repository and one deploy. Server components can read content through Payload’s Local API without an HTTP round trip. Data sits in a database you choose and operate.
Sanity has two parts. The Content Lake is a hosted, real-time document store run by Sanity. The Studio is an open source React app you configure in code, deploy to Sanity’s hosting or embed in your own site. Your frontend queries the Content Lake with GROQ, Sanity’s query language, or through a GraphQL API.
| Payload | Sanity | |
|---|---|---|
| Where content lives | Your database (Postgres, MongoDB, SQLite) | Sanity’s hosted Content Lake |
| Licence | MIT, whole CMS | Studio MIT, Content Lake is a paid service |
| Schema | TypeScript config in your repo | JavaScript or TypeScript schema in the Studio repo |
| Query | Local API, REST, GraphQL | GROQ, GraphQL |
| Admin UI | React admin inside your Next.js app | Studio, customisable React app |
| Access control | Functions per collection, field and operation | Roles set by plan, 2 on the free plan |
| Who runs the backend | You | Sanity |
| Pricing model | Hosting and engineering time | Free plan, then per seat with usage quotas |
How does content modelling feel in each?
In Payload you write collections and globals as TypeScript objects. Fields, validation, access rules and hooks sit next to each other, and Payload generates TypeScript types from the config, so the frontend and the CMS agree on the shape of every document. Authentication is built in, which makes Payload a fit when the CMS also stores users, orders or other app data.
In Sanity you write document and object types in the Studio configuration. Rich text is stored as Portable Text, a JSON format your frontend renders with its own components. References between documents are first class, and GROQ lets one query follow them and reshape the result. Teams that need to slice the same content many ways tend to like GROQ once they have learned it.
Both handle localisation, drafts and live preview. Neither gives editors a page builder out of the box: you build one from blocks in either system.
What is the editor experience like?
Sanity’s Studio is the stronger tool for a group of editors working at once. It shows who is in a document and updates in real time, and its visual editing tools come on the free plan as of October 2026.
Payload’s admin is a clean form-based UI that lives on your own domain. Live preview and versions with drafts are built in. Because the admin is React inside your app, custom fields and views are ordinary components your team already knows how to write.
What changed for Payload in 2025?
Payload announced on June 17, 2025 that its team was joining Figma. The post says Payload remains open source and that self-hosting does not change. As of October 2026, Payload’s get-started page lists self-hosting, deploy templates for Vercel and Cloudflare, and an Enterprise tier, and its Cloud new-project page says project creation is only available for Enterprise teams. In practice, plan to self-host Payload on your own cloud account unless you buy Enterprise.
What does each cost to run?
Payload has no licence fee when you self-host. Your costs are a Node host, a managed database, file storage, backups and the engineering hours to keep them patched. Those hours are usually the biggest line item.
Sanity prices the hosted service. As of October 2026, from Sanity’s pricing page:
| Sanity plan | Price | Seats | Documents | API CDN requests a month | API requests a month |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 20 | 10k | 1m | 250k |
| Growth | $15 per seat a month | 50 | 25k | 1m | 250k |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Custom | Custom | Custom |
On Growth, overage is $1 per 250k CDN requests and $1 per 25k API requests, and an extra dataset costs $999 a month. Free datasets are public only. So Sanity’s bill grows with editors and traffic; Payload’s grows with the time your team spends running infrastructure.
How locked in are you with each?
With Payload the exit cost is low on the data side: the content is rows or documents in your own database, and the schema is code in your repository. What ties you in is the admin, the hooks and the access rules you write against Payload’s API.
With Sanity the Studio code is yours, but the content sits in a service you rent. The CLI command sanity datasets export writes a dataset to a gzipped tarball with its assets, so leaving is possible. The cost is rewriting every GROQ query in the frontend and converting Portable Text for the next system.
Which one did we use for a B2B SaaS marketing site?
A European mid-market B2B SaaS company had outgrown its WordPress site: plugin debt, custom PHP overrides, and a developer needed to ship every content change. It also needed feature comparison tables, localised landing pages for five European markets and versioned release notes.
We built the content layer in Payload, with each content type as a typed collection with field validation, a custom plugin for localisation, and Docker plus GitHub Actions for staging to production. The frontend is Next.js. Results from the Payload build case study:
- ~65% reduction in time-to-publish
- LCP of 1.7s on the primary landing page, down from 4.2s
- ~40% fewer engineering hours on content tasks monthly
- Lighthouse performance score of 96 on mobile
The schema lives in version control next to the frontend, and a content model change ships through CI like any other code change.
Which one we would pick for whom
- Product teams on Next.js who want one repo and one deploy: Payload. Even more so when the CMS also holds users or app data.
- Regulated companies that must keep content in their own database or region: Payload, self-hosted where your compliance team wants it.
- Content teams with many editors working at once: Sanity, for real-time collaboration in the Studio.
- Teams that query the same content into a site, an app and other tools: Sanity, because GROQ and the hosted Content Lake make each new consumer cheap.
- Teams with no one to run servers: Sanity, or a managed host for Payload if you accept that work.
We go deeper on each platform on the Payload development and Sanity development pages. To add people to your own team, you can hire a Payload developer or bring in a Sanity developer. For a third option in the same space, compare Strapi vs Payload and Strapi vs Sanity.
If you want a second opinion before committing, our headless CMS services overview lists what a build covers, and our page on working with a team that builds on both platforms explains how we scope one.
