Strapi vs Sanity: A Comprehensive Headless CMS Comparison

General
Company Size	75	101-250
Stars	60K	❌
NPM Weekly Downloads	90 K	150K
Funding	$31M Series B	51M Series B
Country of Origin	France	Norway
Developer Experience
Hosting	PaaS + Self Hosted	SaaS
Open Source	✅	Sanity Studio is open-source. Not the product itself.
API Tokens	✅	❌
Design System	https://design-system.strapi.io/	✅
GraphQL	✅	✅
Documentation	✅	✅
Authentication & Permissions	✅	✅
Multi-databases support (SQLite, MySQL, Postgres)	PostgreSQL, SQLite, MySQL and MariaDB	Schemaless database built on top of Google cloud
Single Types	✅	✅
Custom fields	✅	❌
Webhooks	✅	✅
Codebase language	JavaScript, TypeScript, React	✅
API Playground	❌	❌
Customizable API	✅	❌
JWT authentication	✅	❌
Content modeling	✅	✅
Plugins	✅	✅
SDK	❌	✅
Cron	✅	❌
Editing Experience
Previews	Has to be setup manually	Has to be setup manually
Scheduling	❌	✅
Media Library	✅	✅
Draft & Publish	✅	✅
Collaboration
Releases	✅	❌
Review Workflows	✅	✅
Versionning	❌	✅
i18n	✅	✅
Marketplace	✅	✅
Real-time editing	❌	✅
Visual editing	❌	Vercel Visual Editing
Security & Compliance
SSO	✅	✅
Audit Logs	✅	✅
Role Base Access Control	✅	✅

When selecting a headless content management system (CMS), Strapi and Sanity are two top contenders offering unique features and capabilities tailored to diverse project needs. This comparison will help you understand the key differences between Strapi and Sanity, enabling you to make an informed decision for your content management requirements.

Overview

Strapi is an open-source headless CMS that provides developers with complete control over their content and data. With its customizable API and admin panel, Strapi offers high flexibility and adaptability. Built with JavaScript, it is an excellent choice for developers familiar with the language and its ecosystem.

Sanity is a headless CMS known for its real-time collaboration, flexible content modeling, and powerful APIs. It offers a customizable and intuitive interface, making it a robust solution for both developers and content creators. Sanity's real-time capabilities and scalability make it ideal for dynamic content management needs.

Features

Strapi offers:

• Open-Source Flexibility: Strapi's open-source nature allows for extensive customization and extension to meet specific project needs.
• Customizable API: Developers can quickly create custom APIs for efficient content delivery.
• Self-Hosted Option: Strapi can be self-hosted, giving users complete control over their data and infrastructure.
• Extensible Plugin System: Strapi supports plugins, enabling developers to add functionalities easily.
• Role-Based Access Control: Advanced access control features ensure appropriate permissions for different users.

Sanity provides:

• Real-Time Collaboration: Sanity allows multiple users to collaborate on content creation and editing in real time.
• Flexible Content Modeling: Sanity’s schema-less design allows for defining complex content structures with ease.
• API-First Approach: Provides robust APIs for flexible content delivery and integration.
• Portable Text: Sanity's rich text editor supports structured content, enabling dynamic content presentation.
• Scalability and Performance: Built to handle high traffic and large volumes of content, ensuring reliable performance.

Performance

Strapi is known for its performance, especially when self-hosted. Its lightweight architecture and customizable nature allow developers to optimize the platform according to their needs, resulting in faster content delivery.

Sanity also offers excellent performance, leveraging its cloud infrastructure to ensure reliable and fast content delivery, even during high traffic periods. Its real-time collaboration and editing features further enhance its performance capabilities.

Flexibility and Customization

Strapi excels in flexibility, allowing developers to customize almost every aspect of the CMS, from the admin panel to API endpoints. This makes it a preferred choice for projects requiring unique workflows or specialized features.

Sanity provides significant flexibility with its schema-less content modeling and API-first approach. Its real-time collaboration capabilities and customizable interface make it ideal for dynamic content management and complex projects.

Pricing

Strapi is a cost-effective solution due to its open-source nature, with no licensing fees. The main costs associated with Strapi come from hosting and maintenance, which can be managed based on the project's scale and requirements.

Sanity follows a usage-based pricing model, which can be more expensive, especially for large projects. However, it includes cloud hosting, real-time collaboration, and scaling, providing a comprehensive solution for dynamic content management.

Conclusion

Choosing between Strapi and Sanity depends on your project's specific needs. If you require a highly customizable, open-source solution with complete control over your data, Strapi is an excellent choice. On the other hand, if you need a CMS that offers real-time collaboration, flexible content modeling, and cloud-based scalability, Sanity is a great option.

Evaluate your project requirements, budget, and technical expertise to determine which platform best suits your needs. Both Strapi and Sanity offer unique strengths, ensuring that whichever you choose, you'll have a powerful tool for effective content management.