Sanity vs Strapi vs Payload CMS: an honest comparison for 2026
The article compares three headless CMS options: Sanity, Strapi, and Payload, focusing on their differences in pricing, developer experience, and schema modeling. Sanity operates as a fully managed SaaS, while Strapi and Payload are open-source and self-hosted, offering more control over data. Each CMS has unique strengths, making the choice dependent on specific project needs and team preferences.
- ▪Sanity is a fully managed SaaS that charges per seat after the free tier.
- ▪Strapi is open-source and self-hosted, allowing teams to control data residency and costs.
- ▪Payload is also open-source and integrates tightly with databases like MongoDB and Postgres.
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try { if(localStorage) { let currentUser = localStorage.getItem('current_user'); if (currentUser) { currentUser = JSON.parse(currentUser); if (currentUser.id === 2638501) { document.getElementById('article-show-container').classList.add('current-user-is-article-author'); } } } } catch (e) { console.error(e); } Nayan Kyada Posted on May 20 • Originally published at nayankyada.com Sanity vs Strapi vs Payload CMS: an honest comparison for 2026 #sanity #strapi #payloadcms #headlesscms Choosing between Sanity, Strapi, and Payload is one of the questions I get most often from teams starting a greenfield Next.js project. All three are legitimate headless CMS options in 2026, but they solve meaningfully different problems.
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