Strapi vs Sanity: Simple Guide to Picking Your Headless CMS

Feb 3, 2026

Contents

The choice between Strapi and Sanity can substantially affect your digital experience strategy. Gartner predicts that by 2026, more than 80% of enterprises will adopt API-first or headless architecture, up from just 35% in 2021. This makes understanding your options crucial.

Both platforms offer powerful content management capabilities, but they take different approaches to the headless CMS concept. Strapi operates as an open-source, self-hosted solution built on Node.js, giving developers complete control over their content infrastructure. Sanity provides a proprietary, cloud-first approach with immediate collaborative editing.

Each platform serves distinct user bases - Sanity has earned the trust of over 2,000 leading brands and holds the #1 position among 85 CMSes on G2. Strapi appeals to developers who prioritize data ownership and compliance.

This headless CMS comparison piece breaks down essential aspects of both platforms. You'll discover how their content modeling approaches, hosting options, API capabilities, and pricing models stack up. Our comparison helps you pick the system that lines up with your needs, whether you're creating a new digital experience or moving from a traditional CMS.

Key Takeaways

When choosing between Strapi and Sanity for your headless CMS needs, understanding their core differences will guide you to the right decision for your team and project requirements.

Strapi offers complete control: An open-source, self-hosted solution with a visual content builder, perfect for teams needing custom infrastructure and compliance control.
Sanity excels in collaboration: Cloud-first platform with real-time co-editing capabilities, ideal for distributed teams requiring Google Docs-like content collaboration.
Different pricing approaches: Strapi uses predictable flat-rate pricing ($0-$499/month), while Sanity follows a usage-based SaaS model scaling with consumption.
Architecture philosophy matters: Strapi emphasizes a familiar database-driven approach with REST/GraphQL, while Sanity uses schema-as-code with GROQ query language.
Choose based on priorities: Pick Strapi for infrastructure control and compliance needs; choose Sanity for rapid deployment and seamless team collaboration.

What Are Strapi and Sanity?

A good understanding of both platforms' core architecture helps you make an informed decision about your next project.

Strapi: Open-source, self-hosted CMS built on Node.js

Strapi leads the open-source headless CMS space with its JavaScript and TypeScript foundation. This purely JavaScript-based system lets developers control their content infrastructure completely. Teams can choose between self-hosted options and Strapi Cloud deployment if they prefer managed infrastructure.

The platform's strength comes from its content types builder that lets you create strong content structures through a visual interface. The platform automatically generates well-documented REST APIs for each content type and supports GraphQL through plugins.

Strapi has built-in localization, a dedicated media library, TypeScript support, role-based authorization, and JWT authentication. Content editors benefit from a modern, customizable admin panel built with React that provides a clean interface. The system supports multiple databases, including PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, and SQLite.

Sanity: Cloud-first CMS with immediate collaboration

Sanity approaches content management differently as a cloud-first content platform. The platform stores all content in its "Content Lake"—an immediate, cloud-based database optimized for structured content, unlike traditional database-driven CMSs.

Sanity Studio serves as the essence of the platform—an open-source, React-based application that lets teams define content models using JavaScript. The platform stands out with its immediate collaborative editing features. Team members can edit content simultaneously with live presence indicators, comments, and instant synchronization.

Developers can use GROQ (Graph-Relational Object Queries), a powerful query language designed to filter and join JSON content. The platform also has revision control, scheduled publishing, and extensive asset management capabilities.

Key differences in architecture and philosophy

These platforms differ fundamentally in their architectural approach. Strapi uses a traditional database-driven model with enhanced API capabilities. This makes it especially useful when teams move from conventional systems. Sanity, however, accepts new ideas with its content-as-data philosophy and treats all content as structured JSON documents.

This architectural difference means you get greater infrastructure and deployment control with Strapi, while Sanity gives you better collaborative features and content flexibility. Strapi's visual content builder and Sanity's schema-as-code approach offer different processes based on your team's priorities.

Feature Comparison: Strapi vs Sanity Headless CMS

The right headless CMS choice depends on how well its features match your project needs.

Content Modeling: Visual Builder vs Schema-as-Code

Strapi's intuitive Content-Type Builder lets teams create and modify content structures through the admin panel. Teams can quickly iterate on content models without code involvement. The platform uses a relational model with collections and components, like in traditional SQL systems.

Sanity takes a different path with its schema-as-code approach, where developers write content models in JavaScript. Documents get stored in a flexible, document-based structure that supports nested fields. Technical teams benefit from version-controlled schemas and deeper customization options.

API Capabilities: REST/GraphQL vs GROQ + Real-time APIs

Every content type you create in Strapi automatically gets REST and GraphQL APIs. Developers get well-laid-out endpoints with filtering, pagination, and sorting capabilities right away.

Sanity stands out with its GROQ (Graph-Relational Object Queries) - a powerful query language built for JSON content. GROQ helps developers fetch deeply nested data in one request. This reduces HTTP calls and makes frontend performance better. The platform also offers real-time APIs that sync content instantly across platforms.

Collaboration Tools: Sequential Editing vs Real-Time Co-editing

Strapi uses a traditional sequential editing workflow. While it has versioning features, the platform lacks built-in support for multiple users editing at once.

Sanity shines with its real-time collaborative editing capabilities. Team members can work on content together and see changes instantly, much like in Google Docs. Users can see who edits which field - a valuable feature for remote teams.

Customization: Plugin Ecosystem vs React-based Studio

Strapi's extensive plugin marketplace offers many pre-built integrations. Developers can create custom plugins, middleware, and controllers to extend the platform's capabilities.

Sanity lets developers customize the entire Studio (admin interface) using React components. This means teams can build custom editing experiences, input components, and specialized workflows right into the content management interface.

Localization: Built-in i18n vs Schema-defined Localization

The native i18n plugin in Strapi comes with over 500 locale codes ready to use. Content managers get a simple dropdown in the admin panel to handle multilingual content. Strapi 5 adds a Unified Document System that keeps language versions synchronized.

Sanity requires developers to create custom localization patterns in JavaScript schemas. This approach takes more setup time but gives teams more control over how language variants get structured and stored.

Hosting, Security, and Performance

Your choice of infrastructure between these headless CMS platforms directly affects deployment, security, and how well they scale.

Hosting Options: Self-hosted vs Fully Managed SaaS

Strapi lets teams take full control of their infrastructure through self-hosting. Teams can deploy on their preferred servers or use Strapi Cloud for managed hosting. This flexibility lets them set up custom configurations to handle sensitive data and meet compliance needs.

On the other hand, Sanity works only as a cloud-based service with its Content Lake. Users don't need to worry about managing infrastructure, but must stay within Sanity's ecosystem. Their hosting spans multiple regions to deliver steady performance and availability worldwide.

Security Features: RBAC, SSO, and Compliance

Both platforms use strong security with role-based access control (RBAC) and single sign-on (SSO) features. Strapi's Enterprise plan has SSO that works with Microsoft Azure, Google, and Okta. Sanity takes care of security updates automatically and follows SOC 2, GDPR, and CCPA standards.

Performance Scaling: Manual vs Serverless Auto-scaling

Strapi can scale horizontally across multiple servers. High-traffic applications need manual setup of load balancing and database clustering.

Sanity uses serverless architecture that scales automatically based on traffic. The platform proved highly reliable during Black Friday-Cyber Monday peaks with just 0.00381% error rate across billions of requests.

Data Ownership and Compliance Considerations

Each platform's approach to first-party data control is quite different. Strapi's open-source design fits well with direct ownership models through its persistent schema building and webhook systems. Companies get transparent data practices needed for regulatory compliance while they retain complete technical control.

Pricing and Ideal Use Cases

Money and team needs play a crucial role in picking between these headless CMS platforms.

Pricing Models: Open-source vs Usage-based SaaS

Strapi runs under an MIT license and provides a free Community Edition with unlimited features you can self-host. Their cloud plans come with Free, Developer ($29/month), Pro ($99/month), and Team ($499/month) tiers at fixed monthly rates. The costs stay predictable, whatever your traffic volume.

Sanity uses a usage-based SaaS model where prices change based on documents, API calls, bandwidth, and seats. They offer a free tier with usage limits, while enterprise customers get custom contracts with better security features.

Best for Developers: Full Control vs Fast Setup

Developers love Strapi because they can customize every aspect of the backend through its open-source nature. They get complete control over middleware, admin panel, and infrastructure choices.

Teams that need quick deployment prefer Sanity with its built-in collaborative features.

Best for Content Teams: Familiar UI vs Real-time Editing

Content teams moving from traditional systems find Strapi's form-based admin panel comfortable. The editing process works one step at a time, and version history handles any conflicts.

Sanity takes a different approach with Google Docs-style collaboration that shows who's online and lets multiple people edit together.

Enterprise Fit: Custom Infrastructure vs Managed Cloud

Companies that need strict compliance or custom security pick Strapi because they can control their infrastructure completely. They can self-host anywhere or use Strapi Cloud while retaining control over patches and network policies.

Sanity's fully-managed SaaS model makes operations easier, but you can't customize security tools as much.

Comparison Table

Feature Category	Strapi	Sanity
Architecture	Open-source, self-hosted, Node.js-based	Cloud-first, proprietary platform
Content Modeling	Visual Content-Type Builder with UI interface	Schema-as-code approach using JavaScript
API Support	REST and GraphQL APIs automatically generated	GROQ query language with immediate APIs
Collaboration	Sequential editing workflow	Immediate collaborative editing with presence indicators
Customization	Extensive plugin marketplace with custom plugins support	React-based Studio with customizable components
Localization	Built-in i18n plugin with 500+ locale codes	Schema-defined custom localization patterns
Hosting Options	Self-hosted or Strapi Cloud	Fully managed cloud service (Content Lake)
Security Features	RBAC, SSO integration (Enterprise)	RBAC, SSO, SOC 2, GDPR, CCPA compliance
Scaling	Manual configuration for horizontal scaling	Automatic serverless scaling
Pricing Model	- Free Community Edition (self-hosted) - Cloud plans: Free to $499/month (flat rate)	Usage-based SaaS model with free tier and custom enterprise pricing
Best Suited For	- Developers needing complete control - Teams requiring custom infrastructure - Organizations with compliance requirements	- Teams prioritizing rapid deployment - Distributed teams needing immediate collaboration - Organizations preferring managed solutions
Database Support	PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, SQLite	Proprietary Content Lake (JSON-based)

Conclusion

Your choice between Strapi and Sanity ended up depending on what your project needs and what matters most to your organization. Both platforms give you powerful headless CMS capabilities, though they take very different paths to get there.

Strapi shines as an open-source solution you can host yourself, giving developers full control over their infrastructure. This setup especially helps teams that must meet strict compliance rules or need to customize extensively. The platform's visual content builder makes it easy for content teams to switch from traditional CMS systems. You'll also get predictable costs with its flat-rate pricing, whatever your traffic volume.

Sanity takes a different approach with its cloud-first setup and features that let teams work together in real-time. Teams who want quick deployment and smooth content collaboration will love Sanity's Google Docs-style editing. The platform charges based on usage, but you won't have to worry about managing infrastructure since it's all handled in their cloud.

Tech teams should think over their preferred way of working before deciding. Strapi offers a visual interface while Sanity uses a schema-as-code approach. The same goes for their APIs - Strapi uses REST/GraphQL while Sanity has its GROQ query language. These core differences show what each platform values most - Strapi focuses on control and familiarity, Sanity on flexibility and teamwork.

Headless architecture keeps gaining ground in enterprises. Understanding these key differences matters more than ever. The better platform for you will line up with what you value most - infrastructure control, team editing, content flexibility, or predictable pricing. Both Strapi and Sanity represent modern content management by keeping content separate from presentation, which lets you create true omnichannel digital experiences.