Teams look for a Sanity alternative when the bill is tied to seats and usage quotas, when editors want a page preview rather than a form, or when the content has to sit on servers the team runs itself. The usual moves are to a self-hosted open source system, to a visual headless product, or to a one-off licence.
Sebastiaan SmitsFounderShort answer: Looking for a replacement for Sanity? Strapi, Storyblok and Craft CMS come first in our content management ranking. Places 1 to 3 go to challengers, vendors outside the best-known brands in a category, wherever the category has them; the established names follow from place 4 in their ranked order. Start with Strapi if you want content on servers you run, in a JavaScript codebase. Below are 11 alternatives, each taken from the Best CMS Software in 2026 ranking, with its main difference from Sanity.
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The Growth plan costs $15 per seat a month and includes 25k documents, 1M API CDN requests, 250k API requests and 100GB of bandwidth. Beyond that Sanity lists metered rates, such as $299 for each extra 50k documents and $999 for each extra dataset. A content-heavy site can outgrow the plan before the team does.
Sanity Studio is created with a command-line installer, needs Node.js 22.12 or later, and is configured in a sanity.config.ts file. That suits developers. A marketing team that wants to start editing pages on day one has to wait for someone to model the content and build the editing screens.
Sanity's security page says its backend runs in a single EU region in Belgium on Google Cloud, while uploaded content can be stored in the EU or EEA, the US or other regions, selected per customer. It adds that customer-controlled data placement is planned but not yet available. Organisations that need to point at one exact location look elsewhere.
| Alternative | Headquarters | Free option | Pricing model | Switch if | Our rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Strapi | France | Yes | Published | you want content on servers you run, in a JavaScript codebase | #7 |
| Storyblok | Austria | Yes | Published | editors should work on the rendered page instead of a form | #2 |
| Craft CMS | United States | Yes | Published | a fixed licence per site suits you better than monthly seat billing | #6 |
| Kirby | Germany | No free tier | See profile | you want a database-free site and a single payment per installation | #16 |
| Statamic | United States | Yes | Published | the site already runs on Laravel and content should be versioned in Git | #17 |
| Payload | United States | Yes | Published | you want the content model reviewed and deployed with the app code | #1 |
| Directus | United States | Yes | Published | you want content in a plain SQL database that you own | #9 |
| Umbraco | Denmark | Yes | Published | your developers write C# and the estate already runs on Microsoft | #10 |
| Contentstack | United States | Yes | Published | approval chains and audit trails matter more than a low entry price | #13 |
| Contentful | Germany | Yes | Published | one content source must feed many channels and procurement is not a problem | #3 |
| Drupal | United States | Yes | Published | permissions, languages and accessibility rules outweigh developer convenience | #8 |
France · Published
Strapi is a French open source project whose Community edition is free under the MIT licence, with REST and GraphQL APIs and no seat cap. Growth costs $45 a month for three users, then $15 per extra user, and adds Live Preview, Releases and 14 days of content history. Review workflows and audit logs need Enterprise.
Switch from Sanity if you want content on servers you run, in a JavaScript codebase.
Our content management guide puts Strapi at 7 of 18; read why →
Austria · Published
Storyblok is Austrian and centres on a visual editor over reusable components. Starter is free for one seat, with 100k API requests and 2 locales a month. Growth is $99 monthly or $90.75 billed yearly for five seats, and extra seats are $15. Growth Plus is $349 monthly. Premium and Elite are quoted.
Switch from Sanity if editors should work on the rendered page instead of a form.
See the full Storyblok entry, ranked 2 of 18 among content management products →
United States · Published
Craft charges once per project instead of per seat. Solo is free for one account, Team is $279 for up to five accounts and Pro is $399 with unlimited accounts. Updates after the first year cost $99 a year. It is PHP, so structural changes need a developer, and Team and Pro are free on Craft Cloud.
Switch from Sanity if a fixed licence per site suits you better than monthly seat billing.
Open the Craft CMS profile, 6th of 18 in the content management guide →
Germany · See profile
Kirby comes from Content Folder GmbH & Co. KG in Germany and keeps content in text files and folders rather than a database. The licence is paid once per site and includes three years of updates, with two tiers split by revenue. Each subdomain or subfolder installation needs its own licence, and the source is readable but not free for production.
Switch from Sanity if you want a database-free site and a single payment per installation.
United States · Published
Statamic, LLC ships a Composer package for Laravel and stores content flat-file first, with Git support. Core is free but allows one super admin and one content form. Pro is licensed per site, and updates after the first year carry a yearly fee. Your developers need to know PHP and Laravel.
Switch from Sanity if the site already runs on Laravel and content should be versioned in Git.
Where Statamic stands: place 17 of 18 in the content management ranking →
United States · Published
Payload keeps its configuration as TypeScript inside the application repository, so a schema change travels through the same review as any other code. Our category record lists it as MIT licensed and self-hosted, with enterprise plans quoted, and notes that it has joined Figma. We did not check its hosted prices.
Switch from Sanity if you want the content model reviewed and deployed with the app code.
#1 out of 18 content management products: read the Payload review →
United States · Published
Directus puts an API and an editor on top of a SQL database you control, and every tier can be self-hosted. Core is listed at $89 a month billed yearly for three seats, and Team at $588 on the same card. Organisations under $5M revenue and 50 employees can apply for the free Open Innovation Grant.
Switch from Sanity if you want content in a plain SQL database that you own.
Open the Directus profile, 9th of 18 in the content management guide →
Denmark · Published
Umbraco is a Danish open source CMS written for .NET. Our category record lists the software as free and cloud plans as priced per project. Developers who write C# can extend it in their own language. Outside Microsoft-centred teams the hosting and specialist pool is narrower than for the PHP and JavaScript systems.
Switch from Sanity if your developers write C# and the estate already runs on Microsoft.
See the full Umbraco entry, ranked 10 of 18 among content management products →
United States · Published
Contentstack sells composable content to large brands and publishes prices from $29 a month. Its category record notes that custom workflows start on the $299 Growth plan, while approval chains, audit trails and release scheduling are its governance strength. Enterprise is quoted, so a serious evaluation ends in procurement.
Switch from Sanity if approval chains and audit trails matter more than a low entry price.
Contentstack review, listed at 13 of 18 content management products →
Germany · Published
Contentful is a German enterprise headless product with mature APIs, multi-locale content and a long list of integrations. A free tier exists, and plans above it are quoted, with cost climbing alongside API calls and users. It feeds websites, apps and in-store screens from one source.
Switch from Sanity if one content source must feed many channels and procurement is not a problem.
Our content management guide puts Contentful at 3 of 18; read why →
United States · Published
Drupal is free open source software with a granular permission model and multilingual handling in core, which is why governments and universities choose it. You pay for hosting and development. The work involved is significant, and specialists are harder to find each year, so it fits large organisations with complex editorial roles.
Switch from Sanity if permissions, languages and accessibility rules outweigh developer convenience.
Full verdict on Drupal, which sits at number 8 of 18 for content management →
Strapi: The Community edition is MIT licensed with no seat cap, and Growth at $45 a month adds Live Preview and 14 days of content history.
Storyblok: A visual editor sits over reusable components, and Starter is free for one seat with 100k API requests a month.
Craft CMS: Team is $279 for up to five accounts and Pro is $399 with unlimited accounts, then $99 a year for updates.
Directus: Every tier can be self-hosted, and organisations under $5M revenue and 50 employees can apply for the free grant.
Contentstack: Governance is its strength, with published prices from $29 a month and custom workflows from the $299 Growth plan.
Sanity remains a good choice when a developer team wants to shape the content model and the editing studio around its own product, and wants several people editing the same document at once. The free plan lists 20 seats, unlimited locales and 1M API CDN requests a month, which covers many small projects. If the quotas are the worry, check what the Growth overage rates add up to before you rebuild elsewhere.
Sanity content types are defined in the studio configuration, and queries are written in GROQ. Neither carries over to another system. Export the documents, map each type to the new model, and rewrite the queries your front end sends, then test them on a copy of the site.
Sanity stores body text as structured Portable Text, and documents point at each other by reference. Check how the target stores rich text and relations before you promise a date, and count how many documents your largest types contain so the import can be rehearsed.
The Free plan is $0 with 20 seats, 10k documents and 2 public datasets. Growth is $15 per seat a month, up to 50 seats, with 25k documents and private datasets. Enterprise is quoted, and only Enterprise can be paid annually.
Strapi's Community edition is MIT licensed with unlimited CMS users, and Drupal is free software. Payload is listed as MIT licensed. Directus is free only for organisations under $5M revenue and 50 employees through its grant. You still pay for hosting and staff time.
Storyblok is built around a visual editor, and Strapi lists Live Preview from its Growth plan at $45 a month.
Statamic and Craft also give editors drafts and a control panel. Check the preview with your own front end, since preview depends on how the site is built.
Craft CMS and Kirby sell licences per site instead. Craft Team is $279 for up to five accounts and Pro is $399, with $99 a year for updates after the first year. Kirby includes three years of updates. Hosting is a separate cost.
Its security page describes a backend in one EU region in Belgium on Google Cloud, with content stored in the EU or EEA, the US or other regions per customer.
Placement controlled by the customer is described as planned, so ask for written confirmation if location matters.
The security page states a SOC 2 Type 2 certification covering the Security principle and says the company is fully GDPR-compliant. It lists no ISO certificate for Sanity itself, only for Google Cloud's infrastructure.
Founder of The Knowledge Engineers and of 2 Steps Ahead, an AI search visibility agency. Editorially responsible for every page on this site; research and drafting are AI-assisted.
Author and fact-checker: Sebastiaan Smits. This page was last reviewed on 6 November 2026; our review process is public.
