Best 9 CMSs to power your Astro site

Astro has become one of the most exciting frameworks for building fast, modern websites. It blends static site speed with dynamic capabilities when needed.

A big part of its success comes from Islands Architecture, a pattern that ensures only essential JavaScript loads, keeping pages incredibly fast while still allowing interactivity where it matters.

For small projects, Astro works great with Markdown, but as soon as you need scalability, multi-author collaboration, scheduling, dynamic content, or a structured editorial workflow, a CMS becomes essential.

Astro provides stubs for over 30 different CMSs, showcasing its extensive support for various platforms. However, having so many choices can make it difficult to determine which CMS is the best fit. A CMS being compatible with Astro does not automatically make it the right solution for every project. Some are optimized for small blogs, others excel at managing enterprise-level content, and many offer unique features tailored to specific needs.

That's why we've narrowed it down to nine of the best CMSs for Astro. Instead of listing every possible option, we'll focus on their strengths, limitations, pricing, and how they fit into an Astro-powered site, so you can make the best choice for your project.

Before we get into the list, let's look at what actually matters when choosing a CMS for Astro.

#What to consider when choosing a CMS for Astro

Not all CMSs work the same way, and when pairing one with Astro, a few key factors can make your experience smooth or frustrating.

A CMS isn't just about managing content - it affects your site's performance, workflow, scalability, and even developer experience.

So, before picking one, here's what actually matters.

1. Content delivery and API structure

Astro is optimized for speed, so how a CMS delivers content plays a huge role in how fast your site loads. CMSs generally fall into three categories:

• Headless CMSs (API-driven): These deliver content via REST or GraphQL APIs. They're flexible, scalable, and great for dynamic content that updates frequently.

• Git-based CMSs: These store content in Markdown or JSON/YAML files, making them great for static sites. They integrate well with Astro's static generation but can feel limiting if you need real-time updates.

• Traditional CMSs: These are database-driven systems that render pages dynamically. They require extra setup to work efficiently with Astro but can be useful if you're used to a more traditional CMS workflow.

If you're planning to use Astro's static site generation (SSG), APIs that provide fast responses or generate pre-built content will work best. If you're using Astro in a more dynamic way (SSR or hybrid mode), consider a CMS with a high-performance API and caching options.

2. Editor experience and ease of use

If you're the only one managing content, you might be fine with a more technical CMS that requires working with Markdown or JSON. But if you're collaborating with non-technical writers, marketers, or clients, an intuitive UI, real-time previews, and WYSIWYG editing become crucial.

Some CMSs provide real-time visual editors, making them more approachable for content teams. Others focus on structured content models, offering more flexibility but requiring a bit of setup.

3. Performance and static optimization

One of Astro's biggest selling points is performance. You don't want a CMS that slows your site down with unnecessary API calls or poor caching. A good CMS for Astro should:

• Work well with static site generation (SSG) to pre-build pages.

• Have good caching and CDN support if using SSR.

• Offer incremental static regeneration (ISR) or similar for handling content updates without full rebuilds.

Headless CMSs generally perform well here, but if you go with a traditional CMS like WordPress, you'll need caching plugins or static-site generators to maintain speed.

4. Pricing and scalability

CMS pricing varies wildly. Some are free and open-source, while others operate on pay-per-usage models. Before committing, ask yourself:

• Do you need a free or budget-friendly option?

• Will pricing scale reasonably as traffic and content grow?

• Does the CMS limit API calls, users, or storage on lower tiers?

For small projects, Git-based CMSs or open-source headless CMSs can be cost-effective. For businesses, enterprise-grade CMSs with API-first architectures might be worth the investment.

5. Ecosystem and Astro support

Astro integrates with many CMSs, but not all of them have first-class support. Some have official Astro SDKs or plugins, making integration seamless. Others require custom API calls and extra setup.

If you want an easy time, check:

• Does the CMS have good documentation and examples for Astro?

• Are there community plugins or an official Astro integration?

• Can it fetch content efficiently without needing complex workarounds?

#The best CMSs for Astro

Now that we've covered the key factors, let's break down the best CMSs for Astro, looking at their strengths, limitations and pricing.

1. Hygraph

Hygraph is a GraphQL-native headless CMS built for speed, flexibility, and structured content. Unlike traditional CMSs, it follows an API-first approach, making it easy to pull content dynamically while keeping your Astro site lightweight and performant.

It's especially useful for projects that need structured content, multi-source content management, and fast delivery through GraphQL APIs.

One of Hygraph's standout features is content federation, which allows you to unify multiple content sources without needing additional middleware. This makes it a great choice for enterprise-level applications, multilingual content, or projects with complex relationships between content types.

For developers, Hygraph provides flexible content modeling, role-based permissions, and an API playground, making schema design and API testing seamless. It also integrates smoothly with Astro, allowing you to fetch and display content with minimal setup. Content teams benefit from a user-friendly visual editor, live previews, and structured workflows, making it a solid choice for both technical and non-technical users.

Here are some key features that make Hygraph shine:

• GraphQL-First API: Provides a structured and efficient GraphQL API for querying content with precision, minimizing over-fetching and unnecessary data retrieval.

• Custom Content Modeling: Allows defining content types, relationships, and fields freely, without rigid templates or predefined structures.

• Content Federation: Enables integration of content from multiple sources into a unified GraphQL API, eliminating the need for additional middleware.

• Built-in Localization: Supports multi-language content management, allowing seamless handling of translations and region-specific variations.

• High-Performance Delivery: Runs on a global CDN with built-in caching, optimizing content speed and scalability for high-traffic applications.

• Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): Provides fine-grained user permissions, ensuring structured team collaboration with defined roles and content restrictions.

• Enterprise-Grade Security & Compliance: Complies with GDPR, CCPA, ISO 27001, and SOC 2 standards, featuring audit logs, single sign-on (SSO), automatic backups, and access controls for enhanced security.

Limitations: Hygraph is a GraphQL-native CMS, which means that if you've only worked with REST APIs, there's a bit of a learning curve before you can fully take advantage of its power. Since it's purely headless, there's no built-in frontend rendering, so you'll need to handle the UI separately, which makes it less suitable for teams looking for a no-code page builder.

Pricing:

Hygraph offers a free Hobby plan for individuals and small projects, with 3 seats, 5K content entries, and unlimited asset storage.

For businesses and larger teams:

• Growth: $199/month (10 seats, 10K content entries)

• Enterprise: Custom pricing for high-scale use cases

For the latest details, check the official pricing page.

2. Contentful

Contentful is a go-to choice for teams that need scalability, structured content, and a strong API-first approach. It's designed to power everything from simple blogs to enterprise-grade digital experiences, making it a versatile option for Astro projects.

Just like Hygraph, Contentful decouples content from presentation, allowing you to deliver content across multiple platforms — from websites to mobile apps, IoT devices, and beyond.

One of Contentful's strengths is its highly structured content model, which makes it easy to manage complex content relationships. Whether you're working on a marketing site, SaaS documentation, or a large-scale e-commerce platform, it provides a GraphQL and REST API for seamless data fetching.

Here are some of Contentful's key features:

• API-First CMS: Provides both REST and GraphQL APIs for structured content delivery across platforms.

• Custom Content Modeling: Define content types, fields, and relationships without rigid templates.

• Built-in Localization: Manage multilingual content with native localization support.

• Scalable Infrastructure: Handles large datasets and high traffic with global CDN and caching.

• Role-Based Permissions: Fine-grained user roles and access controls for collaboration and security.

• Live Preview & Editorial Tools: Content teams can preview, schedule, and manage content changes in real time.

• AI-Powered Features: Built-in AI tools for content automation, personalization, and recommendations.

Limitations: Contentful can get expensive as usage scales, especially for high-traffic sites that require a lot of API calls. Also, compared to some competitors, Contentful's GraphQL API has query limitations, which might require workarounds for complex queries.

Pricing:

There's a free plan that includes basic features and 100,000 API calls per month, but for commercial projects, the Lite plan starts at $300/month. Enterprise pricing is custom and comes with advanced security, governance, and performance enhancements.

If you're curious about how it scales, check out the full breakdown on Contentful's pricing page.

3. Sanity

Sanity is a highly customizable headless CMS designed for structured content, real-time collaboration, and developer flexibility.

It provides a fully decoupled backend where content is stored in Sanity Content Lake and served through real-time APIs, which integrates well with Astro, making it a solid choice for projects that require dynamic, structured content.

A standout feature of Sanity is Sanity Studio, a React-based, fully customizable content editing interface. Unlike fixed dashboards in other CMSs, Sanity Studio is configured in code, meaning developers can define exactly how content editors interact with the system.

Here are some key features:

• Real-Time Content APIs: Fetch and update content instantly using GROQ or GraphQL, eliminating the need for rebuilds.

• Content Lake: A cloud-based content store with global CDN caching, ensuring fast and scalable content delivery.

• Structured Content Modeling: Define custom content types and relationships using JSON-based schemas for full flexibility.

• AI Assist: A built-in AI tool that helps with content generation, automation, and editing suggestions.

• Enterprise-Grade Security & Compliance: Meets SOC 2, GDPR, and CCPA standards with role-based access (RBAC), single sign-on (SSO), and audit logs for secure content management.

Limitations: While Sanity is incredibly flexible, its code-driven approach means non-technical teams may find it harder to use without developer support. Additionally, GROQ has a learning curve compared to traditional SQL or GraphQL queries.

Pricing:

There's a free plan that includes 20 seats, 10K documents, and 1M API requests per month, making it great for personal or small projects. The Growth plan starts at $15 per seat/month, increasing limits to 50 seats, 25K documents, and API/CDN upgrades. Enterprise pricing includes more. You can check the Sanity pricing page for details.

4. Storyblok

Storyblok is a hybrid headless CMS that combines API-first flexibility with a real-time visual editor. Unlike purely developer-focused headless CMSs, it gives marketers and content teams an intuitive way to edit content directly on the page, while still allowing developers to integrate with modern frameworks like Astro.

One of Storyblok's biggest strengths is its Live Visual Editing. Unlike most headless CMSs that require a separate staging environment, Storyblok lets users edit and preview content in real-time, which is a huge advantage for content-driven teams.

For developers, Storyblok's component-based content model is another standout feature. Instead of rigid templates, it uses "Bloks", which are reusable, nestable components that make it easy to build dynamic layouts without needing to hardcode structures into the frontend.

To recap and add more, here are some key features of Storyblok:

• Live Visual Editing: Edit and preview content in real-time directly on the page, eliminating the need for a separate staging environment.

• Component-Based Content Model: Uses "Bloks" to create reusable, modular content structures for flexible page-building.

• GraphQL and REST APIs: Fetch structured content efficiently for your Astro site.

• Enterprise-Grade Performance: Global CDN, automatic caching, and 99.99% uptime SLA ensure high-speed, scalable content delivery.

• Multi-Language and Localization Support: Built-in tools for managing translations and multi-region content.

• Security and Compliance: Meets ISO 27001, GDPR, and SOC 2 standards for enterprise security.

Limitations: Storyblok's structured, component-based approach is great for most teams, but it may not be the best fit for fully custom backend setups. Its pricing can also scale up quickly, with team plans starting at €99/month, which might be costly for smaller businesses.

Pricing:

Storyblok's Entry plan starts at €99/month, providing core collaboration features for growing teams. If you need more scalability, additional users, or enterprise-grade features, the Business and Enterprise plans offer expanded capabilities. Check Storyblok's pricing page for full details.

5. Strapi

Strapi is an open-source, self-hostable headless CMS that gives developers full control over content management and API structure.

One of Strapi's standout features is its API-first approach, enabling developers to generate REST or GraphQL APIs automatically using a visual Content-Type Builder. This makes it easy to set up structured content without heavy backend coding for your Astro site.

Strapi also supports Dynamic Zones, which gives content editors the flexibility to build and rearrange pages without needing constant developer intervention.

For teams that prefer managed hosting, Strapi Cloud provides an optimized environment with PostgreSQL, auto-scaling, and built-in CDN support, reducing DevOps overhead. However, as usage scales, cloud costs can become higher than some SaaS-based alternatives.

To recap and give you a list, here are some of Strapi's key features:

• API-First (REST & GraphQL): Generate REST or GraphQL APIs automatically, making content retrieval seamless for any frontend.

• Content-Type Builder: Define structured content visually with a no-code interface, reducing backend development time.

• Customization & Plugins: Extend functionality with marketplace plugins, custom fields, and tailored API modifications.

• Dynamic Zones: Let content editors freely adjust page structures without requiring developer input.

• Self-Hosting or Cloud Deployment: Host Strapi on your own infrastructure for full control, or opt for Strapi Cloud for a fully managed experience.

• Enterprise-Grade Security & Compliance: SOC 2 certified, GDPR-compliant, with features like audit logs, SSO, and fine-grained access control.

Limitations: Strapi's self-hosted nature gives teams full control but also makes them responsible for setup, maintenance, security, and scalability. This adds overhead for organizations without dedicated DevOps resources. Additionally, while the no-code Content-Type Builder simplifies content structuring, Strapi still has a learning curve, particularly for non-technical users.

Pricing:
Strapi offers a free community edition for self-hosted projects, but teams needing enterprise features like SSO, audit logs, and advanced workflows will need a paid plan. The lowest plan is the Growth plan, which costs $15/month per seat.

For Strapi Cloud pricing and other details, check the official pricing page.

6. Tina CMS

TinaCMS is an open-source, Git-backed CMS designed to provide a seamless editing experience within modern frameworks like Astro. Tina is developer-first and Git-native, meaning content is stored as markdown or JSON files in a Git repository rather than a database. This makes it ideal for static sites and JAMstack architectures, including those built with Astro.

While TinaCMS offers a strong visual editing experience and deep Git integration, it lacks a structured content model, making it less suitable for projects that require complex relationships or dynamic querying via GraphQL.

Here are some key features:

• Git-Based Content Model: Content is stored as markdown or JSON inside a Git repository, providing full version control and easy rollback.
• Visual Editing: A user-friendly editor allows non-technical users to create and modify content without touching code.
• Type-Safety: Built-in TypeScript support ensures content queries are reliable and maintainable.
• GraphQL API: Allows developers to query and manage content efficiently, making it easier to integrate with frontend frameworks like Astro.
• MDX Support: Supports markdown with embedded JavaScript (MDX) for creating interactive, rich content experiences.

Limitations:

• No Traditional Database: Content is stored as markdown or JSON, making structured content management and complex queries challenging.
• Limited Real-Time Updates: Without a database, dynamic content and real-time updates are harder to implement.
• Developer-Dependent Setup: Content modeling and API configurations require coding, making setup and maintenance less accessible for non-developers.
• Less Scalable: While great for static sites, managing large-scale projects with complex relationships can be cumbersome.
• User Experience: The visual editor helps, but the workflow isn't as intuitive as database-backed CMSs.

Pricing:

TinaCMS is free for self-hosted projects, while Tina Cloud offers paid plans for managed authentication and collaboration. Pricing starts at $29/month for small teams, $49/month for larger teams, and $299/month for businesses needing premium support. See the pricing page for full details.

7. Prismic

Prismic is a headless page builder designed to help developers and marketers build and manage websites efficiently.

It blends the flexibility of headless CMS architecture with a visual Page Builder, allowing non-technical teams to create and update content without relying on developers. Prismic integrates with Astro using its API-first architecture, allowing developers to fetch and serve structured content efficiently in Astro-based websites.

One of its biggest strengths is Slice Machine, a local development tool that enables developers to create reusable, structured content components called Slices. These Slices serve as flexible building blocks, empowering marketing teams to assemble pages dynamically while maintaining brand consistency.

Here are some of Prismic's key features:

• Slice Machine: A local dev tool that generates editable page sections (Slices) for marketers.

• Visual Page Builder: Non-technical users can build and update pages using pre-defined slices.

• Localization & Multi-Site Support: Manage multilingual content across different regions.

• Previews & Scheduled Releases: Plan and test content updates before publishing.

Limitations: Prismic's API is more opinionated, limiting flexibility for developers who need highly customized queries. While the Slice Machine is powerful, it requires setup and a learning curve. Additionally, user limits and API quotas can quickly increase costs for growing teams.

Pricing:

Prismic is free for small projects, and its paid plans start at $10/month for small teams, $150/month for scaling businesses, and custom pricing for enterprises. See the pricing page for more details.

8. Ghost

Ghost is a publishing-first platform designed for content creators, newsletters, and paid memberships. While it offers a REST API for headless functionality, it's not a true headless CMS in the traditional sense.

Ghost is an opinionated, all-in-one system designed primarily for blogging and digital publishing, setting it apart from CMSs that focus more on developer flexibility.

Because of this, Ghost isn't usually the first choice for developers who need a structured content backend. However, if you're creating a content-heavy site with built-in monetization and audience engagement tools, Ghost can be a great fit.

That said, Ghost does offer several publishing-focused features that make it a compelling option:

• Built-in Memberships & Payments: Monetize content directly with Stripe-powered subscriptions and membership features.
• Native Email Newsletters: Send newsletters directly from Ghost, eliminating the need for third-party services like Mailchimp.
• Fast & SEO-Optimized: Ghost is built on Node.js, ensuring high performance with automatic SEO features, Open Graph, and AMP support.
• Simple Theming System: Uses Handlebars templates, making it easy to customize even without deep technical knowledge.
• Headless API: While Ghost lacks GraphQL support, it provides a REST API that developers can use to pull content into frontend frameworks like Astro, Next.js, and Nuxt.

Limitations: Ghost is not a fully featured CMS. It lacks structured content models, custom fields, and relational data, making it unsuitable for complex applications. If you don't plan on using its native publishing tools, Ghost doesn't offer much that more flexible headless CMSs already provide.

Pricing:

Ghost is free to self-host, but for a fully managed experience, Ghost(Pro) starts at $9/month for up to 500 members. Higher plans include additional member limits, email sending, and premium support.

9. WordPress

WordPress is the world's most popular CMS, but it's not the best headless solution, especially for modern, high-performance sites built with Astro. While it now offers REST and GraphQL APIs for headless use, WordPress was never originally designed as a decoupled CMS. It's a monolithic platform built around themes, plugins, and its PHP-based architecture.

That said, if you're already locked into WordPress - whether it's legacy content, existing workflows, or business dependencies then going headless with WordPress can be a practical way to modernize your stack without a full migration. It allows you to keep your content while using a more flexible frontend like Astro.

For those who must use WordPress headlessly, here's what it offers:

• WordPress REST API and WPGraphQL: Pull content into any frontend, including Astro, Next.js, or Nuxt.
• Huge Plugin Ecosystem: Extend functionality with thousands of plugins, including headless-focused ones like WPGraphQL and WP REST Cache.
• Familiar Admin Experience: Editors and content teams can continue using WordPress's UI without needing a new system.
• Advanced Custom Fields (ACF): Add structured content to WordPress, though it still lacks the flexibility of a native headless CMS.
• SEO and Performance Plugins: Tools like Yoast SEO can help, though a headless setup often negates some built-in WP optimizations.

Limitations: WordPress is not optimized for headless use. It requires extra configuration to work properly with modern frontend frameworks. Performance can also be slower compared to native headless CMSs due to its heavy database reliance and plugin overhead. Plus, security risks remain a concern, especially when exposing APIs.

Pricing:

WordPress itself is free, but hosting, premium themes, plugins, and custom development can add costs. Managed WordPress hosts like Kinsta or WP Engine offer optimized environments for headless setups, but they cost more than fully headless CMS alternatives.

#Final thoughts

Choosing the right CMS for your Astro project depends on your specific needs - whether it's structured content, dynamic querying, or an intuitive editor for non-technical users.

If you're looking for a GraphQL-native CMS that integrates smoothly with Astro, Hygraph is a powerful option. It offers flexible content modeling, a high-performance API, and built-in content federation for complex projects.

To see how Hygraph works with Astro, check out the Hygraph integration guide and get started today!