Top 5 Sanity Alternatives

Sanity is a popular choice for developer teams that need a headless CMS platform. It has real-time collaboration features, a fully managed content lake, and integration with modern developer stacks like Next.js, Vercel, and Netlify. However, non-dev users may struggle with it.

Why? Here are a couple of reasons.

• Developer-centered interface: While developers may have no issues with Sanity's UI, editors might not be thrilled about it. There are no content stages, and it's difficult to customize content views or do things in bulk. However, even developers complain about the lack of TypeScript support and poorly maintained libraries.

• Hosting limitations: Your data lives on Sanity's servers without the option to select specific data center locations. This can be a dealbreaker if your client requires specific regional hosting.

• Proprietary query language: if your team is already fluent in GraphQL, learning GROQ may feel like a detour.

• Restricted GraphQL: Sanity's GraphQL API is limited to content delivery with no support for mutations. Users on Reddit have also complained about slow editing, freezing fields, and lag in the case of custom-built backends.

• Content management gaps: Custom content stages, batch operations, inline content embedding, custom views, localized search, and nested components are either missing or limited, which makes it difficult to manage complex content workflows.

#Top 5 Sanity Alternatives

Here are the best Sanity alternatives we'll be reviewing in this article:

1. Hygraph
2. Contentful
3. Strapi
4. Directus
5. Prismic

Let's begin.

#1. Hygraph

Hygraph is a modern, API-first, headless CMS for creating and delivering structured content at scale. Unlike Sanity, Hygraph has a native GraphQL-first API, which is fully supported (including mutations). It comes with localization and staged content workflows, and a more intuitive UI for non-developers. Custom views, nested components, and content versioning also come right out of the box.

Pros:

• GraphQL-native: Hygraph is built from the ground up with GraphQL, which allows you to modify the contents of your project and interact with content outside the Hygraph UI.
• Very scalable: Fast and reliable content delivery through globally distributed CDNs. You can choose between 9 hosting locations on the self-serve and 77+ locations on the enterprise plan.

• Flexible content modeling: You can link different content models and define the relationship as an ''x-to-one'' reference. Create lists of pre-defined models that content editors can choose from.

• Multi-tenancy: Set up custom roles with granular permissions for every role to specify what content they can access and what actions they can perform.

• Developer-friendly: With a rich set of APIs, software development kits, and command line interface (CLI) tools, you can tailor Hygraph to your unique business case. Build custom apps that add functionality to Hygraph or connect to other systems. Safely make changes to the GraphQL schema and test new content types in sandbox environments.

Cons:

• Fewer integrations: Compared to Strapi or Contentful, there's a limited choice of plugins and extensions.
• No native visual editing: Hygraph mainly focuses on structured content, so it's less suitable for projects where more traditional visual editing stages are needed.

Hygraph use cases

✅ Composable websites: Stobag, a Swiss manufacturer of sun blinds, awnings, and weather protection gear, has chosen Hygraph's headless CMS to transform its website from a complementary marketing tool into an integrated customer portal with various apps and frontends.

Hygraph was chosen primarily for its strong GraphQL API and highly structured content model. As a result of Stobag's digital transformation, their online revenue has increased from 15% to 70% of their company share.

✅ Data projects: Hygraph was chosen by the Oetker Group, a global leader in the Food and Beverage industry to break down data silos and centralize local technical solutions.

The teams created meaningful touchpoints with first-party data which helps the company better understand its consumers. Now Oetker uses Hygraph to manage brands across 40 different countries and subsidiaries.

✅ Applications and platforms: The German Chemical Society (GDCh) chose Hygraph to build an app to help its 30,000-strong membership access scientific articles, research papers, educational materials, events, conferences, and other resources.

Hygraph's API-based approach enabled a frontend compatible with data of different quality, origin, and languages. The backend is supported by a combination of 7 cloud-based microservices that automatically update and upgrade the data for members, articles, videos, push notifications, and more.

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✅ Content federation: Telenor, a leading Nordic telecom provider, faced challenges in managing metadata for their streaming platform, which added close to 2,000 videos a month.

With Hygraph, they centralized content management and achieved smooth integration of metadata from various sources via GraphQL APIs. Thanks to the new sleek UI, adding quick fixes to the content and developing new features became much easier.

Start exploring Sanity's best alternative by signing up for a free-forever account.

#2. Contentful

Contentful is a headless CMS built for teams that manage content at scale across channels. Being a composable content platform, you can use it to create flexible content models and deliver content to websites, apps, and digital products via REST or GraphQL APIs. Unlike Sanity, Contentful uses non-proprietary technologies and offers a native visual editor that's also intuitive for non-technical users. Localization support, granular roles, and 100+ integrations are available depending on the plan.

Pros:

• API-first architecture
• Intuitive UI
• Side-by-side live preview
• Custom content modeling
• Roles, permissions, and localization

Cons:

• Expensive for startups or small teams
• Poor Rich Text customization
• No modular components

Contentful use cases

✅ Multi-channel content distribution: For example, A national airline could use Contentful to manage flight updates, travel advisories, and promotional content across its website, mobile booking app, airport kiosks, and in-flight entertainment systems. All these frontends would be powered by a unified backend via APIs.

✅ Enterprise-size sites and apps: An international healthcare provider could use Contentful to centralize patient education resources. The platform would have localized versions for different regions and languages where regional teams could use role-specific access to update and publish materials across web and mobile platforms.

✅ Headless architecture projects: In this scenario, a fintech startup could use Contentful with Nuxt.js to build a high-traffic customer portal where policy documents, knowledge base articles, and onboarding content are dynamically pulled from the platform's GraphQL API.

#3. Strapi

Strapi is an open-source headless CMS that gives you a lot of flexibility and control to set the platform to specific requirements. As a self-hosted, developer-first platform, it lets you define custom content models and APIs for any application or front-end framework. While Sanity uses a proprietary query language, Strapi offers both REST and GraphQL out of the box, with full control over roles, permissions, and data flow.

Pros:

• Open-source and self-hosted
• Customizable REST and GraphQL APIs
• Visual content modeling
• Supports modern JavaScript frameworks

Cons:

• Customization often requires work on the backend
• No built-in cloud hosting
• Lacks advanced content approval workflows or native localization features
• No enterprise-grade add-ons, so you must handle large-scale performance tuning and multi-region deployment manually

Strapi use cases

✅ Custom web applications: Strapi is ideal for building tailored web apps where you can define custom routes, controllers, and services while maintaining a structured content backend. For example, a logistics company may use Strapi to build a custom client dashboard that tracks shipments, manages documentation, and generates reports. In this case, the APIs and user roles to control access would be based on customer tiers.

✅ Self-hosted or on-premise deployments: A good choice for organizations that need to host and manage their own CMS infrastructure and follow strict data governance, compliance, or security requirements. For example, a government agency can use Strapi to manage multilingual public service announcements and legal documents on its internal servers.

✅ Projects that require open-source flexibility: Strapi makes a strong fit for startups, agencies, or in-house teams that want to avoid vendor lock-in and freely to modify or expand their CMS. For example, a nonprofit tech may use Strapi to run a collaborative publishing platform. Developers would be free to create community moderation features and integrate the platform with open-source authentication and analytics tools.

#4. Directus

Directus is an open-source headless CMS that you can use with any SQL database without a proprietary schema. Unlike Sanity, which conditions you to learn its custom query language and manage your data in its own cloud, Directus connects directly to your existing database, which gives you more visibility and control. Also, Directus has a no-code admin interface for content editors and strong APIs (REST and GraphQL) for developers. This makes it a good choice for teams that want both ease of use and a flexible backend.

Pros:

• Works with any SQL database
• Compatible with any tech stack
• No-code admin panel
• Self-hosted

Cons:

• No native CDN
• Limited localization features
• Setting up complex workflows requires database expertise

Directus use cases

✅ Integrating with existing SQL databases: Directus is perfect if you need to modernize legacy systems. For example, a hospital network can use Directus to build a content layer for patient-facing health portals. In this scenario, they can pull patient visit history, lab results, and care plans directly from the existing PostgreSQL without restructuring their legacy data.

✅ Custom backend applications: In this case, a media tech company can use Directus to build a multi-source content curation tool. With Directus, their team can manage content ingestion rules and source metadata.

#5. Prismic

Prismic is a hosted headless CMS that non-tech content teams can use. It has a visual content editor called Slices, that allows you to build pages without developers' help. It's a good choice for websites and content processes that need to replicate high-performing content fast.

Compared to Sanity, which uses a custom query language (GROQ) and needs more setup, Prismic has a much more intuitive UI. Also, Prismic supports GraphQL and has a strong integration with Next.js.

All in all, Prismic is a good choice if you want to ship content with little to no intervention on the backend.

Pros:

• Fully-managed CMS
• Intuitive visual editor
• Built-in preview, versioning, and scheduling
• Quick setup with pre-configured integrations for Next.js, Gatsby, and Nuxt.js

Cons:

• No UI customizations
• Lacks custom roles, stages, or workflows
• No direct control over the underlying database

Prismic use cases

✅ Marketing websites and landing pages: Using the Slices feature, you can easily create or update landing pages without developers' help. For example, a B2B SaaS can use Prismic to publish product pages for each feature they release. The marketing team can update hero sections, user testimonials, and pricing tables, while checking everything in a real-time preview before pushing changes live.

✅ Editorial sites with high content volume: For example, a travel content hub can publish destination guides, hotel reviews, and travel tips across multiple regions. Their editorial team use Prismic to schedules content releases, while developers use the GraphQL API to generate SEO-optimized pages statically with Next.js for optimal performance.

✅ Campaign-based content ops: In this scenario, a gaming publisher may use Prismic to run weekly in-game promotions and seasonal campaigns. Using pre-built Slices, the content team can quickly compose and publish new promo pages. The promotion launches align with game update schedules, while any changes are easy to make in real time based on player feedback.

#Sanity vs. Hygraph

As we saw, Hygraph is a powerful alternative to Sanity that offers a good balance between developer freedom with enterprise-grade features.

Let's sum up a few areas where Hygraph has a clear advantage.

• Strong GraphQL

Unlike Sanity's proprietary GROQ query language and developer-heavy setup, Hygraph is GraphQL-native from day one. You get full schema control (including mutations), and a solid set of APIs, which makes it ideal for modern, API-first content architectures. Developers can build with confidence using Hygraph's SDKs and CLI tools, while safely testing changes in sandbox environments.

• Both dev- and editor-friendly

Sanity's editorial interface can be difficult for non-technical users. Hygraph, on the other hand, is built with both developers and content teams in mind. It comes with out-of-the-box support for content staging, localization, nested components, and custom views. This allows editors to work with more autonomy and reduces the dependency on developer support for daily publishing tasks.

• Scalability

On the infrastructure side, Hygraph offers enterprise-grade scalability through globally distributed CDNs, which allows teams to select data center locations — something Sanity does not offer. And when it comes to managing complex, distributed teams or clients, Hygraph's multi-tenancy and granular role-based permissions make it a clear winner for organizations which operate multiple brands or require a high level of security.

To conclude, while Sanity wins in real-time collaboration and the number of developer extensions, Hygraph is a more balanced, scalable, and structured platform.

This makes Hygraph a great choice, especially for businesses or projects that need a content solution that works just as well for editors as it does for engineers.

Still undecided?

Compare Sanity vs. Hygraph in detail to explore their differences in core features, content modeling, security, plans and pricing and more!