Pick a headless CMS by how your team works, not by the newest buzzword on the homepage. Developers who want full control usually lean towards open source or self-hosted options. Marketing teams that publish often need a friendly editor, and larger organisations need structure and permissions across brands. Test each with one real page type.
Prismic's homepage now calls it an agentic web platform for marketing teams, built around AI agents and reusable components. That's a shift in emphasis, and if what you wanted was a plain headless CMS to sit behind your front end, it's fair to look around. Here are eight options, in no particular order, starting with a quick comparison.
Eight headless CMS options compared
| Tool | Kind of platform | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| Cosmic | Managed headless CMS | Content teams wanting a hosted CMS that AI agents can use |
| Directus | Self-hostable backend and CMS | Putting an editing interface over an existing database |
| Ghost | Publishing platform | Publishers who want newsletters and subscriptions built in |
| Hygraph | Headless CMS for many brands | Multi-brand organisations governing structured content |
| Payload | Open source CMS and framework | Developers building in TypeScript and React |
| Sanity | Content operations platform | Running content across web, mobile and AI apps |
| Storyblok | Headless CMS for marketers and developers | Developer and marketing teams sharing one CMS |
| Strapi | Open source headless CMS | JavaScript teams wanting an open source CMS |
All eight, in alphabetical order
Alphabetical, not ranked. Each line reflects how the vendor describes its own product.
Cosmic
Best for: Content teams wanting a managed headless CMS where AI agents can read and write content and fill the media library, according to the vendor.
Directus
Best for: Teams that want a self-hostable CMS sitting over any database, with a no-code interface plus REST and GraphQL APIs, per the vendor.
Ghost
Best for: Publishers and writers wanting a modern publishing platform with email newsletters and subscriptions built in, as the vendor describes it.
Hygraph
Best for: Multi-brand organisations that need to model, govern and deliver structured content to websites, apps and AI agents, per the vendor.
Payload
Best for: Developers working in TypeScript and React who want an open source headless CMS that doubles as an application framework.
Sanity
Best for: Teams running content operations at scale across web, mobile and AI-driven apps, which is how the vendor positions its back end.
Storyblok
Best for: Mixed developer and marketing teams who want to get content live faster together; the vendor names a free plan.
Strapi
Best for: JavaScript and TypeScript developers who want an open source headless CMS that sends content to any device, as the vendor says.
Content models, editors and hosting
Three questions sort this list better than any feature table. How are content models built: in code, or by clicking in a dashboard? What does an editor see when they write a page, and can they preview it? And where does the content live: on the vendor's servers, or on yours?
Get those three right and the rest of the decision is fine detail. It's worth writing your answers down before any demo, because a good sales call can make every option sound like the right one. Get one of them wrong and you'll feel it every day, either as a developer rebuilding models by hand or as an editor waiting on a developer to change a heading.
Code-first and open source
Strapi, Payload and Directus give developers the most control, and the vendors describe them as open source or self-hostable. If you run one on your own servers, the trade-off is that someone on your team owns the hosting, updates and backups.
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Platforms led by content teams
Sanity, Storyblok, Cosmic and Hygraph put more weight on content teams: the editing experience, collaboration and structured content delivered across channels. Ask each one where your content is hosted and who looks after it. Larger, multi-brand set-ups should look hard at permissions and governance here.
Publishing-first
Ghost is a different animal: a publishing platform with email newsletters and subscriptions at its core. If your site is mainly articles and an email list, it's worth a look before you build anything more complex.
My advice for teams leaving their CMS
Move one page type first, not the whole site. A blog post or a landing page is enough to show you how models are built, how editors feel about the new screen and how your front end pulls the content. Once that works, the rest of the migration is repetition, not discovery.
Ask your editors to write a real page in each shortlisted tool, without help. If they need a developer to finish it, that's a delay you'll live with every week. If your team is still weighing up how a content site should be put together, my guide to building a content website for your business is a good starting point, and my comparison of Wix and WordPress for small business sites covers the simpler end of the spectrum.
Checklist for your first content model
- List every field a real page uses today, including images, links, authors and SEO settings.
- Rebuild that page type in the new tool and note anything that needed a workaround.
- Have an editor write and preview a page on their own, then publish it to a test front end.
- Check how content and images are exported, so you're never locked in.
- Decide who owns hosting, backups and updates before you sign anything.
Do you make headless CMS software? Tool makers can ask to be considered for a featured place on this list.
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Frequently asked questions
What is a headless CMS?
It's a content management system that stores and manages content but doesn't control how it looks. Your website or app pulls the content through an API and displays it in its own design.
Is a headless CMS right for a small business?
Only if you have developer help. For a simple site that one person updates, a traditional website builder or WordPress is usually easier to live with.
Should I self-host my CMS?
Self-hosting gives you control over your data and set-up, but your team has to handle servers, updates and backups. A hosted service takes that work off your hands.
How hard is it to migrate content between headless CMS platforms?
It depends on how different the content models are. Plan to export your content, rebuild the models, then import and check every page type.
Can editors preview pages in a headless CMS?
Many offer a live or visual preview, but it often needs a developer to set up. Ask to see the editor's view on a real page during any demo.
