10 best Contentful alternative CMSs to check out!

10 best Contentful alternative CMSs to check out!

Top CMSs if you're looking for alternatives for Contentful

The beginning of managing content on digital media starts with a compatible CMS. With the growing number of competitors in the publishing market, the options have certainly expanded for the better. With CMSs, one needs as many options as one can get. While not every content creator can afford to have a custom built CMS, with the right research, one can get a CMS that fits their content goals perfectly.


Contentful works with API providers to provide the content with additional functionality. With specialized cloud services functions as “building blocks” for app development coordinated through a PaaS provider, the platform helps manage content on the digital platform. It is a headless CMS that helps you publish your content across various devices.

A quick table for leading headless cms with specific features and pricing to help you quick narrow down options that you may be looking for.

Platform 
SaaS or Self Hosted 
Headless or Hybrid
Open or Closed source
Pricing starts at
Bold  SaaS  Headless closed From $99/month
Ghost Self host Headless open $29/month
Contentstack SaaS Headless closed $3500/month
Butter  SaaS Headless closed $40/month
Dot  Self hosted  Headless open Free Plan
Prismic  SaaS Headless closed Free Plan
Agility  SaaS Headless closed Free Plan
Kentico Kontent  SaaS Hybrid closed Free Plan
Zesty  SaaS Hybrid  closed Free Plan
Graph  SaaS Headless closed Free Plan
Contentful SaaS Headless closed Free Plan

Digital publishing as an industry thrives due to the different colors brought in by various content creators. For the same reason, there exist plenty of options when it comes to content management systems. Each designed to fit the needs of different publishers. If contentful sounds good to you, here are a few alternatives you can go through to filter out features and prices that would best suit you.

Bold 

On bold, you can create an easy workflow. With features like live preview across all platforms as well as content collections, there really is no better way to manage content. There’s no need to individually publish stories across social media handles, Bold brings it all together. Bold also works seamlessly with it's sister products that help with - front-end management, layout customization, monetisation and, interaction.


With multilingual support, Bold users have established themselves in various regional spheres. No more language barrier, at least not on you CMS!

Features include :

  • Omni-channel distribution

  • SEO validations

  • Analytics

  • Customization

  • Live Blogging

  • Geo Tagging

    Pros

    • Assured performance

    • Mobile CMS

    • 24*7 customer support

    • Maximum editorial control

    • Tried and tested templates

    • No need to code

Prismic

https://prismic.io

With Prismic CMS, teams of developers and marketers can launch websites, also allowing front-end developers to customize the front-end and use any programming language. Launched in 2013, Prismic is a SaaS-based headless CMS that is used by leading companies like Google and eBay.

Features

  • It supports Multi-language to get a better reach.

  • Capable of Integrating with other resources

  • Scheduling and previews are possible

    Pros

    • Installing and setting up hardly consumes time.

    • User-friendly experience.

    • Drag and drop, rich text editors make writing easier.

    Cons

    • A rich text editor is relatively basic.

    • Not suitable for brands without developers.

Kentico Kontent

https://kontent.ai

Kentico kontent is a headless CMS that provides easy to use content management tools for marketers while freeing developers to focus on building online experiences. Launched in 2004, Kentico kontent is a SaaS-based hybrid CMS.


Features:

  • Effective mobile templates are available and easily customizable

  • The system has a large and interactive community of users.

  • It supports multi-language to get a better reach.

    Pros

    • User-friendly so ideal for non-technical users

    • Responsive customer support for all pricing plans

    • Fast data transfer in both directions

    • Intelligent and feature-rich content editing

    Cons

    • Interface becomes cluttered when operating at scale

    • Falls short when it comes to reporting

    • Pricing plans won’t suit everyone

    • Needs better version control

Zesty

https://www.zesty.io/platform/content-management/

Zesty is a web content management system, it is API driven with an open-source user interface enterprise SaaS platform, for helping build websites collaboratively. It provides solutions for team communication, workflow, and maintenance of a company's website.

Features

  • An omnichannel content management platform

  • Customizable templates

  • Multi-tenant ability to organize content based on projects or destinations

    Pro

    • The main benefit of Zesty.io is its Content API

    • Web-based content authoring

    • Templates

    • Automatic search engine optimization.

    Cons

    • Falls short for reporting stories live

    • Not Intuitive for users who lack knowledge in coding

Agility CMS

https://agilitycms.com

Agility CMS is a Content-First Headless CMS, it allows you to choose any programming language while also getting the flexibility, speed, and power that comes from lightweight APIs. Launched in 2013, the fastest CMS to build and manage your content.

Features:

  • With built-in Page Management, Agility CMS roll can help out solutions faster while managing from a central platform with flexibility and scale.

  • Content preview tools make it easy to structure and manage content across all your digital channels.

  • You can build a server-rendered website, single-page-application, or statically generated websites with agility CMS

    Pros

    • Well structured layout. Easy to create new custom pages with the modules and page layouts.

    • Settings tab are easy to use and easy to configure the pages

    Cons

    • Pricing is high.

    • Not intuitive for users who lack the knowledge of coding.

Dot CMS

https://dotcms.com

Dot CMS is a hybrid content management that allows organizations to build, manage, and deploy content-enabled applications such as websites, single-page apps, mobile apps and, more. The API-first approach helps users to manage content, images, and assets in a centralized location and deliver them to different channels.

Features:

  • Content scheduling

  • Multi-site hosting

  • Multilingual support (i18n/UTF-8)

    Pros

    • Responsive

    • The software includes features and abilities that are useful.

      Cons

    • For regular content creators it is a slight struggle to learn the software.

Butter CMS

https://buttercms.com

Butter CMS is a headless content management system and blog engine that integrates into new or existing web projects within minutes. It can be integrated with any tech stack whether it’s programming languages, coding framework, libraries, tools, and architecture. Butter CMS comes with a WYSIWYG editor to let you create web page content without having to write HTML codes or employing developer expertise.

Features:

  • ButterCMS comes with built-in SEO and other features like content preview, revision histories, localization, and post scheduling.

  • Flexible content modeling

  • Localization for multiple languages

  • Host a variety of audio file types and power your podcasts with ButterCMS.

    Pros

    • Blog engine comes bundled or as a standalone product

    • WYSIWYG editing

    • Asset management

    • Content localization

    • Webhooks

    Cons

    • The user interface can be improved

    • 1,000 content field cap on the highest plan

Contentstack

https://www.contentstack.com/features/

Contentstack is an API-first, headless CMS technology that accelerates and simplifies content management across today's and tomorrow's digital channels including web, mobile, and IoT. You get a content management system (CMS) and digital experience platform (DXP) that helps create compelling customer journeys.

Features:

  • Powerful headless CMS features to manage your content across the entire organization.

  • RESTful APIs covering content management, content publishing, and image manipulation/optimization.

  • Accelerate development with the only Node.js web application framework available for headless CMS.

    Pros

    • Omnichannel delivery

    • Cross-platform support

    • System stability

    • Scalability

    • Cons-ADD

Graph CMS

Graph CMS is a GraphQL based headless content management system. It lets you build a hosted GraphQL backend for your apps and gives you all the tools you need to manage your content. GraphCMS is a tool in the Cloud Content Management System category of a tech stack. From high-traffic publishing and marketing websites to multi-language e-commerce platforms, to interactive mobile apps, and voice apps – GraphCMS is the solid content infrastructure used by organizations like Unilever, Discovery, and, Shure.

Features:

  • Blazing fast GraphQL content API with query and mutation support.

  • GraphCMS's developer tier is free.

  • API with query and mutation support.

  • Localize and translate content into any language.

    Pros

    • Ease of use, flexible, price and simple iOS integration.

    • Designing new content architecture is quick and easy with GraphCMS.

    Cons

    • GraphCMS is built to handle structured data, so its added value is lower if you are handling freeform marketing websites.

Ghost

https://ghost.org

Ghost is an open-source publishing platform that is easy to use. It was launched in 2013 and is a minimalist blogging platform which lets you focus solely on writing without distraction. The purpose of Ghost CMS is to create a publishing platform.

Features:

Ghost CMS has excellent built-in SEO options. You do not need to install any extra load to the CMS for SEO. Ghost has multiple themes that are completely responsive and beautiful.

Pros:

  • SEO Optimized

  • Lightweight and Minimal

  • Based on modern technologies

  • Easy to customize and create themes

  • Perfect for blogging ONLY

  • Membership management

Cons:

  • No native comment functionality

  • Self-hosting requires technical knowledge

  • Limited themes

  • Expensive hosting

Did we miss out on any?

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