Johnny UnarThe paradox of choice
The headless CMS market has exploded. There are now over 80 options, from open-source self-hosted solutions to enterprise SaaS platforms. The good news: you have incredible flexibility. The bad news: choosing wrong means months of migration pain later. The decision isn't just technical — it's about your team's workflow, your content model complexity, and your long-term scaling needs.
Start with your content model
Start with your content model. If you have simple blog posts and landing pages, almost any CMS will work. But if you need complex relationships — products with variants, localized content across 10 languages, nested components with conditional logic — you need a CMS that treats content modeling as a first-class feature. Sanity's GROQ query language and Payload's code-first approach shine here. Contentful and Strapi handle it well but with more configuration overhead.
DX vs. editor experience
Consider the developer experience and the editor experience separately. Developers want type safety, good APIs, and local development workflows. Editors want a visual interface that doesn't require developer help for every content change. These goals often conflict. Sanity Studio and Payload Admin both offer customizable editing experiences. Contentful's editor is polished but less flexible. Strapi v5 has improved significantly but still feels more developer-oriented.
Our 2026 recommendations
Our recommendation for most projects in 2026: Payload CMS for teams that want full control and self-hosting, Sanity for content-heavy sites that need real-time collaboration, and Contentful for enterprise teams that need governance and workflows out of the box. Skip the hype — choose based on your actual content complexity, team size, and hosting preferences. At steezr, we've shipped production sites with all four and can help you make the right call.
