What is Contentful and what are its top alternatives?
Contentful is a leading content management platform that allows users to create, manage, and deliver content across various digital channels. Its key features include a flexible content model, real-time collaboration tools, content localization, and robust APIs for seamless integrations. However, Contentful's pricing can be a limitation for small businesses and startups looking for a more budget-friendly solution.
- Strapi: Strapi is a free and open-source headless CMS that offers customizable content structures, user-friendly admin panel, and RESTful APIs. Pros of Strapi include flexibility, scalability, and cost-effectiveness, while cons may include a steeper learning curve for beginners.
- Sanity: Sanity provides real-time collaboration, structured content, and powerful APIs for building custom digital experiences. Pros of Sanity include a customizable schema builder and instant content delivery, while potential cons may include a higher learning curve for complex projects.
- Prismic: Prismic is a headless CMS with a visual editor, content scheduling, and integrations with various platforms. Pros of Prismic include an intuitive interface and quick setup, while cons might include limited customization options for advanced users.
- Kentico Kontent: Kentico Kontent offers content modeling, localization, and omnichannel delivery for businesses seeking a scalable CMS solution. Pros of Kentico Kontent include enterprise-level features and integrations, while cons may include higher pricing tiers for advanced functionalities.
- GraphCMS: GraphCMS provides a GraphQL API, content federation, and webhooks for building dynamic digital experiences. Pros of GraphCMS include ease of use for developers and flexibility in content modeling, while potential cons may include limited customization options for non-technical users.
- ButterCMS: ButterCMS offers a simple and easy-to-use API-driven CMS for developers to manage content seamlessly. Pros of ButterCMS include a sleek interface and smooth integration process, while cons may include limited customization options for complex projects.
- Directus: Directus is an open-source headless CMS with data modeling, content blocks, and role-based permissions for secure content management. Pros of Directus include a customizable interface and extensible architecture, while cons might include a lack of pre-built templates for quick setup.
- Storyblok: Storyblok features a visual editor, content blocks, and multichannel delivery for creating dynamic content experiences. Pros of Storyblok include content versioning and user-friendly interface, while potential cons may include limitations in the free plan for small projects.
- Cockpit: Cockpit is a self-hosted headless CMS with customizable fields, webhooks, and flexible APIs for content management. Pros of Cockpit include ease of setup and freedom to host on any server, while cons may include a smaller community compared to other CMS platforms.
- Bloomreach: Bloomreach offers AI-powered search, personalization, and merchandising tools for creating optimized digital experiences. Pros of Bloomreach include advanced AI capabilities and robust analytics, while cons may include a higher entry cost for smaller businesses.
Top Alternatives to Contentful
- Wine
It is a free and open-source compatibility layer that aims to allow computer programs developed for Microsoft Windows to run on Unix-like operating systems. Wine also provides a software library, known as Winelib, against which developers can compile Windows applications to help port them to Unix-like systems. ...
- WordPress
The core software is built by hundreds of community volunteers, and when you’re ready for more there are thousands of plugins and themes available to transform your site into almost anything you can imagine. Over 60 million people have chosen WordPress to power the place on the web they call “home” — we’d love you to join the family. ...
- Netlify
Netlify is smart enough to process your site and make sure all assets gets optimized and served with perfect caching-headers from a cookie-less domain. We make sure your HTML is served straight from our CDN edge nodes without any round-trip to our backend servers and are the only ones to give you instant cache invalidation when you push a new deploy. Netlify is also the only static hosting service with integrated continuous deployment. ...
- Strapi
Strapi is100% JavaScript, extensible, and fully customizable. It enables developers to build projects faster by providing a customizable API out of the box and giving them the freedom to use the their favorite tools. ...
- Drupal
Drupal is an open source content management platform powering millions of websites and applications. It’s built, used, and supported by an active and diverse community of people around the world. ...
- AEM
It is a web-based client-server system for building, managing and deploying commercial websites and related services. It combines a number of infrastructure-level and application-level functions into a single integrated package. ...
- Firebase
Firebase is a cloud service designed to power real-time, collaborative applications. Simply add the Firebase library to your application to gain access to a shared data structure; any changes you make to that data are automatically synchronized with the Firebase cloud and with other clients within milliseconds. ...
- Netlify CMS
It is built as a single-page React app. You can create custom-styled previews, UI widgets, and editor plugins or add backends to support different Git platform APIs. ...
Contentful alternatives & related posts
Wine
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WordPress
- Customizable416
- Easy to manage367
- Plugins & themes354
- Non-tech colleagues can update website content259
- Really powerful247
- Rapid website development145
- Best documentation78
- Codex51
- Product feature set44
- Custom/internal social network35
- Open source18
- Great for all types of websites8
- Huge install and user base7
- I like it like I like a kick in the groin5
- It's simple and easy to use by any novice5
- Perfect example of user collaboration5
- Open Source Community5
- Most websites make use of it5
- Best5
- API-based CMS4
- Community4
- Easy To use3
- <a href="https://secure.wphackedhel">Easy Beginner</a>2
- Hard to keep up-to-date if you customize things13
- Plugins are of mixed quality13
- Not best backend UI10
- Complex Organization2
- Do not cover all the basics in the core1
- Great Security1
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I've heard that I have the ability to write well, at times. When it flows, it flows. I decided to start blogging in 2013 on Blogger. I started a company and joined BizPark with the Microsoft Azure allotment. I created a WordPress blog and did a migration at some point. A lot happened in the time after that migration but I stopped coding and changed cities during tumultuous times that taught me many lessons concerning mental health and productivity. I eventually graduated from BizSpark and outgrew the credit allotment. That killed the WordPress blog.
I blogged about writing again on the existing Blogger blog but it didn't feel right. I looked at a few options where I wouldn't have to worry about hosting cost indefinitely and Jekyll stood out with GitHub Pages. The Importer was fairly straightforward for the existing blog posts.
Todo * Set up redirects for all posts on blogger. The URI format is different so a complete redirect wouldn't work. Although, there may be something in Jekyll that could manage the redirects. I did notice the old URLs were stored in the front matter. I'm working on a command-line Ruby gem for the current plan. * I did find some of the lost WordPress posts on archive.org that I downloaded with the waybackmachinedownloader. I think I might write an importer for that. * I still have a few Disqus comment threads to map
hello guys, I need your help. I created a website, I've been using Elementor forever, but yesterday I bought a template after I made the purchase I knew I made a mistake, cause the template was in HTML, can anyone please show me how to put this HTML template in my WordPress so it will be the face of my website, thank you in advance.
Netlify
- Easy deploy46
- Fastest static hosting and continuous deployments43
- Free SSL support22
- Super simple deploys22
- Easy Setup and Continous deployments15
- Faster than any other option in the market10
- Free plan for personal websites10
- Deploy previews8
- Free Open Source (Pro) plan6
- Easy to use and great support4
- Analytics4
- Great loop-in material on a blog4
- Custom domains support3
- Fastest static hosting and continuous deployments3
- Great drag and drop functionality3
- Canary Releases (Split Tests)1
- Supports static site generators1
- Tech oriented support1
- Django0
- It's expensive7
- Bandwidth limitation1
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I was building a personal project that I needed to store items in a real time database. I am more comfortable with my Frontend skills than my backend so I didn't want to spend time building out anything in Ruby or Go.
I stumbled on Firebase by #Google, and it was really all I needed. It had realtime data, an area for storing file uploads and best of all for the amount of data I needed it was free!
I built out my application using tools I was familiar with, React for the framework, Redux.js to manage my state across components, and styled-components for the styling.
Now as this was a project I was just working on in my free time for fun I didn't really want to pay for hosting. I did some research and I found Netlify. I had actually seen them at #ReactRally the year before and deployed a Gatsby site to Netlify already.
Netlify was very easy to setup and link to my GitHub account you select a repo and pretty much with very little configuration you have a live site that will deploy every time you push to master.
With the selection of these tools I was able to build out my application, connect it to a realtime database, and deploy to a live environment all with $0 spent.
If you're looking to build out a small app I suggest giving these tools a go as you can get your idea out into the real world for absolutely no cost.
At FundsCorner, we are on a mission to enable fast accessible credit to India’s Kirana Stores. We are an early stage startup with an ultra small Engineering team. All the tech decisions we have made until now are based on our core philosophy: "Build usable products fast".
Based on the above fundamentals, we chose Python as our base language for all our APIs and micro-services. It is ultra easy to start with, yet provides great libraries even for the most complex of use cases. Our entire backend stack runs on Python and we cannot be more happy with it! If you are looking to deploy your API as server-less, Python provides one of the least cold start times.
We build our APIs with Flask. For backend database, our natural choice was MongoDB. It frees up our time from complex database specifications - we instead use our time in doing sensible data modelling & once we finalize the data model, we integrate it into Flask using Swagger UI. Mongo supports complex queries to cull out difficult data through aggregation framework & we have even built an internal framework called "Poetry", for aggregation queries.
Our web apps are built on Vue.js , Vuetify and vuex. Initially we debated a lot around choosing Vue.js or React , but finally settled with Vue.js, mainly because of the ease of use, fast development cycles & awesome set of libraries and utilities backing Vue.
You simply cannot go wrong with Vue.js . Great documentation, the library is ultra compact & is blazing fast. Choosing Vue.js was one of the critical decisions made, which enabled us to launch our web app in under a month (which otherwise would have taken 3 months easily). For those folks who are looking for big names, Adobe, and Alibaba and Gitlab are using Vue.
By choosing Vuetify, we saved thousands of person hours in designing the CSS files. Vuetify contains all key material components for designing a smooth User experience & it just works! It's an awesome framework. All of us at FundsCorner are now lifelong fanboys of Vue.js and Vuetify.
On the infrastructure side, all our API services and backend services are deployed as server less micro-services through Zappa. Zappa makes your life super easy by packaging everything that is required to deploy your code as AWS Lambda. We are now addicted to the single - click deploys / updates through Zappa. Try it out & you will convert!
Also, if you are using Zappa, you can greatly simplify your CI / CD pipelines. Do try it! It's just awesome! and... you will be astonished by the savings you have made on AWS bills at end of the month.
Our CI / CD pipelines are built using GitLab CI. The documentation is very good & it enables you to go from from concept to production in minimal time frame.
We use Sentry for all crash reporting and resolution. Pro tip, they do have handlers for AWS Lambda , which made our integration super easy.
All our micro-services including APIs are event-driven. Our background micro-services are message oriented & we use Amazon SQS as our message pipe. We have our own in-house workflow manager to orchestrate across micro - services.
We host our static websites on Netlify. One of the cool things about Netlify is the automated CI / CD on git push. You just do a git push to deploy! Again, it is super simple to use and it just works. We were dogmatic about going server less even on static web sites & you can go server less on Netlify in a few minutes. It's just a few clicks away.
We use Google Compute Engine, especially Google Vision for our AI experiments.
For Ops automation, we use Slack. Slack provides a super-rich API (through Slack App) through which you can weave magical automation on boring ops tasks.
- Free57
- Open source40
- Self-hostable28
- Rapid development27
- API-based cms25
- Headless21
- Real-time18
- Easy setup16
- Large community13
- JSON13
- GraphQL6
- Social Auth4
- Internationalization4
- Components2
- Media Library2
- Raspberry pi1
- Can be limiting9
- Internationalisation8
- A bit buggy6
- DB Migrations not seemless5
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Hi Stackers, We are planning to build a product information portal that also provides useful articles and blogs. Application Frontend is going to be built on Next.js with Authentication and Product Database helped by Firebase. But for the Blog / Article we are debating between WordPress/GraphQL plug-in or Strapi.
Please share your thoughts.
Hi, I went through a comprehensive analysis - of headless/api content management systems - essentially to store content "bits" and publish them where needed (website, 3rd party sites, social media, etc.). I had considered many other solutions but ultimately chose Directus. I believe that was a good choice.
I had strongly considered Contentful, Strapi, Sanity, and hygraph. Hygraph came in #2 and contentful #3.
Ultimately I liked directus for:
(1) time in business
(2) open source
(3) integration with n8n and Pipedream
(4) pricing
(5) extensibility
Thoughts? Was this a good choice? We have many WordPress sites we're not (at least now) looking to replace with Directus, but instead to push to.
I'd love some feedback.
- Stable, highly functional cms75
- Great community60
- Easy cms to make websites44
- Highly customizable43
- Digital customer experience delivery platform22
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- Customizable16
- Flexible11
- Good tool for prototyping10
- Enterprise proven over many years when others failed9
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- Open source8
- Each version becomes more intuitive for clients to use7
- Well documented7
- Lego blocks methodology6
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- Powerful3
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- Views2
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Hi, I am working as a web developer (PHP, Laravel, AngularJS, and MySQL) with more than 8 years of experience and looking for a tech stack that pays better. I have a little bit of knowledge of Core Java. For better opportunities, Should I learn Java, Spring Boot or Python. Or should I learn Drupal, WordPress or Magento? Any guidance would be really appreciated! Thanks.
Depends on what options and technologies you have available, and how do you deploy your website.
There are CMSs which update existing static pages through FTP: You provide access credentials, mark editable parts of your HTML in a markup, and then edit the content through the hosted CMS. I know two systems which work like that: Cushy CMS and Surreal CMS.
If the source of your site is versioned through Git (and hosted on GitHub), you have other options, like Netlify CMS, Spinal CMS, Siteleaf, Forestry, or CloudCannon. Some of these also need you to use static site generator (like 11ty, Jekyll, or Hugo).
If you have some server-side scripting support available (typically PHP) you can also consider some flat-file based, server-side systems, like Kirby CMS or Lektor, which are usually simpler to retrofit into an existing template than “traditional” CMSs (WordPress, Drupal).
Finally, you could also use a desktop-based static site generator which provides a user-friendly GUI, and then locally generates and uploads the website. For example Publii, YouDoCMS, Agit CMS.
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- Great customer support36
- Great documentation32
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- Mobile friendly21
- Rapid prototyping19
- Great security14
- Automatic scaling12
- Freakingly awesome11
- Super fast development8
- Angularfire is an amazing addition!8
- Chat8
- Firebase hosting6
- Built in user auth/oauth6
- Awesome next-gen backend6
- Ios adaptor6
- Speed of light4
- Very easy to use4
- Great3
- It's made development super fast3
- Brilliant for startups3
- Free hosting2
- Cloud functions2
- JS Offline and Sync suport2
- Low battery consumption2
- .net2
- The concurrent updates create a great experience2
- Push notification2
- I can quickly create static web apps with no backend2
- Great all-round functionality2
- Free authentication solution2
- Easy Reactjs integration1
- Google's support1
- Free SSL1
- CDN & cache out of the box1
- Easy to use1
- Large1
- Faster workflow1
- Serverless1
- Good Free Limits1
- Simple and easy1
- Can become expensive31
- No open source, you depend on external company16
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- Not Flexible Enough9
- Cant filter queries7
- Very unstable server3
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Hi Otensia! I'd definitely recommend using the skills you've already got and building with JavaScript is a smart way to go these days. Most platform services have JavaScript/Node SDKs or NPM packages, many serverless platforms support Node in case you need to write any backend logic, and JavaScript is incredibly popular - meaning it will be easy to hire for, should you ever need to.
My advice would be "don't reinvent the wheel". If you already have a skill set that will work well to solve the problem at hand, and you don't need it for any other projects, don't spend the time jumping into a new language. If you're looking for an excuse to learn something new, it would be better to invest that time in learning a new platform/tool that compliments your knowledge of JavaScript. For this project, I might recommend using Netlify, Vercel, or Google Firebase to quickly and easily deploy your web app. If you need to add user authentication, there are great examples out there for Firebase Authentication, Auth0, or even Magic (a newcomer on the Auth scene, but very user friendly). All of these services work very well with a JavaScript-based application.
For inboxkitten.com, an opensource disposable email service;
We migrated our serverless workload from Cloud Functions for Firebase to CloudFlare workers, taking advantage of the lower cost and faster-performing edge computing of Cloudflare network. Made possible due to our extremely low CPU and RAM overhead of our serverless functions.
If I were to summarize the limitation of Cloudflare (as oppose to firebase/gcp functions), it would be ...
- <5ms CPU time limit
- Incompatible with express.js
- one script limitation per domain
Limitations our workload is able to conform with (YMMV)
For hosting of static files, we migrated from Firebase to CommonsHost
More details on the trade-off in between both serverless providers is in the article
- Open source3
- Free2
- GraphQL API1
- No relations between items2
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Depends on what options and technologies you have available, and how do you deploy your website.
There are CMSs which update existing static pages through FTP: You provide access credentials, mark editable parts of your HTML in a markup, and then edit the content through the hosted CMS. I know two systems which work like that: Cushy CMS and Surreal CMS.
If the source of your site is versioned through Git (and hosted on GitHub), you have other options, like Netlify CMS, Spinal CMS, Siteleaf, Forestry, or CloudCannon. Some of these also need you to use static site generator (like 11ty, Jekyll, or Hugo).
If you have some server-side scripting support available (typically PHP) you can also consider some flat-file based, server-side systems, like Kirby CMS or Lektor, which are usually simpler to retrofit into an existing template than “traditional” CMSs (WordPress, Drupal).
Finally, you could also use a desktop-based static site generator which provides a user-friendly GUI, and then locally generates and uploads the website. For example Publii, YouDoCMS, Agit CMS.
Hi,
for my last project, my client wanted a CMS to edit basically the entire webpage. I used Netlify CMS for this, but I ran into a lot of issues. I am not sure if CMSs are just hard in general.
What matters to me is pricing (ideally free forever) and that the CMS is easy to use and SIMPLE.
Is Storyblok better than NetlifyCMS? Or should I try Contentful?