Sanity implements comprehensive security measures while meeting the best practice compliance obligations in the industry. These rigorous security and compliance procedures are employed to ensure that users feel trusted and confident about sharing their most critical assets.
An effective IT security program is a stepping stone to success in businesses and Sanity takes this responsibility very seriously. Sanity uses security and compliance protocols to ensure whether you’re aiming for GIAC Security Essentialsor ISO 27001, you’re covered. In the next section, we will explore in depth about how Sanity helps businesses meet digital security standards.
SOC 2 type 1 Compliance
Sanity is certified with SOC 2 Type 1 and therefore demonstrates that they are appropriately protecting data within their systems. This certification also allows users to request for a "right to audit" at any point. This in turn assures users that their sensitive data is handled with care.
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
Sanity is thoroughly GDPR compliant and employs best practices for security and privacy to protect users’ data. It also provides users with clear information about how their data is managed as well as information about their right to access, object and restrict data. Users are provided with tools such as - data retrieval via GROQ query language, custom data retention policies, and APIs for permanent data deletion - which helps them to remain GDPR compliant themselves.
Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS)
Sanity uses Stripe payment processor to handle all credit card and payment information. Stripe has been audited by an independent PCI Qualified Security Assessor and certified as a Level 1 service provider in the payments industry - meaning they meet some of highest certification requirements available to processors worldwide.
Infrastructure Security
Sanity is hosted on Google Cloud Platform which undergoes frequent security audits for a variety of security scrutiny such as ISO 27001, ISO 27017, ISO 27018, SOC 2, SOC 3, CSA STAR, HIPAA, and PCI DSS.
No spam, only good stuff
Subscribe, for more hot takes
Data Retention and Removal
Sanity removes or anonymises all data as soon as possible after it is no longer needed, with a short grace period and backup retention periods stated in their service agreement to allow for accidental or malicious removal. Users can also contact them if they wish their personal information to be removed from their servers entirely.
Data Access Control
To ensure the security of customer data, employees have access only to systems required for their role. The central resources are accessed using two-factor authentication, which requires an account with Google or Github. All remote connections are encrypted either through HTTPS transport level security or VPN connections. Employees will never directly interact with any customers' controlled assets unless it's necessary due to support reasons and, in that case, will generally ask for the permission first.
Sanity CMS development. Data security, compliance, and Sanity infrastructure for teams that take data seriously.
High Availability, Backups and Disaster Recovery
Sanity is equipped with fully redundant and distributed systems, operating across multiple data centers. This means that if one component failed, the others would continue to work as normal - providing relief for the businesses during disasters like natural ones or cyberattacks.
Sanity has real-time data replication systems across multiple data centers as well as continuous data backups of their databases to remote storage in several locations. According to Sanity's security documentation, databases can be restored to any point in time within their stated retention period with per-transaction precision.
For disaster recovery purposes, backed-up data is copied to a separate cloud account in another geographic region. This is protected with strict access controls and dedicated authentication mechanisms. For the most current details on backup retention and access policies, refer to Sanity's Trust Center.
How much server are you responsible for?
The certifications above cover Sanity's side. They don't cover the server that runs your website, and in our view that is the bigger security question when you compare a headless CMS with WordPress. PHP2Shell showed why in October 2026. A pair of critical flaws in PHP itself put every unpatched PHP site that serves web requests at risk of remote code execution, whatever CMS sits on top. We cover the detail in Is WordPress safe after PHP2Shell?.
With managed WordPress, your host runs PHP and patches it. Kinsta, for example, applied the PHP2Shell fixes at the hosting level, and its customers didn't need to change anything. You still update WordPress core, plugins and themes yourself, and you rely on your host to move quickly.
With headless WordPress, the front end moves to something like Next.js, but WordPress still runs on PHP behind it. That server needed the PHP2Shell patch too, and either your team or your host has to apply it.
With a hosted CMS and a static or serverless front end, Sanity runs the content backend, and you build the site to static files or run it as serverless functions on a platform such as Vercel. You have no PHP server to patch, so a bug like PHP2Shell isn't yours to fix. You still own your code, its dependencies and your access settings, and you trust the CMS vendor and the hosting platform to patch their own systems.
Whichever setup you pick, ask who patches each layer and how fast they did it last time. If you're weighing a move, our guide to migrating from WordPress to Sanity covers the process.
If data security is a priority for your next project, we can walk you through how Sanity stacks up for your specific compliance requirements.
