# Contentful to Strapi migration > How to migrate from Contentful to Strapi, with a side-by-side comparison and FAQs. --- ## Source: Contentful - **Type:** headless - **Official site:** https://www.contentful.com - **Pricing:** https://www.contentful.com/pricing - **Last reviewed:** 2026-07-28 ## Key advantages Contentful is one of the most established headless CMS choices, and we still see plenty of customers land on it after a shortlist. It's built around structured content, so you model fields once and pull them into any front end you like. That means no copy-pasted components scattered across pages. It also has first-party support for A/B testing and personalization through its Studio add-on, which most competitors don't match natively. The app ecosystem covers SEO, translation, validation, and asset management, and editors get live side-by-side preview for content they're working on. If your team has the budget and the developer resources to model content properly, it's a solid pick. ### API-first design Contentful was built for APIs from day one, which means your content plugs cleanly into apps, websites, and mobile. ### Developer-friendly flexibility Schemas, content models, and references can be tuned however you like. If your stack is anything beyond "cookie-cutter," Contentful won’t get in your way. ### User-friendly interface Editors enjoy using it. Clean UI, quick search, structured fields, and no "where does this go again?" confusion. ### Extensive integration capabilities Plug in analytics, eCommerce, automation, and translation. Contentful plays nicely with almost anything. And if something isn’t supported yet, you can wire it up yourself without hacking the platform apart. ### Scales under traffic Contentful's global CDN holds up under heavy load. We've run it on sites pushing millions of monthly requests without needing bespoke infrastructure to handle spikes. ### Cloud-based architecture You don't have to install, patch, or maintain anything. It’s fast, globally distributed, and always up to date. Your content team can ship from anywhere without a DevOps babysitter. ## Key pain points Contentful is one of those platforms where the bill can catch you off guard. The free tier caps you at 25 content types and 100K API calls, and a single marketing site can blow past both without warning. The next step up is $300 a month, and enterprise pricing often lands in the $50K to $100K+ a year range. The pattern teams keep hitting is the same: the jump is forced by one limit, not by needing the bigger feature set. The content type cap alone can push you onto a higher plan you don't otherwise need. The other issue is that Contentful has strong opinions about how content should be modelled, and those opinions aren't always documented. Projects built without that knowledge tend to accumulate performance problems and awkward workarounds. Before writing Contentful off, speak to us, a lot of the pain we see is implementation, not platform. ### Pricing climbs fast Contentful isn't a cheap CMS. Once you pass the free tier's content type or API call limit, you're on the $300/month Lite plan, and enterprise pricing often starts at $50K+ a year. ### Complex for non-technical users Marketers and editors may need a small learning curve before they feel at home. It’s powerful but not always plug-and-play. ### Integration dependency A lot of magic happens through third-party tools. Great for flexibility, but it does mean extra setup instead of getting everything out-of-the-box. ### Limited native features Contentful keeps the core CMS clean and minimal, but that also means more building and configuring to get advanced functionality. ### Learning curve for new teams If your team is moving from a traditional CMS, expect some onboarding time. Structured content is amazing but new for many. ### Requires careful management Because it’s so flexible, projects need good governance. Without it, content models can get messy and harder to maintain over time. ## Target: Strapi - **Type:** headless - **Official site:** https://strapi.io - **Pricing:** https://strapi.io/pricing - **Last reviewed:** 2026-07-28 ## Key advantages If you’re the kind of team that likes to get your hands dirty with real code instead of fighting a bloated enterprise UI, Strapi will feel like home. It’s open-source, customisable, and developer-centric. You get full access to the codebase, no licensing paywalls, and the freedom to shape your CMS exactly the way you want it. It is flexible. You can use React, Vue, Angular, mobile apps, and smart displays to push content. And despite being dev-leaning, it still gives you GUI-based drag-and-drop schema generation, which means you can spin up content models fast without digging into JSON files every five minutes. ### Node.js driven architecture Built on Node.js, Strapi plugs straight into the modern JavaScript ecosystem. If your team already lives in JS-land, Strapi fits right in. ### Easy frontend framework integration Pick your poison React, Vue, or Angular. Strapi plays nicely with all of them, making it easy to ship content. ### Highly modular approach Every part of Strapi is built like Lego. Add what you need, remove what you don’t, and customise endlessly. It’s great if you love building your CMS exactly your way instead of wrestling with rigid templates. ### RESTful API flexibility Out of the box, Strapi generates clean REST APIs that are easy to consume, easy to extend, and easy to customise. Ideal for multi-channel content delivery without rewriting half your backend. ### Supports GraphQL APIs With its GraphQL plugin, you get structured queries, reduced over-fetching, and a nicer developer experience with zero hacking required. ### Flexible content management Strapi lets you model content however you want, from simple pages to complex, relational structures. Combined with a drag-and-drop schema builder, it gives teams full control without feeling boxed in. ## Key pain points Strapi has a fan club because it’s self-hosted, which sounds great until you realise that means you are now responsible for every update, every backup, every scaling issue, and every "why is the server down again?" moment. Wouldn’t it be easier to use a cloud infrastructure that just… scales, instead of babysitting infra at midnight? And having to maintain a Node.js environment for your content editors is completely unnecessary pain, in our opinion. It also isn’t exactly friendly for non-technical teams. If you don’t have solid developer talent, the learning curve hits hard, and even simple customisations can turn into "let’s build this from scratch" moments. Plugins help, but not always, and you’ll quickly run into gaps that require custom development. Add the lack of traditional CMS features out of the box, and setup time (and costs) spiral fast. If you're set on Strapi, fine! Just let us look at it first so we can tell you whether it's actually doable or whether you're about to become a full-time system admin by accident. ### Steep learning curve Strapi looks simple at first, then politely reminds you it’s a developer-first tool. Non-technical teams usually hit a wall long before they hit publish. ### Node.js knowledge required If your team, especially your content team, doesn’t speak Node.js, prepare for a few "so… what does this error mean?" moments. Strapi assumes you’re comfortable under the hood. ### Limited traditional CMS features Things that come out-of-the-box in classic CMSs often need custom setup here. If you’re expecting plug-and-play page building, Strapi is not for you. ### Custom development needs If you need anything slightly beyond the basics, it quickly drifts into "can we ask a developer to build this?" territory. Great for flexibility, not so great for speed. ### Plugin limitations The plugin ecosystem is growing, but not everything works flawlessly, and some gaps still require hand-rolled solutions, which means more dev time than you planned. ### Cost-efficiency concerns Sure, Strapi is free… until you factor in hosting, DevOps, scaling, and ongoing maintenance. "Open-source" doesn’t always mean "cheap." ## Frequently asked questions ### How much does Contentful cost? Contentful has a Free tier with 10 users, 100K API calls per month, 25 content types, and 10,000 records. The Lite plan is $300/month for 20 users, 1M API calls, and 100GB CDN bandwidth. Enterprise is custom pricing with unlimited API calls and an uptime SLA of up to 99.99%. We've seen teams hit the free tier's API ceiling or content type cap fast, and the jump to Lite is often forced by a single limit rather than a feature need. ### Is Contentful being acquired by Salesforce? Yes. Salesforce signed a definitive agreement to acquire Contentful in June 2026, expected to close later in Salesforce's fiscal year. Contentful says the platform, APIs, and support model stay the same for now, with deeper Agentforce integration on the roadmap. If you're making a long-term CMS bet, factor it in. Contentful's direction will increasingly follow Salesforce's enterprise priorities, which tends to mean enterprise pricing and enterprise roadmaps. It's one more reason teams ask us about a usage-based alternative like Sanity before they commit. ### What are some alternatives to Contentful? Sanity is the alternative we recommend most. It gives you real-time collaboration, a customizable studio, and pay-as-you-go pricing that doesn't punish you for scaling. Storyblok is worth considering if your editors want a visual builder. We've migrated teams off Contentful to both, and Sanity consistently gets the best feedback from developers and content editors alike. ### How does Contentful compare to Sanity on pricing? Contentful charges $300/month for its Lite plan with hard caps on API calls, seats, and content types. Sanity's pricing is usage-based, starting free and scaling with actual consumption. For most mid-size projects, Sanity ends up significantly cheaper. The real difference is that Sanity doesn't gate core features behind premium tiers the way Contentful does with roles, SSO, and content modelling limits. ### Can I migrate from Contentful to Sanity? Yes. We've migrated dozens of Contentful projects to Sanity. The structured content model in Contentful maps well to Sanity's schema, so most migrations are straightforward. Content, assets, references, and localized fields all transfer. Our typical migration takes 2-4 weeks depending on the number of content types and the complexity of your references. We handle frontend rewiring too if you're on Next.js or a similar framework. ### Is Contentful good for large enterprise websites? It can be, but the costs get steep. Enterprise plans are custom-priced. From the contracts we've seen, smaller organisations start around $40,000 a year and full enterprise deals run past $180,000, with renewals climbing year on year. If you have deep pockets and your team already knows the platform, it works. If you're evaluating from scratch, we'd push you toward Sanity for enterprise use. You get equivalent API performance, better real-time editing, and a pricing model that doesn't penalize growth. ### What is Strapi used for? Strapi is an open-source headless CMS built on Node.js. Teams use it to manage content and serve it to websites, mobile apps, and other frontends through REST or GraphQL APIs. It's popular with JavaScript developers who want full control over their CMS without paying SaaS fees. Common use cases include marketing sites, blogs, e-commerce product catalogues, and multi-channel content delivery. It works well when you have dedicated developers on the team. Without them, it gets painful quickly. ### How much does Strapi cost? Strapi's Community Edition is free and self-hosted. That sounds great until you factor in hosting ($20-100+/month depending on traffic), database costs, backups, and the developer time to maintain it all. Strapi Cloud now has a free Developer plan for prototyping, then Essential at $18/month per project ($15 on yearly billing), Pro at $90/month, and Scale at $450/month, each with higher entry, seat, and API limits. Enterprise Edition is custom pricing and adds SSO, audit logs, and review workflows. The hidden cost is always developer time. We've seen "free" Strapi setups cost $500-1,000/month in maintenance hours alone.