# Directus to Strapi migration > How to migrate from Directus to Strapi, with a side-by-side comparison and FAQs. --- ## Source: Directus - **Type:** headless - **Official site:** https://directus.io - **Pricing:** https://directus.io/pricing - **Last reviewed:** 2026-07-28 ## Key advantages Directus instantly wins points with us because, well… it has a rabbit for a logo. But beyond that, it's genuinely a solid database-first CMS. If you like the idea of a CMS that sits directly on top of your SQL database without any abstractions, Directus feels incredibly natural. You can self-host it, tweak it endlessly, and treat your schema exactly the way you want. Editors get a no-code admin UI that feels polished, developers get REST and GraphQL out of the box, and teams get workflows, versioning, automations, and proper permission controls. It's flexible, fast, and a great fit if your content is really just structured data waiting for a smarter interface. If your project revolves around relational data and you want total control from database to API, Directus is one of the cleanest ways to build it. ### Intuitive non-technical interface Editors get a clean, no-code admin panel that feels more like a productivity tool than a CMS. Non-technical teams can handle content updates without pinging developers every five minutes. ### Database-agnostic SQL integration Directus plugs straight into your SQL database and turns it into an API instantly. If your data lives in Postgres, MySQL, MariaDB, or SQLite, it just works. ### Field-level permission controls You can lock down every field, table, and action with granular role-based permissions. Perfect for teams that care about security and don't want interns accidentally deleting production data. ### Built-in REST/GraphQL support Your entire database is instantly exposed as both REST and GraphQL endpoints. Just plug into your frontend and start shipping. ### Extensive UI customization Directus lets you tweak the interface, add custom views, tailor layouts, and build the exact editing experience your team needs. It feels like a CMS you can actually shape instead of fight. ### Real-time collaborative editing Multiple contributors can work in the Studio at the same time without stepping on each other's toes. Collaborative editing shipped in February 2026, so drafts stay clean and the whole workflow feels built for modern teams, not 2010 intranets. ### AI Assistant with image and PDF support The built-in AI Assistant can process images and PDFs as well as text, and it works across OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google Gemini. It's a genuinely useful addition rather than a feature-list checkbox. ## Key pain points Directus looks fantastic in demos, but things get rocky once you actually try to use it at scale. The Team cloud plan is $499/month (or $599 billed monthly) and caps you at 10 SSO seats, 50 collections, and 20 flows. Grow past those limits and you're straight into custom Enterprise territory. The v12 move to the Monospace Sustainable Core License (MSCL) has also rattled the community; smaller orgs get a free Innovation Grant, but larger teams are navigating a licensing landscape that changed significantly from what they signed up for. On the dev side, updates can introduce breaking changes, the documentation doesn't always keep pace, and the extension ecosystem is pretty thin. Localization is technically supported but fiddly and easy to misconfigure, and large datasets make the UI noticeably sluggish. And if you want anything deeply custom, you're suddenly living in Vue.js land, which is not where most teams want to spend their weekends. ### Breaking update changes Directus explicitly does not follow semver: any release may include breaking changes. The v10 to v11 upgrade hit schema changes and dropped fields, and the v11 UI scale change (px to rem) broke extensions hardcoding pixel values. Plan your upgrade windows carefully. ### Limited extension ecosystem The plugin ecosystem is still pretty bare. Anything even mildly niche ends up becoming a "let's just custom build it" moment, which defeats the purpose of picking a CMS with extensions. The marketplace launched in beta in early 2024 and is still maturing. ### Complex localization setup Yes, it supports multilingual content, but setting it up feels like assembling IKEA furniture blindfolded. It works, but expect extra config, extra steps, and extra patience. ### Version history still tier-gated Global draft versions now ship automatically with every versioned item (no manual setup required as of March 2026), which is a genuine improvement. Full version history, rollbacks, and controlled releases are still locked behind higher-tier plans, though, so if predictable publishing workflows are a must, check your tier carefully before committing. ### Vue.js knowledge requirement Custom interfaces and deeper tweaks need Vue.js, so if your team only speaks React, prepare for a small identity crisis (or a hiring plan). ### Large dataset performance issues Heavy tables and deeply relational data can slow down queries and the UI: community reports show 25K-row datasets where raw SQL runs in milliseconds but the Directus API takes 20+ seconds, largely due to internal query overhead and no auto-indexes on foreign keys. ## 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 do we migrate content out of Directus? Directus sits directly on your SQL database, which is both a blessing and a curse during migration. The blessing is that your content is in standard PostgreSQL, MySQL, or SQLite tables, so extraction is as simple as SQL queries. The curse is that Directus stores relational data and file references in its own conventions, so you need to untangle junction tables and re-map asset URLs. We write custom migration scripts for each project. A typical Directus migration with 50 to 100 content types takes 3 to 5 weeks. ### Why do teams move away from Directus? The two biggest triggers we see right now are licensing uncertainty and pricing sticker shock. Directus moved to the Monospace Sustainable Core License (MSCL) with v12 in May 2026, replacing the old BSL. Organisations under $5M revenue and 50 employees get a free Innovation Grant, but even above those thresholds the MSCL still permits free use of the Core tier, so larger orgs aren't categorically forced onto paid plans, though many opt into the cloud or a commercial self-hosted license for the production features sitting outside Core, and the community is noticeably split, with some teams forking old versions or migrating off entirely. On the cloud side, the old unlimited tier is gone; the Professional plan is $99/month and caps you at 5 users, 75K database entries, and 250K API requests. Growth past those limits means a jump straight to custom Enterprise pricing. On the development side, any custom interface work still requires Vue.js, which creates friction for React-focused teams. Breaking changes between updates also erode trust over time. Teams that started with Directus for its open-source appeal often outgrow it when they need predictable pricing and cleaner editorial workflows. ### Can we keep our existing database when migrating from Directus? You can keep your database infrastructure, but you'll likely restructure the schema. Directus creates its own system tables (directus_users, directus_permissions, directus_files, etc.) alongside your content tables. During migration, we extract the content tables, transform the data to fit your new CMS's content model, and leave the Directus system tables behind. If you're moving to a headless CMS like Sanity, the data moves from SQL rows to structured JSON documents, which typically results in a cleaner content model. ### 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.