Ideal CMS vs similar products

See how Ideal CMS stacks up on ownership, pricing, editing, localization, AI, security, and developer experience - without SaaS ceilings.

Editing & marketing
Ideal CMS Sanity Storyblok Contentful Strapi
Can marketers build pages without devs? In every product, developers define the blocks and editors build pages from them. Ideal CMS editors can also save block combinations as presets. Storyblok has the most visual page builder. Yes (blocks + presets) Yes (blocks) Yes, strongest Yes (blocks) Yes (dynamic zones)
Visual editing and live preview? Storyblok has the most mature visual editor. Contentful Studio is a separate visual builder. Strapi shows the live preview next to the edit form. Yes Yes Yes, strongest Yes Yes (Growth+)
Can several editors work at once? Ideal CMS shows who edits a page and locks it, so two people cannot overwrite each other. Sanity is the only one with live co-editing of one document. Locking + comments Yes, live co-editing Locking + comments Comments + tasks (Lite+) No
Schedule and bundle releases? Content Releases for Ideal CMS is an optional plugin, licensed by FocusReactive. Sanity Growth includes 2 concurrent releases. Scheduling; Releases (licensed) Scheduling; Releases Growth+ Scheduling Growth+; Releases Premium+ Scheduling Scheduling; Releases Growth+
A/B test pages? Yes (plugin) Third-party Premium+ Enterprise (Personalization) Third-party
Cost over time
Ideal CMS Sanity Storyblok Contentful Strapi
What is the starting price? Ideal CMS: the core is free, you pay for hosting. The Content Releases license is extra. Storyblok Growth Plus is $349/mo. Strapi Community is free. Free + hosting (~$20–$500/mo) $15/seat/mo (Growth) $99/mo (Growth) $300/mo (Lite) $45/mo (Growth)
Do more editors cost more? Sanity: max 20 seats on Free, 50 on Growth. Storyblok: 5 seats on Growth, 15 on Growth Plus. Contentful: max 20 users on Lite. Strapi Growth: 3 seats included, +$15 each; Community is unlimited. No, unlimited Yes, per seat Yes, capped per plan Yes, capped per plan Yes, per seat (Growth)
Is content volume capped? Sanity Growth: 25k documents. Storyblok Growth Plus: 10k assets. No Yes, per plan Yes, per plan Yes, per plan No
Is traffic metered? Sanity Growth: 250k API requests/mo, then overage. Storyblok overage: $10 per 1M. Contentful Lite overage: $5 per 1M. Ideal CMS and self-hosted Strapi: you pay only your hosting. No Yes, + overage Yes, + overage Yes, + overage No (self-host)
What forces an Enterprise plan? Nothing SSO, custom roles, >50 seats SSO, custom roles, A/B, >10 locales Custom roles, >3 locales, >20 users Audit logs, review workflows
What else will we pay for? Hosting, dev time; Releases license Overage; Enterprise quote Extra locales; Premium quote Extra spaces; Enterprise quote Hosting, ops; SSO add-on
Ownership & exit
Ideal CMS Sanity Storyblok Contentful Strapi
Where do the CMS and data live? Ideal CMS runs on Vercel, Cloudflare, Docker or on-prem, with PostgreSQL, MongoDB or SQLite. Strapi self-hosts on Postgres, MySQL or MariaDB, or runs on Strapi Cloud. Your cloud or servers Vendor cloud Vendor cloud Vendor cloud Your servers or vendor cloud
Can data stay in our region? Storyblok: preferred data center on Premium and Elite. Contentful: EU data residency on Enterprise. Yes, any region Enterprise Premium+ Enterprise (EU) Yes (self-host)
What is the license? All FocusReactive plugins are open source, Visual Editing included. Only the Content Releases plugin needs a separate license from FocusReactive. Sanity Studio is open source; the platform is proprietary. Strapi charges for SSO, review workflows and audit logs. MIT; Releases plugin licensed Proprietary (Studio MIT) Proprietary Proprietary MIT core; some features paid
Can we leave or switch agency? Ideal CMS is standard Payload and Next.js code in your repository. Any Next.js team can take it over. Yes, code and data are yours Export; migration project Export; migration project Export; migration project Yes (self-host)
How long is edit history kept? Ideal CMS stores versions in your database; the number kept per document is a setting. Sanity: Free 3 days, Growth 90, Enterprise 365. Strapi: Growth 30 days, Enterprise 365. No time limit 90 days (Growth) Per plan Snapshot per publish 30 days (Growth)
Migration & SEO
Ideal CMS Sanity Storyblok Contentful Strapi
Who migrates content and SEO? FocusReactive migrates content, redirects and SEO metadata as part of an Ideal CMS project. FR You or a partner You or a partner You or a partner You or a partner
Can editors manage redirects? In every product, redirects are stored in the CMS and applied by your hosting or frontend. Ideal CMS uses the official Payload redirects plugin. Yes (official plugin) Yes (community plugin) Custom setup Custom setup Yes (community plugins)
SEO tools for editors? Ideal CMS: SEO plugin with SERP preview and AI SEO. Storyblok: SEO fields on all plans, AI SEO on Premium+. Yes (plugin + AI SEO) Plugins Yes; AI SEO Premium+ Apps Plugins
Support & maintenance
Ideal CMS Sanity Storyblok Contentful Strapi
Who runs hosting and ops? FR = FocusReactive, the team behind Ideal CMS. You or FR Vendor Vendor Vendor You (self-host) or vendor
Who keeps it up to date? Payload ships releases often. FocusReactive can apply updates for you, or your own team does it. Sanity users update Studio themselves. Strapi major upgrades are projects. You or FR Vendor Vendor Vendor You (self-host)
Backups and restore? Ideal CMS runs on your database, so you choose the backup schedule and retention. FocusReactive sets it up to fit your needs. Sanity and Contentful offer CLI exports on all plans. Yes, your schedule Enterprise Premium+ Vendor-managed Yes (self-host or Cloud)
What uptime is guaranteed? Storyblok: no SLA on Growth, up to 97% on Growth Plus, 99.9% on Premium, 99.99% on Elite. Contentful: up to 99.99% on Enterprise. Ideal CMS uptime depends on your host. Your host's SLA Enterprise Premium+ Enterprise Enterprise / Cloud
Who do we call for help? Sanity sells dedicated support for $799/mo. Storyblok adds a customer success manager on Premium+. FR team Community; paid support Standard; CSM Premium+ Community; Enterprise Basic; premium Enterprise
Localization & multi-site
Ideal CMS Sanity Storyblok Contentful Strapi
How many languages can we add? Storyblok: Growth includes 2 locales, +$20 each. Growth Plus has max 10, then Premium. Contentful: Free 2, Lite 3, more needs Enterprise. Unlimited Unlimited Capped per plan Capped per plan Unlimited
How are translations done? Ideal CMS translates with AI through your own provider keys. Contentful has a translator role on Enterprise. AI plugin (your keys) AI Assist or plugins AI (credits) Apps Strapi AI (Growth) or plugins
Several sites or brands in one CMS? Ideal CMS uses the official Payload multi-tenant plugin: one admin, separate content and roles per site. Sanity can share one dataset or use more datasets. Storyblok and Contentful bill per space. Strapi recommends one instance per site. Yes (multi-tenant plugin) Yes (datasets) Extra spaces, extra plans Max 2 spaces (Lite) One instance per site
AI
Ideal CMS Sanity Storyblok Contentful Strapi
How is AI paid for? Storyblok allows your own AI provider only on Elite. Strapi Growth includes 1,000 AI credits/mo. Your API keys, no markup Credits Credits Per plan (AI Actions) Credits (Growth)
Can AI agents edit content (MCP)? All five products have an official MCP server. Ideal CMS also ships agent skills in the repo. Yes (+ agent skills) Yes Yes Yes Yes
Search by meaning? Ideal CMS: vectorization plugin. Sanity: Embeddings Index. Storyblok: Strata vector DB. Contentful: Content semantics since April 2026. Strapi: community plugins only. Yes (plugin) Yes Yes Yes (paid plans) Community plugins
Security & governance
Ideal CMS Sanity Storyblok Contentful Strapi
SSO and custom roles? Ideal CMS: the FocusReactive SSO plugin connects any OIDC provider, for example Okta, Auth0 or Keycloak; roles are defined in code. Sanity Growth has 5 fixed roles. Contentful: SSO outside Enterprise, custom roles on Enterprise. Strapi: SSO add-on $150/mo + $50/seat; roles on all plans. Included Enterprise Premium+ SSO yes; roles Enterprise SSO add-on; roles included
Approval before publishing? Ideal CMS: approval steps come from community Payload plugins, and FocusReactive tailors them to your process. Sanity Editorial Workflows is a prerelease. Yes (plugins, tailored) Prerelease Premium+ Enterprise Enterprise
Audit log? Until then, Payload versions keep the change history of each document. Coming soon Enterprise All plans Higher tiers Enterprise
Certifications (SOC 2, GDPR)? Ideal CMS runs on your infrastructure, so it inherits your host's certifications. It has no certification of its own. Your host's SOC 2, GDPR Yes ISO 27001, SOC 2 SOC 2, GDPR
For developers
Ideal CMS Sanity Storyblok Contentful Strapi
What is the tech stack? Payload + Next.js in one app Studio (React) + Content Lake API-first, any framework API-first, any framework Node.js, any framework
TypeScript support? First-class (config in code) Strong (typegen) SDK types SDK types Supported
Which APIs? REST, GraphQL, Local API GROQ, GraphQL REST; GraphQL Premium+ REST, GraphQL REST, GraphQL
How big is the plugin ecosystem? Ideal CMS can use official Payload plugins, open-source community plugins and FocusReactive plugins. Growing (open-source community) Large Medium (apps) Large Large
How mature is it? Payload has been part of Figma since June 2025. The payload package and the sanity Studio package each get about 4M npm downloads a month (Oct 2026). GitHub stars: Strapi 73k, Payload 45k, Sanity 6k. Mature (Payload, part of Figma) Mature Mature Mature, enterprise Mature, large OSS community
Summary
Ideal CMS Sanity Storyblok Contentful Strapi
Good fit if... You want to own the CMS and grow without plan jumps Dev-led teams, real-time collaboration, zero ops Marketer-led visual building within plan limits Large multi-brand governance with budget Devs want an open-source Node CMS