Hygraph (formerly GraphCMS) Alternatives

Sanity.io

Free plan

9.3 /10

Sanity.io is the developer-first headless CMS. Free at $0 up to 20 seats + 2 public datasets + 10,000 documents. Growth at $15/seat/month for 50 seats + private datasets + 25,000 documents + comments/tasks. Enterprise custom. Unlimited content types + unlimited locales on all plans (category-unique). SAML SSO is Growth add-on at $1,399/month.

• Unlimited content types + unlimited locales on all plans — category-unique
• Sanity Studio is category-leading for real-time collaborative visual editing
• Free tier 20 seats + 10,000 documents is genuinely usable for small production projects

Full Review Visit Sanity.io

Contentful

Free plan

8.7 /10

Contentful is the enterprise content platform leader. Free tier at $0 with 10 users + 2 locales + 100K API calls — evaluation-only. Lite at $300/month is the real paid entry — 20 users + 3 locales + 1M API calls + scheduled publishing + comments + task management. Premium custom (typical $30,000-200,000+/year) unlocks unlimited users/roles/locales + 99.99% SLA + 24/7 support.

• Category-defining enterprise content platform with 12+ year track record
• Unlimited locales + users on Premium justifies enterprise pricing for complex brands
• AI Actions integrated into content workflows with Claude 3.5 Sonnet + GPT-4o

Full Review Visit Contentful

Strapi

Free plan Free trial

8.6 /10

Strapi is the Node.js-based open-source headless CMS with optional managed cloud. Strapi OSS is free forever self-hosted with the largest plugin ecosystem in open-source CMS. Strapi Cloud Developer free evaluation tier, Essential ~$15/month per project, Pro ~$99/month, Scale ~$499/month. Strapi Enterprise Edition (self-hosted commercial) custom pricing typical $15,000-50,000+/year for advanced features.

• Open-source foundation (MIT-like community edition) provides self-host escape hatch
• Node.js runtime enables deep JavaScript/TypeScript customization
• Largest plugin ecosystem in open-source CMS space

Full Review Visit Strapi

Directus

Free plan Free trial

8.5 /10

Directus is the relational database-backed headless CMS. Self-hosted free for non-production or organizations under $5M annual finances (commercial license required above). Cloud Professional at $99/month billed annually covers 5 Studio Users + 75,000 entries + 250K API requests + 500 GB bandwidth + 150 GB storage. Cloud Enterprise custom with dedicated infrastructure + 20+ regions.

• Relational data model (PostgreSQL/MySQL) handles complex schema better than document databases
• Self-hosted open source provides escape hatch for organizations under $5M annual finances
• Studio Users metric favorable for apps with many API-only users

Full Review Visit Directus