Looking for the best headless CMS out there?

Storyblok is known for its visual editor, which allows editors to work in real-time with previews. It is especially popular among design and marketing teams because components can be quickly created and adjusted without touching code. Storyblok uses a modular component structure, providing high flexibility.

Advantages:

• User-friendly and visual interface

• Suitable for multilingual sites

• Strong role and access management

Sanity is a platform for those who want to build everything from scratch and need maximum flexibility. It is API-first and comes with an open-source editor that is highly customizable. It requires more developer time but offers complete freedom.

Advantages:

• Real-time collaboration

• Structured and scalable data model

• Sanity Studio can be customized to the extreme

Contentful is one of the most widespread enterprise headless CMS solutions and is used by companies like IKEA and Spotify. It offers a good balance between user-friendliness and technical flexibility, and there is plenty of documentation and ready-made integration options.

Advantages:

• Mature platform with a broad community

• Scalable with good support

• Many integrations and plugins

Contentstack is similar to Contentful in many ways but is more geared towards larger enterprises with needs for governance, compliance, and advanced workflows. It is therefore particularly relevant in large setups with many teams.

Advantages:

• Advanced role-based access

• Automation and workflow management

• Strong support for large enterprise environments

Formerly known as Episerver, Optimizely is now a DXP (Digital Experience Platform) that combines CMS, commerce, and personalization. It can be used as both a traditional and headless CMS, and is a good choice if you want experimentation and A/B testing as part of your content management.

Advantages:

• Built-in A/B testing and experimentation

• Headless, decoupled, and traditional CMS in one platform

• Well-suited for complex marketing needs

Umbraco has traditionally been a .NET-based CMS but now also offers headless via Umbraco Heartcore. It’s a good choice if you’re already within the Microsoft stack and want a user-friendly open source alternative.

Advantages:

• Open source and community-driven

• Close integration with Microsoft technology

• Headless option with Heartcore

The choice of headless platform depends on several factors. Do you have strong developer resources, or should editors be able to work independently? Should the solution scale globally and support multiple markets? Do you need personalization, A/B testing, and commerce integrations? Is flexibility or time-to-market more important?

At Kruso, we work with several of these platforms and are happy to help you choose the right one based on your needs and business goals.