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Strapi or Sanity: self-hosted open source or hosted content platform?
Short answer
Strapi, a Node.js headless content management system (CMS), suits teams that must self-host: its Community Edition is free and open source (Strapi pricing, October 2026). Sanity suits teams that won't run servers, because Sanity stores content in its hosted Content Lake (Sanity docs, October 2026). Sanity Growth costs $15 per seat a month (Sanity pricing, October 2026).
- Strapi 4 end of life
- 30 April 2026Bug support ended October 2025; 4.26.2, released 9 June 2026, is the final v4 release. Strapi 5 is the long-term support (LTS) line.Sources: Strapi Docs (Upgrading to Strapi 5: Introduction and FAQ); Strapi on GitHub (Security policy)
- Strapi Growth price
- $45 a month with 3 usersPlus $15 a month per extra user. Community is free with unlimited users and roles. Hosting is separate: your servers, or Strapi Cloud from $35 per project a month billed monthly.Sources: Strapi (CMS Pricing & Plans, Pricing Cloud)
- Sanity Growth price
- $15 per seat a monthUp to 50 seats, 5 fixed roles and 25k documents, with hosting included within usage quotas; self-serve plans bill monthly only.Sources: Sanity (Plans that scale with you, Sanity for Startups)
- Who hosts the content
- Strapi: you or Strapi Cloud. Sanity: Sanity onlyStrapi runs on a PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB or SQLite database you operate; Sanity Studio is MIT-licensed and self-hostable, but the Content Lake runs only on Sanity's cloud.Sources: Strapi Docs (Database configuration); Sanity Docs (Hosting and deployment, Studio development); Sanity on GitHub (LICENSE)
Deploi’s call
Pick on who runs the infrastructure, not on price: from 3 editors up, Strapi Growth and Sanity Growth list the same $15 per person a month as of October 2026 (Deploi arithmetic). If nobody should own servers, backups and upgrades, pick Sanity. If content must sit in your own database, or backend code belongs beside the CMS, pick Strapi 5 and staff its upgrades.
SanityChoose Sanity when
- Nobody on your team should run servers, backups and major upgrades, because Sanity hosts the Content Lake.
- Several editors work in the same document at once, so real-time editing on every Sanity plan, Free included, matters as of October 2026.
- Editors need click-to-edit previews without a paid plan, because Visual Editing is on Sanity's Free plan while Strapi's Live Preview needs Growth, as of October 2026.
- You are still on Strapi 4, past its 30 April 2026 end of life, and the content model needs a redesign anyway, so you pay for modeling work on either path.
OtherChoose Strapi when
- Content and its database must sit in your own cloud or data center, because Sanity offers no self-hosted Content Lake.
- Backend code such as custom controllers, authentication or integrations belongs in the same Node.js app as the content management system (CMS).
- You need more than 5 roles without an Enterprise contract, because Strapi Community lists unlimited roles while Sanity's custom roles are Enterprise only, as of October 2026.
- More than 50 people edit, so Sanity Growth's 50 seat ceiling would push you to Enterprise, while Strapi Growth adds users at $15 a month each, as of October 2026.
How do Strapi and Sanity compare side by side?
Strapi is a headless content management system (CMS) you run as a Node.js app, while Sanity is a hosted content platform whose editor, Sanity Studio, you configure in code. Strapi's open-source Community Edition is free to self-host (Strapi pricing, October 2026). A Sanity schema is "JavaScript (or TypeScript) objects" (Sanity schema docs, October 2026).
| Dimension | Strapi | Sanity |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting | Your servers, or Strapi Cloud | Sanity's cloud only; Studio can be self-hosted |
| Database | PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB or SQLite | Content Lake, run by Sanity |
| Content model | Schema files, from the Content-type Builder | Schema as code in Sanity Studio |
| Query layer | REST and GraphQL | GROQ and GraphQL |
| Roles | Unlimited on free Community | 5 on Growth; custom on Enterprise |
| Click-to-edit preview | Live Preview on Growth | Visual Editing on every plan |
| Entry paid plan, per month | Growth, $45 with 3 users | Growth, $15 per seat |
| Verdict | Fits teams that must own the stack | Fits teams that won't run servers |
Who runs the servers, database and upgrades with Strapi and with Sanity?
Your team runs Strapi's servers, database, backups and upgrades when you self-host it; Sanity runs the Content Lake, so your team maintains only its Studio code. Strapi "supports SQLite, MySQL, MariaDB, and PostgreSQL", and its applications "are not meant to be connected to a pre-existing database" (Strapi database docs, October 2026). Strapi Cloud hands hosting to Strapi: its Starter plan "Sleeps when idle", Pro adds weekly backups, and Business adds daily backups and a 99.9% uptime service-level agreement (SLA) (Strapi Cloud pricing, October 2026).
Sanity's Content Lake can't be self-hosted: Sanity's docs say "Sanity Studio always connects to a dataset in the hosted Content Lake, also when run locally. Your content is never stored locally." (Sanity Studio development docs, October 2026). The Studio itself you can host yourself or on Sanity's hosting. Studio auto-updates apply patch and minor releases, but "Major releases that change how your Studio code behaves are not applied automatically" (Sanity upgrade docs, October 2026), so Studio upgrades never disappear entirely.
Which parts of Strapi and Sanity are open source?
Strapi's Community Edition is licensed under the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) License, and so is Sanity Studio, but only Strapi lets you run the whole stack yourself. Strapi's license gives its Community Edition the "MIT Expat" terms when you have no registered account on Strapi's cloud offering. Code under any ee/ directory is the "Enterprise Edition" under a separate license, and Strapi Cloud customers fall under the cloud agreement's terms (Strapi license, October 2026).
Sanity Studio's repository carries the MIT License (Sanity Studio license, October 2026). The Content Lake behind it is hosted only: Studio "always connects to a dataset in the hosted Content Lake, also when run locally" (Sanity Studio development docs, October 2026). So you can fork Sanity's editor, but your content always lives on Sanity's service. Whether that counts as open source is its own question: is Sanity open source.
What do Strapi and Sanity cost in October 2026?
Strapi Growth and Sanity Growth cost the same $15 per editor a month from 3 editors up, so hosting decides the difference (Deploi arithmetic). Strapi's self-hosted content management system (CMS) Growth plan is listed at $45 per month, paid monthly, and "Includes 3 users (+$15/month/user)" (Strapi pricing, October 2026). Sanity Growth is $15 per seat a month, billed monthly (Sanity pricing, October 2026).
| Editors | Sanity, dollars a month | Strapi CMS plan, dollars a month |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | $0, up to 20 seats | $0, unlimited users |
| 10 on the paid plan | $150 on Growth | $150 on Growth, plus hosting |
| 50 on the paid plan | $750 on Growth | $750 on Growth, plus hosting |
| Over 50 | Enterprise, custom price | $15 per extra user on Growth |
Strapi Cloud lists $35, $90 and $450 per project a month billed monthly, up to 17% less billed yearly, and doesn't say how Cloud and CMS plans combine, so get one written quote (Strapi Cloud pricing, October 2026). The full cost model adds hosting lines.
What does Strapi 4's end of life mean if you're choosing between Strapi and Sanity?
Strapi 4 reached end of life on 30 April 2026, so a team still on it runs software that gets no further updates and must choose: upgrade to Strapi 5, move, or stay unpatched. Strapi's own pages set out the timeline:
- Bug support ended in October 2025, and security fixes ran to the end of April 2026 (Strapi security policy, Strapi changelog, October 2026).
- The final v4 release, 4.26.2, shipped on 9 June 2026, and "no further v4 updates are published" (Strapi upgrade FAQ, October 2026).
- Strapi Cloud can still run existing v4 projects, "but that may change in the future without warning" (Strapi upgrade FAQ, October 2026).
- Strapi 5, supported since September 2024, is Strapi's long-term support (LTS) line (Strapi security policy, October 2026).
Strapi's upgrade uses codemods for code, and built-in scripts "automatically update the database on first startup" (Strapi upgrade FAQ, October 2026). Deploi's judgment: with a stable model, Strapi 5 is the shorter path; with a model you plan to redesign, price both Strapi 5 and Sanity. The upgrade-or-move decision for Strapi 4 goes deeper.
Which plan features do editors get on Strapi and Sanity?
Sanity puts click-to-edit previews and real-time editing on every plan (Sanity pricing, October 2026), while Strapi gives roles away free and charges for Live Preview and Releases. Both click-to-edit previews rest on content source maps: Strapi's Live Preview encodes them with the @vercel/stega library (Strapi preview docs, October 2026), and Sanity lists Content Source Maps on every plan (Sanity pricing, October 2026).
| Feature | Strapi | Sanity |
|---|---|---|
| Click-to-edit preview | Live Preview on Growth | Visual Editing on every plan |
| Preview inside the editor | Full-screen Preview on Community | Presentation tool on every plan |
| Batched publishing | Releases on Growth | Content Releases, Enterprise add-on |
| Roles | Unlimited on Community | 2 on Free, 5 on Growth, custom on Enterprise |
| Single sign-on | Growth add-on, $150 a month plus $50 per user | Enterprise on Sanity's pricing page |
Sanity's page says Strapi "lacks built-in real-time coediting" (Sanity vs Strapi, October 2026), Strapi's own comparison page calls Strapi's editing sequential (Strapi vs Sanity, October 2026), and Strapi's pricing page lists no co-editing feature, so test concurrent editing before you commit. See Visual Editing for marketing teams and scheduling a whole campaign.
How do you move from Strapi to Sanity?
A Strapi to Sanity move is a remodeling project, sized by six counts. Sanity's Model Context Protocol (MCP) server lists a guided Strapi path, per its 15 December 2025 announcement (Sanity MCP announcement, October 2026). Its AI migration skill has a Strapi guide, though Sanity says "This is agent-scaffolded, not fully automated." (Sanity August releases, October 2026). Strapi's Data Transfer moves "database content and media, not project source files" (Strapi Content-type Builder docs, October 2026), so backend code moves separately. The Strapi to Sanity playbook and the general migration playbook cover the steps.
| Driver | What to count |
|---|---|
| Content types | Collection types and single types |
| Components and dynamic zones | Reusable components and every dynamic zone field |
| Rich text | Blocks and Markdown rich text fields, bound for Portable Text |
| Locales and media | Enabled locales; Media Library files |
| Roles | Custom admin roles beyond Strapi's 3 defaults |
| Backend code | Custom controllers, middleware and lifecycle functions |
Deploi’s point of view
- Where we disagree
- Four standard claims are wrong or loose. First, that Strapi's built-in rich text is an HTML editor: Strapi 5's built-in rich text fields are Rich Text (Blocks) and Rich Text (Markdown), and Strapi's own comparison page still says its WYSIWYG fields store HTML, so check the storage format on a test project before you rely on either description. Second, that Strapi runs on MongoDB: Strapi's docs say MongoDB and other NoSQL databases are not supported, whatever its own comparison page lists. Third, that Sanity is open source, full stop: Sanity Studio is MIT-licensed, but the Content Lake is a hosted service you can't run yourself. Fourth, that Strapi is free with everything: the Community Edition is free, but Live Preview, Releases and Content History are on the paid Growth plan, and code under ee/ directories carries a separate license.
- What we’ve seen
- deploi.ca's Shopify sections run on one Sanity Studio with three workspaces over two datasets in one project, deployed to Sanity's hosting with auto-updates turned on. Our side of that setup has no database server to run. Sanity's docs say auto-updates skip Studio majors that change code behavior, so those upgrades would stay with us.
- What we'd tell you to do first
- Name the person who will patch the CMS, back up its database and run its next major upgrade. If nobody can, price Sanity first. If someone already does that for other Node.js apps, price Strapi 5 self-hosted first. Then count editors, roles and preview needs against each plan.
- What we refuse to promise
- We won't say either one costs less over three years, and we won't put hours on a Strapi to Sanity move here. Hosting, upgrade and migration effort depend on your codebase, so we scope them on a call.
When this answer changes
- Strapi changes the Growth price or included users, or moves Live Preview or Releases to Community
- Strapi Cloud stops running existing Strapi 4 projects
- Sanity changes the Growth seat price or the 50 seat ceiling, or moves custom roles or Content Releases below Enterprise
- Strapi ships real-time co-editing or adds it to its pricing page
- Strapi corrects the MongoDB line on its comparison page, or its docs add MongoDB support
- Strapi publishes an end-of-life date for Strapi 5
Sources
Every source opened and checked on 25 October 2026.
- Sanity, Plans that scale with you
- Sanity Docs, Hosting and deployment
- Sanity on GitHub, LICENSE
- Sanity Docs, Roles and permissions
- Sanity, Why choose Sanity over Strapi?
- Sanity, Sanity for Startups
- Sanity, Introducing the new Sanity Growth plan to serve collaborative teams
- Sanity Docs, Upgrading Sanity Studio
- Sanity, You'll need a CMS eventually. Let your agent set it up.
- Sanity Docs, Introduction to schemas
- Strapi, CMS Pricing & Plans
- Strapi, Pricing Cloud
- Strapi Docs, Upgrading to Strapi 5: Introduction and FAQ
- Strapi on GitHub, Security policy
- Strapi Changelog, Notice: Strapi v4 bug support coverage is ending in October
- Strapi on GitHub, LICENSE
- Strapi Docs, Database configuration
- Strapi Docs, Preview
- Strapi Docs, Releases
- Strapi, Strapi vs Sanity
- Strapi Docs, Content-type Builder
- Strapi Docs, Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)
- Strapi Docs, Models
- Sanity Docs, Studio development
- Sanity, What’s new in August
- Sanity on GitHub, sanity-migration skill