Strapi vs Sanity: Choosing the Right Headless CMS for Your Project

The world of content management is changing.

As the number of internet users is increasing and the sources of traffic are diversifying, businesses the world over are pivoting to powerful Content Management Systems.

In fact, as of today, over 750 Million websites are powered by seamless CMS platforms like Strapi, WordPress, and Sanity.

And there’s a very good reason behind this: CMS platforms can help us develop websites, deploy content, and design visually vivid online experiences.

So, if you’re looking to scale your online presence and accelerate your content delivery pipeline, Headless CMS development services might be your perfect solution.

But that leads us to another problem: there are several CMS platforms on the market. So, which platform should you use?

In this blog, we’re going to take a look at two of the best headless CMS platforms. By comparing Strapi vs Sanity, we’ll explore their features, pros and cons, and whether they’re suited to your development needs.

Let’s dive in!

What Is Strapi?

Strapi is a futuristic, open-source content management system that rests on two pillars: customization and scalability.

It’s a back-end-only headless Content Management System that offers you an out-of-the-box back-end backed by code structures and content types. This means you can use Strapi to build websites that work with smartphones, laptops, tablet computers, and even IoT devices!

For us, the reason Strapi stands out from other CMS platforms is its Drag-and-Drop Editor. This feature makes Strapi accessible and convenient for developers and content creators alike!

Now that we have a good grasp of what Strapi is, let’s explore some of the features that are powering its rising popularity:

Strapi’s Best Features

Strapi offers a host of features that have made it extremely popular with developers and content creators. Here are some of Strapi’s best features:

1. Ease of Use

One reason developers love Strapi is that it’s very easy to use. Apart from the drag-and-drop editor we’ve mentioned earlier, Strapi also offers a very simple back-end you can work with.

It also offers several templates dedicated to e-commerce websites, mobile applications and corporate websites. That means you can cut through all the painstaking heavy lifting and focus on creating a visually appealing user interface. 

On top of this, you can easily use Strapi even if you don’t have any technical background. This makes it the ideal link between developers and content creators.

2. Customizability

Customization is the first step to personalization. In other words, your ability to create a website that fits your vision will help you give your customers what they want: personalized experiences.

So, if your customers want instant query-solving, multiple payment options, and personalized suggestions, what can you do?

The answer is the integration of such features through Strapi’s support for GraphQL and REST APIs. They’ll help you load your online ecosystem with cutting-edge features!

3. Developer-Friendly

Developers love Strapi. Whether it’s reusable content, a fully customizable backend or the ability to develop a creative front-end, Strapi offers developers what they want: freedom.

One piece of evidence of Strapi’s developer-friendly nature is that NASA has used it to accelerate its data-sharing pipeline!

4. Granular Security

No matter how good a website or app you’ve developed, it’s of no use unless it is accompanied by robust security infrastructure. 

With Strapi, you get granular control over every aspect of your online ecosystem. Through this feature, you can control who will have access to what content at what time. 

This means a faster development timeline without any compromise with your enterprise data!

5. Multilingual SEO

Search Engine Optimization isn’t just alive and well in 2025; it’s absolutely essential!

And Strapi doesn’t just come with English-language Google-centric SEO features. Rather, with its Internationalization plugin, Strapi supports Multilingual content management & delivery!

Internationalization thus frees you up to reach global audiences and break into international markets.

Pros and Cons of Using Strapi

We know what you’re thinking: Strapi looks like the only CMS platform you need. But are there any downsides to using it? To answer this question, let’s briefly break down the pros and cons of Strapi:

Pros:

• Strapi offers users complete freedom to build customized websites and apps

• Its reusable code structures and templates can accelerate development timelines

• It is especially suited to e-commerce and mobile app development

Cons:

• Strapi’s Self-Service Hosting means you’re in charge of deciding how to host your website or app.

• It comes with a steep learning curve, which means you might want to work with a Strapi development company to make the most out of its features.

The steep learning curve might be a major drawback when it comes to a comparison between Strapi vs Sanity. However, we believe that Strapi’s complete customization is a powerful strength that more than compensates for its slight drawbacks.

Popular Companies That Use Strapi:

• Walmart uses Strapi to deliver omnichannel experiences to its customers.

• Tesco has relied on Strapi to develop and deliver websites and apps within tight release schedules.

• NASA pivoted to Strapi to reduce the time required to share heavy files with their employees.

What is Strapi Best for?

• Strapi offers robust, ready-to-use templates for e-Commerce websites.

• With reusable content and omnichannel content delivery options, Strapi is a great option for static sites like editorial websites.

• If you’re looking for a CMS platform with Granular Content Management, we recommend going with Strapi.

• Strapi’s Internationalization plugin makes it ideal if you want to develop a multinational online presence.

In short, if your aim is to build and deploy a future-proof web ecosystem, a Strapi CMS development services can empower you to engineer a seamlessly scalability websites!

What is Sanity?

Sanity is a partially open-source CMS that helps you create stunning, visually vibrant websites. Simply visiting Sanity’s website will give you an idea of their unique approach to website building.

However, in our experience, there are two stand-out features that have made Sanity one of the fastest-growing CMS platforms:

First, it comes with the Sanity Studio and a Content Lake. While Sanity Studio helps content creators make, collaborate on, and edit content in real-time, the Content Lake acts as a repository of all enterprise content.

Second, Sanity is powered by a native query-solving language called GROQ, which is simple, powerful, and intuitive. Simply put, you can use GROQ along with webhooks to make rapidly responsive websites that will enthrall your users!

Sanity’s Best Features

Apart from its custom content management tools, Sanity also offers a host of other features that have made it popular among developers and users. Here’s a list of its best features:

1. Customization

Sanity heavily favors customization. To that end, you can even create custom code structures and use them to deploy content across multiple channels. 

There are four main elements through which Sanity offers customization:

• Content previews so you know exactly how your content will appear

• Component APIs help you change the theme of your editing studio

• Custom “asset sources” that allow you to tap into your own database of digital assets

• Plugins to empower you to integrate microservices

In our experience, Sanity’s customization is more akin to personalization. This means it allows you to make changes to the content structure based on its own code structure.

In other words, when it comes to comparing Sanity vs Strapi, it’s a straightforward comparative between whether you want personalization or customization.

2. Collaboration

The Sanity Studio is built for comprehensive collaboration between content creators. In our experience, it fosters collaboration in three key ways:

• First, your editors have granular control over who can access what content

• Second, it allows you to create, reuse and deploy content through multiple channels

• Third, it helps you create a centralized repository of all your enterprise content through the Content Lake feature

In short, Sanity is ideal for websites and development projects that require a lot of collaboration between different stakeholders.

3. Developer-Friendly Approach

Sanity is a developer’s paradise when it comes to creating custom blocks of content. One feature that stands out to us is that Sanity allows developers to define complex relationships between different content types. 

Plus, Sanity can also be very easily integrated into CI/CD pipelines. In our experience, this can massively reduce development timelines and enhance productivity.

4. Content-as-Data

One way in which Sanity is quite different from other CMS platforms is that it treats content as data. For example, it saves rich text content directly as data rather than HTML scripts. 

The fundamental benefit is that you can have more control over how your data will be rendered and presented to the viewers. 

5. Localization Support

Just like Strapi, Sanity also supports multilingual content deployment. However, instead of Internationalization, Sanity’s multilingual feature is called Localization support.

The result remains the same: you can create, edit, and deploy content in multiple languages around the world. In short, with Sanity, you have open access to global markets!

So, when it comes to multilingual content support, it’s a tie between Strapi vs Sanity: they both offer effective platforms for multilingual content delivery! 

Pros and Cons of Using Sanity

While Sanity has clear strengths, it also has some minor weaknesses that we’ve noticed over the course of our Sanity development projects. Here’s what you need to know:

Pros:

• Sanity offers a Cloud-hosting option, which means you don’t have to worry about hosting your website once the development has concluded.

• Sanity takes a SaaS approach to CMS, which makes it one of the most intuitive CMS platforms around.

• Sanity supports structured content flow, so you can define, customize, and edit workflows to suit your needs!

Cons:

• Since Sanity is not completely open-source, you might have to start paying for Sanity’s services once your website grows beyond a point.

• One crucial limitation we’ve come across is that Sanity is not perfectly compatible with GraphQL APIs.

So, when it comes to picking between Strapi vs Sanity, API integration is a major differentiation. Strapi provides more flexibility, whereas Sanity offers a simple but relatively new approach to query-solving through GROQ.

Popular Companies Using Sanity

If we take a holistic view of Sanity, we can see that while it has some minor drawbacks, its strengths comprehensively outweigh its weaknesses. And that’s why some of the biggest companies in the world trust Sanity with their web infrastructure:

• Puma uses Sanity to power its global content distribution efforts across multiple channels.

• Morning Brew harnesses the power of Sanity to deliver visually stunning experiences and media-rich stories to its users.

• Cloudflare prefers Sanity to build modular content layouts and increase the efficiency of content management.

What is Sanity Best For?

Now that we’ve thoroughly explored Sanity’s features and pros & cons, let’s check out some of its best applications.

• Sanity can help you build sophisticated e-commerce websites with rich media content.

• Sanity’s Localization and Content Lake features make it ideal for Global Content Management.

• We also believe that Sanity can be a great alternative for building and publishing personal and professional travel blogs.

Simply put, Pros and Cons of Using Sanity

While Sanity has clear strengths, it also has some minor weaknesses that we’ve noticed over the course of our Sanity development projects. Here’s what you need to know:

Pros:

• Sanity offers a Cloud-hosting option, which means you don’t have to worry about hosting your website once the development has concluded.

• Sanity takes a SaaS approach to CMS, which makes it one of the most intuitive CMS platforms around.

• Sanity supports structured content flow, so you can define, customize, and edit workflows to suit your needs!

Cons:

• Since Sanity is not completely open-source, you might have to start paying for Sanity’s services once your website grows beyond a point.

• One crucial limitation we’ve come across is that Sanity is not perfectly compatible with GraphQL APIs.

So, when it comes to picking between Strapi vs Sanity, API integration is a major differentiation. Strapi provides more flexibility, whereas Sanity offers a simple but relatively new approach to query-solving through GROQ.

Popular Companies Using Sanity

If we take a holistic view of Sanity, we can see that while it has some minor drawbacks, its strengths comprehensively outweigh its weaknesses. And that’s why some of the biggest companies in the world trust Sanity with their web infrastructure:

• Puma uses Sanity to power its global content distribution efforts across multiple channels.

• Morning Brew harnesses the power of Sanity to deliver visually stunning experiences and media-rich stories to its users.

• Cloudflare prefers Sanity to build modular content layouts and increase the efficiency of content management.

What is Sanity Best For?

Now that we’ve thoroughly explored Sanity’s features and pros & cons, let’s check out some of its best applications.

• Sanity can help you build sophisticated e-commerce websites with rich media content.

• Sanity’s Localization and Content Lake features make it ideal for Global Content Management.

• We also believe that Sanity can be a great alternative for building and publishing personal and professional travel blogs.

Simply put, Sanity development services can help you create immersive online experiences for a broad range of industries, audiences, and devices!

Strapi vs Sanity: Table of Comparison

Okay, so now that we’ve explored both Sanity and Strapi, let’s understand the key differences between them: 

As you can see, the major differences between Strapi and Sanity arise out of one fact: 

Strapi is a platform you can use to develop websites through its building blocks that you can customize. Sanity is a platform that helps you develop websites through building blocks that you can personalize.

And that’s an important difference between them: while Strapi helps you build your own blocks, Sanity allows you to choose between several blocks and define their dimensions.

Sanity vs Strapi: How to Choose the Right CMS for Your Project?

In our experience, choosing between Strapi and Sanity can be a challenging decision. After all, both CMS platforms are popular and developer-friendly. However, they both have their own strengths and weaknesses. And, lastly, both are suited to different types of websites.

But don’t worry! Here’s a set of questions you can ask yourself before choosing between Strapi and CMS to make an informed decision:

1. What Is Your Development Goal?

The first question you should ask yourself is, “What do I want with my website?”

For instance, if you want to create a fast-loading, hyper-responsive website, Sanity might be a good option. Similarly, if you want a graphics-heavy website, Sanity could be your go-to CMS.

On the other hand, if customization is important to your development vision, we suggest going with Strapi. It’s also ideal for creating reusable components and content types.

2. Who Is Going to Develop the Website?

While both Sanity and Strapi are easy to use, they differ in the degree of simplicity.

For instance, Sanity’s Content Lake can help you create a website from scratch even if you don’t have any technical experience. 

Strapi offers a different type of ease of use. It’s a developer-friendly platform that puts the website engineer in the front seat and in charge of all decisions.

So, if you want to develop a website without the help of a developer or engineer, Sanity could be a good option. However, if you want to harness the full power of custom headless CMS development, we recommend Strapi!

3. How Much Do You Want to Invest?

Sanity might be a great tool for users and developers alike, but it comes with a premium cost. While it offers a free-to-use plan, you might end up paying for Sanity once your website grows and you need it to handle more and more traffic.

Strapi comes with a different kind of cost. Since Strapi is open-source, you don’t have to invest anything to access its code and functionality. However, you might have to engage an expert Strapi development company that can empower you to make the most out of Strapi’s features.

4. How Quickly Do You Want to Develop Your Website?

As we have seen, both Strapi and Sanity offer very fast go-to-market timelines.

But both of them differ to some degree in this aspect. For instance, since Sanity is a SaaS offering, you can probably have your Sanity website up and running within a couple of weeks.

On the other hand, Strapi development might take some time, even for an experienced developer. 

Another factor is the size of your website. If your development vision is to build a massive website, Sanity could slow you down a little in the long run. 

But you can’t go wrong with Strapi since you’re in charge of hosting and developing your website.

5. Who Is Going to Maintain the Website?

Building a website is one thing, but maintaining it? That’s a different challenge altogether. 

It involves rolling out new versions, adapting to new features, and troubleshooting recurring problems. 

In our experience, maintaining a Sanity website is a little easier compared to Strapi. But there’s a catch! Sanity maintenance is easy only to a point: if you reach that critical point of growth, every maintenance operation beyond it might require expertise or investment.

With Strapi, all you need is a good Strapi partner by your side, and you’ll be good to go! From version control and periodic updates to security checks and routine maintenance, a Strapi development service can help you seamlessly evolve your online presence.

Strapi or Sanity: We Can Help With Both!

And that’s it!

Through our blog, we’ve thoroughly explored the best features of both Sanity and Strapi. We’ve also understood how they’re different, and how you can use both CMS platforms to create your own websites and mobile applications.

And this leads us to a tough question: which should you use, Sanity or Strapi?

In our opinion, Sanity is a great option if you want to build fast-loading media-rich websites. On the other hand, Strapi is more suited to websites that require granular customization.

However, if you’re still confused about which platform to use, why not reach out to us? 

You can schedule a free consultation with us, and our experienced engineers will help you pick the CMS platform that most closely matches your priorities…

Good luck!