Strapi vs Directus

WordPress

Joomla

Drupal

Contentful

prismic.io

Sanity

Compare Strapi and Directus based on features, pricing, verified reviews, integrations & more on GetApp. Find out which software is best for your business in 2026.

WordPress is a website and blog creation and publishing platform with tools for aesthetic designing, visitor tracking, content storage and upload, and more

Sanity is a unified content platform with an open-source CMS designed for modern organizations of all sizes, specifically designers, developers, and collaborative teams. The platform’s editing environment, Sanity Studio—built with React.js—provides rapid configuration and free form customization for content workflows. This flexible environment allows teams to complete editing while working with reusable, structured content.

Contentful, the leading content platform for digital-first business. It enables greater speed and scale than traditional CMS solutions. Contentful unifies content in a single hub, structures it for use in any digital channel, and integrates seamlessly with hundreds of other tools through open APIs.

Strapi is the #1 open-source headless CMS. It's JavaScript-based, fully customizable and self-hosted.  

Strapi helps developers to build projects faster by providing a customizable API out of the box and giving them the freedom to use their favorite stack.

Access Controls/Permissions

Asset Lifecycle Management

Audio File Management

Configurable Workflow

Content Library

Content Management

Content Publishing Options

Customizable Branding

Customizable Forms

Customizable Templates

De-Coupled Front & Back Ends

Document Classification

Filtering

For Developers

For Marketers

Full Text Search

Image Editing

Interactive Content

Metadata Management

Mobile Access

Multi-Language

Preview Functionality

Rich Text Editor

Role-Based Permissions

Rule Based Publishing

Scheduling

Search/Filter

SEO Management

Single Sign On

Text Editing

Third-Party Integrations

User Management

Video Support

Website Management

Workflow Management

WYSIWYG Editor

Strapi

Linux

Web-based

Windows

Software Engineer

One of the worst drawbacks of Strapi is the inability of this software to support internalization. Moreover, all alt-tags couldn't be used and it is complicated to use this software.

There are multiple benefits of Strapi and the most important one is the backend settings. This software has improved many features and allows the best website interface along with customizable modes.

Developer

The admin system looks fantastic and the ease with which you can expose endpoints for the API is great.

Founder Product Designer

This can very frustrating. Same as the responses from Strapi which include nested objects and those are hard to orientate in while consuming the data.

I'm very impressed overall with the simplicity and lack of fluff, bloat features. The ui is clean intuitive and doesn't require extensive understanding of the guys to get going super quickly.

Full Stack JavaScript Developer

Strapi is an amazing product, and I can see it being heavily adopted by Node developers in the future. The fact that it is open-source makes it even better.

All in all, the software is best for use and has multiple advantages.

Director

Strapi allow us to create a Backend environment with ease by reducing development times through a very good API.

Very user friendly and easy to use , for a beginner who want's to start developing api's this is by far one of my favorites.

We've used Strapi in a few small projects and it's looking like a great alternative for our past choices.

Strapi is actively being developed and extended to fit the needs of the growing user base. The community around Strapi including the Slack channel have been very helpful.

I dont think there is and disadvantage up to niw.

Software Developer

This is one of best CMS out there in the market.

Full Stack Developer

Strapi is written on React, which makes it very attractive for the community of JS developers, the application is easy to develop and with a simple and functional UI.

Senior Software Engineer

Strapi is a super flexible, low startup cost solution.

Experience Designer

I wanted to build this before I knew Strapi was available. Was built far better than I could have imagined.

Software Developper

Can't really say anything bad about it right now other than the fact there the learning curve can be slightly big and the lack of videos online when learning.

Computer Lab Technician

The project receives frequent investments from large companies. Extremely easy and quick to start a project.

Strapi screenshot: Strapi welcome screen

Strapi screenshot: Strapi content types builder

Strapi screenshot: Strapi content manager

Strapi screenshot: Media library

Strapi screenshot: Custom roles

Strapi screenshot: Strapi roles

Freelancers

Large Enterprises

Mid Size Business

Non Profit

Public Administrations

Small Business

Drupal is an open source content management platform powering millions of websites and applications. It’s built, used, and supported by an active and diverse community of people around the world.

Prismic.io is a content management system backend for websites & apps which enables developers, marketers & content editors to create, schedule & publish content with a custom type builder, scheduling & previews, full revision history, dynamic layouts, integration fields, and multi-language support

Joomla is an open-source content management system (CMS) which allows users to build websites & online applications, with site templates, multi-language support & more

Directus is an open-source headless content management system (CMS) that helps businesses store content in custom SQL databases and access them through an API. Using the Directus App, supervisors can sort items into several categories and customize the platform according to brand requirements.

Activity Dashboard

Authentication

Categorization/Grouping

Collaboration Tools

Customer Database

Data Connectors

Data Import/Export

Data Management

Deployment Management

Digital Asset Management

Document Management

Drag & Drop

Electronic Forms

File Management

Integrations Management

KPI Monitoring

Multi-Channel Marketing

Personalization

Project Workflow

SDKs

Secure Data Storage

Single Page View

Two-Factor Authentication

Version Control

Visual Modeling

Directus

The GraphQL has been a great addition to the latest technology, and additionally, the community support is one the best I have had experienced. As I said, you will love it.

Owner

The beautiful design, the excellent community support, ease of deployment. In short, what's not to like.

Web developer

I really liked the headless aspect and how easy it is to build up the overall construct for your data. The API is nice documented and easy to understand.

Architect

We use directus for rapid database management, and for API endpoints to the data. We are customizing the solution to better fit with our needs and it works great.

With Directus I could built an MVP from zero to hero in a few days. It's user interface is pretty friendly and it's community on discord is amazing.

Its  super easy to pull it locally and connect it to your existing api if you need to fiddle with it. It also has a very modern design which is appealing.

developer

It´s a great experience to work with directus as it is a free tool that can be used for clients as well as developers in a friendly way.

Front-end developer

Until now the experience is good: I like the idea and it works for the project that we started with Directus.

Sr Director, Tech Partnerships

Very happy with Directus, it's an upgrade over the solutions we used before that.

Founder

I am learning more Directus for now, it is simply sexy and ease to use for my new projects in the future.

Director Product and Technology

It is free, if you are able to host it yourself. It is completely white-label, which makes your employees love it even more.

Co-Founder, CTO

Truly open source gives commercial products a run for their money, super helpful community, rapid development, easy customization.

Full Stack Developper

The interface is so user friendly and has a solid and highly customizable backend for all the needs.

Director of Technology

We've pinpointed bad time to start with it. Directus Team just started rolling out v8 where available documentation was for v7.

Software Architect

Difficult to get started. Documentation is a bit lacking / confusing.

Second: the lack of documentation for the interfaces or for the detailed use of the JS SDK. Moreover, sometimes I felt overwhelmed by the technical details of the interface.

Debugging errors and custom endpoints is a bit cumbersome, since every change needs to be first deployed to the final staging or production environment.

Great, we went from a free to a paid plan but eventually stopped using it due to the price increase for a paid plan.

Strapi vs Directus Comparison (2026)

Strapi

Directus

Overview

Video & Screenshots

Pricing

User reviews

Key features

Integrations

Alternatives