⚡ Headless Content Management Systems

Headless content management systems are platforms that separate content creation and storage from content presentation, delivering content through APIs rather than a built-in frontend.

They are used to distribute structured content across multiple websites, applications, and devices, enabling omnichannel publishing, frontend technology independence, and easier integration with modern frameworks, mobile apps, and external services.

⭐ Most Popular in 2026

The following chart shows the leading headless CMS platforms in 2026, based on market share.

The most popular is Contentful with a share of 0.3%, followed by Sanity with 0.2% and Kentico with 0.1%.

🚀 Country Highlights

Here is a list of platforms that are especially popular in certain countries.
Differences between global and country rankings are shown in parentheses.

✨ Best Headless CMS Platforms

Below is a more detailed list of the top 25 of the 34 headless CMS platforms we track, ranked by their market share.

Available filters: Education Enterprise Headless Hotel Open-Source PHP Java .NET Node.js Ruby
RankNameMarket share
1
Contentful
Berlin, Germany

A commercial, cloud-based, headless content management system that structures content for use across multiple digital platforms via APIs.

Free$300+/month
2
Sanity
San Francisco, California, United States

A cloud-based headless CMS that stores content as structured data in a hosted content lake and delivers it via APIs to any frontend.

Free$15+/seat/month
3
Kentico
Brno, Czech Republic

A commercial content management system built on ASP.NET and Microsoft SQL Server.

$1,050+/month
4
Optimizely CMS
New York, United States

A cloud-based content management system with enterprise-level features and headless delivery capabilities.

$36,000+/year
5
Storyblok
Linz, Austria

An enterprise-grade headless content management system with a visual editor.

Free$99+/month
6
Prismic
Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States

A headless CMS and page builder for Next.js, Nuxt, and SvelteKit sites.

Free$180+/month
7
Strapi
San Francisco, California, United States

An open-source headless CMS built with Node.js and TypeScript that connects to various databases and frontend frameworks.

FreeOpen source$45+/month
8
Statamic
Ormond Beach, Florida, United States

A highly adaptable CMS built on Laravel that can run full-stack or headless, on flat files or database, or as a static site generator.

FreeOpen source$7+/month
9
Amplience
London, United Kingdom

A headless CMS and DAM platform that centralizes structured content creation, asset storage, and delivery via APIs for omnichannel experiences.

$25,000+/year
10
DatoCMS
Florence, Italy

A cloud-based headless CMS that organizes content and assets via APIs for delivery across websites, mobile apps, and other digital channels.

Free€199+/month
11
Builder.io
San Francisco, California, United States

A visual development platform and headless CMS that lets teams create, edit, and publish websites and applications with drag-and-drop editors, integrated with React, Vue, Svelte, Qwik, and other frameworks.

Free$30+/user/month
12
Contentstack
San Francisco, California, United States

A headless, API-first enterprise content management system designed to manage modular content and deliver it across multiple channels.

$995+/month
13
Brightspot
Reston, Virginia, United States

An enterprise content management system with an API-first architecture that supports headless, decoupled, and hybrid deployments.

$15,000+/year
14
Hygraph
Berlin, Germany

A headless content management system based on GraphQL.

Free$299+/month
15
Kontent.ai
Brno, Czech Republic

A headless CMS that provides reusable modular content blocks, semantic search, and SDKs to deliver structured content via APIs to any digital channel.

$$$
16
Payload CMS
San Francisco, California, United States

An open-source application framework and headless CMS built with Next.js that supports both self-hosting and cloud deployment.

FreeOpen source
17
CoreMedia
Hamburg, Germany

An enterprise-class, API-driven digital experience platform that combines a headless content repository with advanced digital asset management.

$20,000+/year
18
Orchard Core
Redmond, Washington, United States

An open-source, modular content management system and application framework built on ASP.NET Core that allows multiple sites to run from a single installation and supports both traditional and headless content delivery.

FreeOpen source
19
CloudCannon
Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand

A Git-based headless content management system that integrates with all major static site generators.

$55+/month
20
FirstSpirit
Denver, Colorado, United States

An enterprise-grade, hybrid, headless CMS that features a drag-and-drop WYSIWYG editor with built-in AI Suite.

$100,000+/year
21
Enonic
Oslo, Norway

A composable content management platform that supports headless, hybrid, and traditional CMS architectures.

FreeOpen source€1,000+
22
Apostrophe
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States

An open-source full-stack content management system built with Node.js and MongoDB that can be used both as a traditional and headless CMS.

FreeOpen source$199+/month
23
Directus
New York, United States

An open-source headless CMS and data platform that lets developers build APIs from custom SQL data models while providing non-technical users with a friendly admin interface to manage structured content.

FreeOpen source$$$
24
Contensis
Ludlow, United Kingdom

A proprietary headless CMS with content collaboration and an integrated deployment platform.

£920+/month
25
ButterCMS
San Francisco, California, United States

A cloud-based, enterprise-grade, headless content management system.

$119+/month
Data is based on the analysis of 3,040,870 websites.
Statistics were last calculated on .
For details, see our methodology and disclaimer.