⚡ 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.

Statistics based on 3.3M+ analyzed websites. About this data

⭐ 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 Optimizely CMS 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 33 headless CMS platforms we track, ranked by their market share.

Available filters: Education Enterprise Headless Hotel Open-Source PHP Python 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
Optimizely CMS
New York, United States

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

$36,000+/year
4
Storyblok
Linz, Austria

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

Free$99+/month
5
Prismic
Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States

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

Free$180+/month
6
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
7
Statamic
Ormond Beach, Florida, United States

A flexible content management system built on Laravel that can operate as a full-stack or headless CMS, using flat files or a database, and can generate static sites.

FreeOpen source$275+
8
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
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
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.js, Svelte, Qwik, and other frameworks.

Free$30+/user/month
11
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
12
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
13
Hygraph
Berlin, Germany

A headless content management system based on GraphQL.

Free$299+/month
14
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
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
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
17
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
18
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
19
CloudCannon
Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand

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

$55+/month
20
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
21
Enonic
Oslo, Norway

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

FreeOpen source€1,000+
22
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$$$
23
ButterCMS
San Francisco, California, United States

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

$119+/month
24
Contensis
Ludlow, United Kingdom

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

£920+/month
25
Agility CMS
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

A headless, cloud-based content management system for building and managing responsive websites and apps.

$1,249+/month

🗃️ About This Data