Content Collections vs Payload CMS

Compare Content Collections and Payload CMS for your content needs. Find out what actual users are saying about each product and which one is best suited for you!

Content Collections
Content Collections
Transform your content into type-safe data collections with seamless integration and powerful validation, ensuring accuracy and a delightful developer experience.
Payload CMS
Payload CMS
Payload is an open-source headless CMS and application framework that emphasizes flexibility, customization, and a developer-friendly environment. Provides powerful APIs, a clean UI, and robust support for various integrations.

What Users Say

See what users who have used Content Collections and Payload CMS have to say about their overall experience with the product.

Content Collections's Key Strengths

Read what users love about Content Collections.

Payload CMS's Key Strengths

Read what users love about Payload CMS.

Content Collections's Key Issues

Read what issues users have with Content Collections.

Payload CMS's Key Issues

Read what issues users have with Payload CMS.

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What Marketers & Content Creators Say

Hear from the users who uses Content Collections and Payload CMS daily about their experience with the editors.

Content Collections's Editorial Experience Highlights

What marketers love about Content Collections's editor.

Payload CMS's Editorial Experience Highlights

What marketers love about Payload CMS's editor.

Content Collections's Editorial Experience Issues

What marketers dislike about Content Collections's editor.

Payload CMS's Editorial Experience Issues

What marketers dislike about Payload CMS's editor.

Mobile Editing

Find out how the platforms handle the mobile-first experience for the new generation of workforce on the move.

Content Collections:
Mobile-First Experience

Wisp and Contentful support mobile-first experiences for content creation on mobile devices.

"Wisp was built from the ground up with mobile users in mind."
Source
"Contentful delivers content through a well-documented RESTful JSON-based API, which makes it fairly simple to get content from the backend."
Source
Payload CMS:
Mobile-First Experience

Payload CMS supports mobile-first experiences, allowing content creation on mobile devices seamlessly.

"It works seamlessly on desktop and mobile (still can't believe most headless CMS admin panels aren't responsive in 2022)."
Source
"Payload will give you backend superpowers... even non-technical users can independently make use of its Admin Panel to manage whatever they need to without having to know code."
Source
"Users in the Admin Panel have the ability to choose between light mode and dark mode for their editing experience."
Source

Automatic Content Linking

Find out if the platform supports automatic linking of related content to help user discover more content without additional manual effort from the marketer. This automatically create topical clusters of content and is essential for SEO.

Content Collections:
No Automatic Content Linking

The CMS does not support automated internal linking of related blog posts based on content similarity.

"You can define a collection from a set of data that is structurally similar."
Source
"We can manually add blogs one by one into the section and include a button that directs to the relevant URL."
Source
"Webflow Collections allow you to create groups of content but do not automate related content linking."
Source
Payload CMS:
No Automatic Content Linking

Payload CMS requires manual linking using the Relationship field; automated linking for SEO is not available.

"One of the most straightforward ways to manage related content in Payload CMS is through the Relationship field. This feature allows you to link different documents together."
Source
"By leveraging these relationship types, Payload CMS enables users to build complex content architectures that cater to a wide range of applications, from e-commerce sites to blogs with related posts."
Source
"The Rich Text field features a Link element which allows for users to automatically reference related documents within their rich text."
Source

Automatic CTA Linking

Find out if the platform supports automatic display of Call-to-Actions using AI to help users take actions that are relevant to the content they are reading.

Content Collections:
No Automatic CTA Linking

Content Collections does not support automated linking for CTAs; this feature is generally missing in most CMS products.

"Content Collections is all about delivering a delightful developer experience, lacking automatic CTA linking."
Source
"Standard CMS features include manually linking CTAs without automation."
Source
"Explained auto interlinking in Magento but does not mention CTA linking features."
Source
Payload CMS:
Manual CTA Linking

Supports custom components but lacks dedicated automatic CTA linking functionality.

"All Custom Components in Payload are React Server Components by default. This enables the use of the Local API directly on the front-end."
Source
"You can design and build your own Slate elements and leaves to extend the editor with your own functionality."
Source
"You can use Relationships to link to existing documents within the Rich Text field."
Source

Comments

Find out if the platform supports comments from your users to improve user engagement. This is often a great way to collect feedback and user emails.

Content Collections:
Comments Supported

Webflow CMS supports commenting via a paid add-on with built-in moderation features.

"Supercharge your Webflow CMS with comments that let people interact with your Collection content."
Source
"However, this permission does not allow visitors to update existing items or their field values."
Source
"When you create Collections in the Webflow CMS, you can add Collection items manually."
Source
Payload CMS:
Comments Supported

Payload CMS supports commenting via a dedicated plugin with features like comment approval and email alerts.

"A fully-customizable plugin for Payload CMS to create a collection for comments, reviews, or other user-submitted feedback."
Source
"Implement a comment functionality where everyone can comment without logging in."
Source
"The community discusses challenges and features of Payload, including the need for custom implementations."
Source

Multi-tenancy

Find out if the platform supports managing multiple clients or projects within a single account. This is useful for agencies, multi-client or multi-project scenarios.

Content Collections:
Limited Multi-tenancy

Statamic supports multiple sites but is not intended for multi-tenant applications.

"I'm currently thinking of having a content collection called Organization, with a relation to an Admin User (User type, admin role)."
Source
"Strapi (which you can trick into multitenancy but it's not out of the box and, unfortunately, I can't get it to work)"
Source
"Payload has a multi-tenancy feature but requires significant setup."
Source
"The multi-tenancy feature lets you segregate content in CRX based on organization."
Source
"Statamic's multi-site capabilities are designed to manage a single site or site network with multiple localizations."
Source
Payload CMS:
Multi-tenancy Supported

Payload CMS offers multi-tenancy via a plugin that enables hierarchical tenant management, domain mapping, and isolation.

"This plugin sets up multi-tenancy for your application from within your Admin Panel. It adds a `tenant` field to all specified collections."
Source
"This plugin allows multiple tenants to access different resources in the same instance of Payload CMS."
Source
"Payload's Access Control facilitated a multi-tenant, "subsite"-based system."
Source

What Developers Say

Hear from developers who've integrated and built on Content Collections and Payload CMS about their experiences.

Ease of Integrating Content Collections:
Medium
Integration can be complex due to documentation issues and managing assets alongside content.
Ease of Integrating Payload CMS:
Medium
Users find Payload CMS has a moderate integration complexity, with some issues noted in documentation and support.

Content Collections's DX Highlights

What developers love about building with Content Collections.

Payload CMS's DX Highlights

What developers love about building with Payload CMS.

Content Collections's DX Issues

What developers dislike about building with Content Collections.

Payload CMS's DX Issues

What developers dislike about building with Payload CMS.

Content Modelling

Find out how developers model and manage their content with the platform with key highlights and limitations.

Content Collections:
Customisable Content Types

Content Collections supports content modelling with customizable schemas and validation via Zod.

"Transform your content into type-safe data collections, providing useful utilities for data fetching and parsing."
Source
"Content Collections uses a schema to define the fields of a collection. Computed fields can be added with the transform function."
Source
"The schema will validate the title and summary fields, ensuring data integrity."
Source
Payload CMS:
Customisable Content Types

Payload CMS supports content modeling with various field types including relationships, arrays, and blocks.

"Payload provides a wide variety of built-in Field Types, each with its own unique properties and behaviors."
Source
"Payload allows parent/child content modelling using a nested docs plugin for hierarchical content."
Source
"Each Collection can have its own unique Access Control, Hooks, Admin Options, and more."
Source

Custom React Components

Find out if the platform supports custom React components to go beyond the basic HTML components for content.

Content Collections:
Custom React Components Supported

Payload CMS supports custom React components in collections, enabling rich content integration.

"Swap in your own React components to be used within this Collection."
Source
"Decap CMS exposes two constructs globally to allow you to create components inline."
Source
"The same object is also the default export if you import Decap CMS as an npm module."
Source
"Learn how to embed HubSpot forms in ButterCMS using a custom React component."
Source
Payload CMS:
Custom React Components Supported

Payload CMS supports custom React components through its admin panel, allowing rich interactive content.

"Payload provides a pattern for you to supply your own React components through your Payload Config."
Source
"You can build completely custom field types in Payload by swapping in your own React components for any field in your app."
Source

Full Text Search

Find out if the platform supports full text search across multiple fields to help users find content quickly.

Content Collections:
Full Text Search Supported

Contentful supports full-text search across multiple fields, enhancing search capabilities.

"Full-text search is case insensitive and might return more results than expected. A query will ignore search tokens with less than 2 characters."
Source
"In Contentful, full-text search terms are left anchored. This means that when you, for example, search for 'house,' we will convert it into the."
Source
"In Contentful's GraphQL API you can do searching within different fields with collection filters. Equivalent to full-text searching."
Source
"Contentful does include some intriguing full-text search capabilities out-of-the-box that searches across all fields."
Source
Payload CMS:
Full Text Search Supported

Payload CMS supports full text search through the @payloadcms/plugin-search, enabling advanced search across various fields.

"This plugin generates records of your documents that are extremely fast to search on."
Source
"I would like to create a fulltext search endpoint for one of my collections."
Source
"A plugin for Payload to generate records of your documents that are extremely fast to search on."
Source

Starter Kits

Discover starter kits and templates to help you get started with the platform.

Content Collections:
Available

Content Collections offers starter kits and templates through Acquia and Astro.

(Expand section to see a list of Content Collections templates and starter kits.)

Payload CMS:
Available

Payload CMS offers several starter kits, including an Ecommerce and a SvelteKit template.

(Expand section to see a list of Payload CMS templates and starter kits.)

Pricing & Plans

Compare the prices of Content Collections and Payload CMS.

Content Collections's Pricing
Standard
$5 / month
- Content import
- Type-safe data validation
- Access to API
Pro
$15 / month
- All Standard features
- Advanced validation options
- Support for custom transformations
Enterprise
$30 / month
- All Pro features
- Dedicated support
- Custom pricing options
Payload CMS's Pricing
Free
$0 / lifetime
- Completely open source
- Self-hosted
Standard
$35 / month
- MongoDB Atlas serverless DB
- 3GB database storage
- 30GB S3 file storage
- 40GB bandwidth /mo
- 512MB RAM, 1 vCPU
- 50 million serverless RPUs /mo
- One custom domain
- On-demand backup
- Payload-branded email service
Pro
$199 / month
- Dedicated M10 Atlas cluster
- 30GB database storage
- 150GB file storage
- 100GB bandwidth /mo
- 1GB RAM, 1 vCPU, 2 instances
- High-availability compute
- Up to 3 custom domains
- Automatic backups
- White-labeled email service
Custom
$0 / custom
- Any size Atlas database
- Unlimited database storage
- Unlimited file storage
- Unlimited bandwidth
- RAM and CPU scaled to needs
- High-availability compute
- Unlimited custom domains
- White-labeled email service
- Single Sign-On (SSO)
- Enterprise plugins
- 99.9% uptime SLA

Compare with other technologies

Looking for a better alternative to Content Collections & Payload CMS? Try Wisp.
Wisp is the best solution for blogging. Try it free today!