Contentful vs Payload CMS
Compare Contentful 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!
What Users Say
See what users who have used Contentful and Payload CMS have to say about their overall experience with the product.
Contentful's Key Strengths
Read what users love about Contentful.
Payload CMS's Key Strengths
Read what users love about Payload CMS.
Contentful's Key Issues
Read what issues users have with Contentful.
Payload CMS's Key Issues
Read what issues users have with Payload CMS.
What Marketers & Content Creators Say
Hear from the users who uses Contentful and Payload CMS daily about their experience with the editors.
Contentful's Editorial Experience Highlights
What marketers love about Contentful's editor.
Payload CMS's Editorial Experience Highlights
What marketers love about Payload CMS's editor.
Contentful's Editorial Experience Issues
What marketers dislike about Contentful'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.
Contentful does not explicitly support mobile-first content creation for marketers; mainly desktop-centric.
"Contentful is mainly an API-based headless CMS, emphasizing structured content delivery rather than a mobile-first editing experience."Source
"Contentful focuses on optimizing web performance metrics but does not emphasize mobile content creation."Source
"No significant discussions regarding mobile-first content creation features for Contentful."Source
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.
Contentful supports automatic related blog linking with Content Source Maps, linking content fields automatically.
"With Content Source Maps, this setup is now fully automated. Our APIs now return source maps for fields that link directly to the corresponding field in Contentful."Source
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.
Contentful does not support automatic call-to-action linking features.
"Links are a powerful way to model relationships between content."Source
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.
While Contentful has a comments feature, it's primarily for internal collaboration. It does not support external visitor commenting out of the box.
"The Comments tab allows you to communicate with collaborators in your space by creating comments, replying, and tagging members."Source
"Entry comments. Users can add comments to an entry. This allows for teams to collaborate and have conversations."Source
"Contentful's flexible content modeling goes far beyond blog posts. Here’s how you can leverage Contentful and Netlify to create a nested commenting system."Source
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.
Contentful supports multi-tenancy, allowing users to manage multiple client accounts from a single interface.
"Multi-tenancy architecture means that all our customers and applications share a single, common infrastructure and code base that is centrally maintained by us."Source
"Our solution? A single, unified content platform."Source
"Contentful's multi-tenancy concept is extensible on all levels and continuously delivers new features."Source
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 Contentful and Payload CMS about their experiences.
Contentful's DX Highlights
What developers love about building with Contentful.
Payload CMS's DX Highlights
What developers love about building with Payload CMS.
Contentful's DX Issues
What developers dislike about building with Contentful.
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.
Contentful supports content modeling with flexible structure and customizable content types, including various field types and validations.
"A solid content model is the foundation of every great digital project. Your model is the bones of your project; it tells our APIs what kind of content to send to your end application."Source
"You can set up your content model with the following tools: Visual modeler — Visually build your content model, view the content types and references."Source
"This guide will lay out a set of best practices that are considered good content modeling patterns."Source
"Currently, editor interfaces are fully supported in templates. These include all configurations for content type fields."Source
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.
Contentful supports custom React components, allowing developers to enhance content editing with interactive components.
"To use custom components in Experiences, you need to register them."Source
"You can import your own design system components into Experiences to create on-brand digital experiences."Source
"The Forma 36 Design System and React component library provides a comprehensive collection of UI components."Source
Payload CMS supports custom React components through its admin panel, allowing rich interactive content.
Full Text Search
Find out if the platform supports full text search across multiple fields to help users find content quickly.
Contentful supports full-text search across multiple fields, allowing users to search content effectively.
"In Contentful, full-text search terms are left anchored...full-text search is built into the standard entry listing endpoint."Source
"Contentful's full-text search capabilities allow searching across all fields."Source
"Contentful does include some intriguing full-text search capabilities out-of-the-box that searches across all fields."Source
Payload CMS supports full text search through the @payloadcms/plugin-search, enabling advanced search across various fields.
Starter Kits
Discover starter kits and templates to help you get started with the platform.
Contentful offers various starter templates including Next.js and Gatsby options.
(Expand section to see a list of Contentful templates and starter kits.)
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 Contentful and Payload CMS.