DatoCMS vs Jekyll

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

DatoCMS
DatoCMS
Visit DatoCMS for the most complete, user-friendly, and performant Headless CMS. Manage online content from a central hub and distribute it via API without legacy constraints.
Jekyll
Jekyll
Jekyll is the ideal Headless CMS for Jekyll websites and applications. Add components to your Jekyll apps in minutes and enable your website's content to be managed from a powerful CMS.

What Users Say

See what users who have used DatoCMS and Jekyll have to say about their overall experience with the product.

DatoCMS's Key Strengths

Read what users love about DatoCMS.

Jekyll's Key Strengths

Read what users love about Jekyll.

DatoCMS's Key Issues

Read what issues users have with DatoCMS.

Jekyll's Key Issues

Read what issues users have with Jekyll.

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What Marketers & Content Creators Say

Hear from the users who uses DatoCMS and Jekyll daily about their experience with the editors.

DatoCMS's Editorial Experience Highlights

What marketers love about DatoCMS's editor.

Jekyll's Editorial Experience Highlights

What marketers love about Jekyll's editor.

DatoCMS's Editorial Experience Issues

What marketers dislike about DatoCMS's editor.

Jekyll's Editorial Experience Issues

What marketers dislike about Jekyll's editor.

Mobile Editing

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

DatoCMS:
Limited Mobile Experience

DatoCMS offers a functional mobile interface for content creation, but improvements are needed for a better mobile-first experience.

"DatoCMS is a headless CMS equipped with all the features presented above that a mobile CMS should have."
Source
"Dato’s mobile interface is functional. Again, some tweaks could make the mobile experience more pleasant."
Source
"DatoCMS provides content as a service. This means it delivers content through an API, which can be consumed by various front-end systems such as websites, mobile apps, or other internet-connected platforms."
Source
"DatoCMS is a cloud-based headless CMS designed to work with websites, mobile apps, and server-side applications of any kind."
Source
Jekyll:
Limited Mobile Experience

Jekyll has limited mobile content creation options through third-party tools like JekyllEx and JekyllPad.

"Jekyll supports basic mobile content creation through integration with tools like JekyllPad."
Source
"JekyllPad offers a mobile-friendly online markdown editor for Jekyll."
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"JekyllEx allows creating and editing Jekyll posts directly from Android."
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.

DatoCMS:
No Automatic Content Linking

DatoCMS does not support automatic linking of similar blog posts for SEO.

"Automatic linking of related blog posts is not mentioned as a feature."
Source
"Inverse relationships allow for manual linking between content types, but not automatic linking."
Source
Jekyll:
Manual Content Linking

Jekyll has limited support for automatic related blog posts using plugins like classifier-reborn, but performance may vary.

"Jekyll's related posts module uses classifier-reborn to create relationships, is limited to the posts collection, and is slow."
Source
"Both Hugo and Jekyll have built-in methods for accessing related content automatically."
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.

DatoCMS:
No Automatic CTA Linking

DatoCMS does not support automatic CTA linking; however, it allows modular content creation.

"DatoCMS allows the definition of re-usable 'Blocks' for CTAs, but lacks explicit automatic linking features."
Source
"In DatoCMS, users can create landing pages with CTAs but are required to manually link them."
Source
Jekyll:
No Automatic CTA Linking

Jekyll doesn't support automatic linking of CTAs directly; requires manual implementation via Liquid templates.

"Transform your plain text into static websites and blogs."
Source
"Settings that affect your entire site can be changed in Jekyll’s configuration file."
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"A call to action (CTA) is a prompt on a website that tells the user to take some specified action."
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"Jekyll made it possible for me to realize the following goals: familiarize myself with the basics of HTML5 and CSS3 transitions."
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.

DatoCMS:
No Comments Supported

DatoCMS does not support external commenting features for site visitors. Comments are limited to internal collaborators via plugins.

"A plugin that allows you and your project collaborators to leave comments under a record."
Source
"DatoCMS does not allow content editors to add comments to content entries."
Source
Jekyll:
No Comments Supported

Jekyll does not have built-in comments; it relies on external plugins like GitHub Discussions or Giscus for comments.

"Jekyll has no built-in commenting system, relying on external services."
Source
"Using GitHub Discussions for comments introduces a commenting system, though not built-in."
Source
"Giscus provides a comment system powered by GitHub Discussions."
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.

DatoCMS:
Multi-tenancy Supported

DatoCMS supports multi-tenancy, enabling agencies to manage multiple client accounts with unique content.

"DatoCMS is a cloud-based headless CMS that provides all the benefits and features you have just seen and much more. It was designed to work with static websites, mobile apps, and server-side applications."
Source
"They needed a platform that could manage completely separate brands, with their own segmented markets, price lists, inventories, promotions, and customers."
Source
Jekyll:
No Multi-tenancy

Jekyll does not natively support multi-tenancy features, limiting centralized account management for agencies.

"Jekyll does not provide built-in support for multi-tenancy, making it challenging for agencies to manage multiple client accounts."
Source

What Developers Say

Hear from developers who've integrated and built on DatoCMS and Jekyll about their experiences.

Ease of Integrating DatoCMS:
Medium
Users report that DatoCMS is relatively easy to integrate, but there are some hurdles with customization and initial setup.
Ease of Integrating Jekyll:
Medium
Integration with Jekyll can be complex due to dependencies on Git and Markdown management, though many plugins are available.

DatoCMS's DX Highlights

What developers love about building with DatoCMS.

Jekyll's DX Highlights

What developers love about building with Jekyll.

DatoCMS's DX Issues

What developers dislike about building with DatoCMS.

Jekyll's DX Issues

What developers dislike about building with Jekyll.

Content Modelling

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

DatoCMS:
Customisable Content Types

DatoCMS has extensive content modelling features, including a variety of field types like text, media, modular content, and blocks.

"Models are composed of several field types - where each field serves a specific purpose for accepting data (such as the title, slug, featured image, etc.)."
Source
"The Modular Content field is used to define a dynamic area for richer page layouts, allowing writers to choose among various blocks."
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"Blocks allow you to define complex and repeatable structures that can be embedded inside records, providing significant expressive freedom."
Source
"DatoCMS has advanced content modelling capability using the unique Modular Content field."
Source
Jekyll:
Customisable Content Types

Jekyll supports content modeling through collections, allowing custom content types with various fields.

"Collections allow Jekyll to define different types of objects, attributes, and IDs for manageable content modeling."
Source
"Using Collections is the best way to design multiple post types in Jekyll."
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"Collections extend Jekyll’s post and pages publishing functionality to other content types."
Source
"TinaCMS uses schemas to define content models that are version-controlled, allowing for flexibility in defining fields."
Source

Custom React Components

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

DatoCMS:
Custom React Components Supported

DatoCMS allows custom React components through its Plugin SDK and functionalities.

"DatoCMS plugins can be built using React, allowing for extensive customizations."
Source
"A set of components and utilities to work faster with DatoCMS in React environments."
Source
"You can also use our <StructuredText> component to render it."
Source
"You can implement custom components to render in modals."
Source
"The react-datocms Image component is used for responsive images in React."
Source
Jekyll:
Limited Customization

Jekyll supports components through Liquid includes but lacks a native Component API for React.

"Jekyll supports component-based design with Liquid includes, allowing for reusable components."
Source
"Jekyll allows including reusable components with data from the client’s database stored in JSON files."
Source
"This article explains how to embed React components into Jekyll posts, showing Jekyll's limited ability to support React."
Source

Full Text Search

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

DatoCMS:
Full Text Search Supported

DatoCMS supports full-text search across multiple fields using its Site Search API.

"Our Content Management API offers a REST endpoint to perform search requests."
Source
"I have created my own search index of DatoCMS data in JSON file, by using DatoCMS API."
Source
"DatoCMS Site Search is a way to deliver tailored search results to your website visitors."
Source
Jekyll:
Full Text Search Supported

Jekyll supports full text search via various plugins like lunr.js and Tipue Search, allowing multi-field searching.

"Using Whoosh for full text search, allowing complex queries across multiple fields."
Source
"lunr.js enables full-text search across Jekyll pages and posts."
Source
"Jekyll Tipue Search plugin enables full-text search, compatible with GitHub Pages."
Source
"Using a database and PHP for full text search implementation in Jekyll."
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"Simple Jekyll Search allows lightweight, client-side full-text search."
Source

Starter Kits

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

DatoCMS:
Available

DatoCMS offers several starter kits and templates for quick project setup.

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

Jekyll:
Available

Multiple starter kits and templates for Jekyll are available.

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

Pricing & Plans

Compare the prices of DatoCMS and Jekyll.

DatoCMS's Pricing
Free Plan
$0 / month
- 1 collaborator
- 300 records
- 200MB file storage
- 10GB/month bandwidth
- 100k API calls/month
Professional Plan
$149 / month
- Up to 10 collaborators
- 100k records
- 500GB file storage
- 1TB/month bandwidth
- 1M API calls/month
- Includes 10 locales
- Supports 11 projects
- Basic support
Enterprise Plan
$0 / custom
- Custom pricing
- Dedicated support
- Enhanced security features
- Higher limits on resources
Jekyll's Pricing
CloudCannon
$25 / month
- Basic CMS features
- $25 per user/month
- Agency plan at $75/month
- Enterprise plan at $125/month
Siteleaf
$7 / month
- Visual CMS
- Free for developers
- Paid plans start at $7/month
- Unlimited users
Forestry.io
$99 / month
- CMS for Jekyll
- Pricing for 11+ users is $99/month
- Enterprise pricing on request
Stastic
$0 / free
- CMS for Jekyll
- Currently in beta
- Free for early adopters
JekyllPad
$0 / free
- Online content editor for Jekyll and GitHub Pages
- Free to start

Compare with other technologies

Looking for a better alternative to DatoCMS & Jekyll? Try Wisp.
Wisp is the best solution for blogging. Try it free today!