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


At a Glance
Quick overview of key features differences between DecapCMS and Substack. Click on any feature to read more details.
Feature | DecapCMS | Substack |
---|---|---|
Basic Features | ||
Hosting Option | Cloud & Self-hosted | Cloud & Self-hosted |
Content Modeling | ||
Blog on Subdomain | ||
Blog on Subdirectory | ||
Marketer Experience | ||
Mobile-first Experience | Limited | |
Automatic Content Linking | ||
Automatic CTA Linking | ||
Engage with Comments | ||
Multi-tenancy | Limited | |
Read all reviews from marketers → | ||
Developer Experience | ||
Ease of Integration | Medium | Medium |
Custom React Components | ||
Full Text Search | ||
Starter Kits | (5 kits) | (5 kits) |
Read all reviews from developers → |
What Users Say
See what users who have used DecapCMS and Substack have to say about their overall experience with the product.
DecapCMS's Key Strengths
Read what users love about DecapCMS.
Substack's Key Strengths
Read what users love about Substack.
DecapCMS's Key Issues
Read what issues users have with DecapCMS.
Substack's Key Issues
Read what issues users have with Substack.
What Marketers & Content Creators Say
Hear from the users who uses DecapCMS and Substack daily about their experience with the editors.
DecapCMS's Editorial Experience Highlights
What marketers love about DecapCMS's editor.
Substack's Editorial Experience Highlights
What marketers love about Substack's editor.
DecapCMS's Editorial Experience Issues
What marketers dislike about DecapCMS's editor.
Substack's Editorial Experience Issues
What marketers dislike about Substack's editor.
Mobile Editing
Find out how the platforms handle the mobile-first experience for the new generation of workforce on the move.
Decap CMS provides a web-based UI allowing content editing on mobile, but experience can be cumbersome.
Substack has launched a mobile editor for creating posts directly on iOS and Android devices, offering essential functionalities.
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.
DecapCMS doesn't support automated related blog linking without manual input.
Substack does not support automatic related blog linking features; manual linking is required.
"If you'd like to share certain parts of a post or allow readers to jump to a specific section of a long post, try adding anchor links."Source
"Recommendations are a Substack super ... However, I couldn't find evidence of automatic related content linking."Source
"I was wondering if it is a good idea to create a substack and post my content on there as well and even link the substack post back to my main blog."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.
Decap CMS does not support automatic CTA linking features.
"At its core, Decap CMS is an open-source React app that acts as a wrapper for the Git workflow, using the GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket API."Source
"Developers are needed to implement several tasks, indicating a lack of automated features."Source
"Not suitable for complex and big projects, suggesting limitations in features."Source
Substack lacks built-in automatic CTA linking; users rely on external tools for automation features.
"Substack provides no automation tools at all; the author notes this is a primary reason users leave for competitors."Source
"Substack lacks several critical features needed for effective email marketing, including automated email sequences."Source
"Users discuss the absence of integrated automation features in Substack, noting their reliance on external tools."Source
DecapCMS does not include built-in commenting features for site visitors. Custom types can be created but lacks out-of-the-box support.
Substack supports commenting on posts from both subscribers and non-subscribers, with moderation options available.
"Navigate to your publication's Settings and click on Community. Slide the toggle to enable comments."Source
"You can now enable comments on your posts for anyone on your mailing list, even if they’re not a paid subscriber."Source
"Writers can choose whether to allow comments from everyone or only paid subscribers."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.
Decap CMS offers basic multi-tenancy features tailored for static site generators but lacks advanced management capabilities.
Substack does not support multi-tenancy, focusing primarily on individual writers and content monetization.
What Developers Say
Hear from developers who've integrated and built on DecapCMS and Substack about their experiences.
DecapCMS's DX Highlights
What developers love about building with DecapCMS.
Substack's DX Highlights
What developers love about building with Substack.
DecapCMS's DX Issues
What developers dislike about building with DecapCMS.
Substack's DX Issues
What developers dislike about building with Substack.
Content Modelling
Find out how developers model and manage their content with the platform with key highlights and limitations.
Decap CMS supports customizable content models and fields, allowing for extensive content modeling capabilities.
"Decap CMS allows you to define custom content types and fields, allowing you to model your content in a way that fits your needs."Source
"Decap CMS allows you to define custom content models using YAML configuration files."Source
"Flexible content types: Specify an unlimited number of content types with custom fields."Source
Substack does not offer built-in content modelling features or custom content types.
"Substack offers limited customization, focusing more on content rather than design."Source
"Directus allows you to create custom schemas, manage data, define roles & permissions for your organization."Source
"Substack doesn’t allow customization for its newsletter formats, thus limiting content modelling."Source
Custom React Components
Find out if the platform supports custom React components to go beyond the basic HTML components for content.
Decap CMS supports custom React components through its widget system, allowing flexibility in content editing.
"The `registerWidget` requires you to provide a React component."Source
"React Components inline interaction. Decap CMS is a collection of React components."Source
"Decaps CMS interface is constructed with React, allowing the creation of custom-styled previews, user-interface widgets, and editor plugins."Source
Substack does not support custom React components directly in the content editor.
"Over the years, I’ve written and reviewed hundreds of React components for a $1.7B GenAI startup."Source
"I wanted to display my Substack posts on my website instead of a subscribe link, so I created my own Substack feed component!"Source
"A customizable React component renders the login page based on the user's UI settings."Source
"The new components are both fully customizable AND robust."Source
"I have used substackapi to achieve this Custom Embed Substack Signup Form."Source
Full Text Search
Find out if the platform supports full text search across multiple fields to help users find content quickly.
Decap CMS supports full-text search across multiple fields, allowing content search across the site.
"The search functionality requires loading all collection(s) entries, which can exhaust rate limits on large repositories. It can be disabled by setting the top level 'search' property to 'false'."Source
"Full-text search refers to techniques for searching a single document or a collection in a full-text database."Source
Substack's search functionality is weak, lacking full text search across all content and authors.
Starter Kits
Discover starter kits and templates to help you get started with the platform.
Multiple starter kits and templates for Decap CMS are available.
(Expand section to see a list of DecapCMS templates and starter kits.)
Substack offers various starter kits and templates for creators.
(Expand section to see a list of Substack templates and starter kits.)
Pricing & Plans
Compare the prices of DecapCMS and Substack.
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.