Directus vs Payload CMS
Compare Directus 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 Directus and Payload CMS have to say about their overall experience with the product.
Directus's Key Strengths
Read what users love about Directus.
Payload CMS's Key Strengths
Read what users love about Payload CMS.
Directus's Key Issues
Read what issues users have with Directus.
Payload CMS's Key Issues
Read what issues users have with Payload CMS.
What Marketers & Content Creators Say
Hear from the users who uses Directus and Payload CMS daily about their experience with the editors.
Directus's Editorial Experience Highlights
What marketers love about Directus's editor.
Payload CMS's Editorial Experience Highlights
What marketers love about Payload CMS's editor.
Directus's Editorial Experience Issues
What marketers dislike about Directus'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.
Directus supports mobile content creation via its mobile app and user-friendly interface.
"Layouts provide intuitive displays to view and interact with Items in a Collection."Source
"Explore the features and benefits of the Directus Mobile App for seamless content management on-the-go."Source
"The Directus Studio App serves as a comprehensive no-code interface for managing and presenting data, content, and assets."Source
"Directus stands out as a fully open-source platform, designed to be modular and extensible."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.
Directus does not support automatic related blog linking; only manual relationships are available.
"Directus provides a way to manually link related content but does not have AI-driven auto-linking."Source
"Directus emphasizes creating and managing relationships manually for SEO purposes."Source
"Discussion highlights the lack of built-in automatic internal linking features."Source
"Directus focuses more on policies and access control rather than auto-linking features."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.
Directus does not support automatic linking of CTAs to content through AI features.
"Directus offers a highly flexible API and content management system but lacks a specific feature for automatic CTA linking."Source
"While Directus has released AI extensions, they do not include features for automatic CTA linking."Source
"Traditional CMS architectures, including Directus, are not designed to support AI-driven content strategies like automatic CTA linking."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.
Directus supports commenting directly on items for team collaboration with mentions and editing options.
"Encourage team collaboration directly within your content for things like approval processes and feedback."Source
"Comments are a collaboration tool and can be left on items from the sidebar."Source
"To create a comment, follow the steps: Navigate to the Content Module, select the desired Collection, select the desired Item and submit your comment."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.
Directus supports multi-tenancy through project and role scoping, allowing for isolated environments for different clients.
"The Multi-tenant SaaS starter kit is designed to streamline the backend infrastructure for Software as a Service (SaaS) applications. The user data is setup as a simple project and task as an example only, but you can build whatever you desire."Source
"Directus supports multi-tenant architectures, ensuring that each Professional Project is isolated within its own container. This approach guarantees dedicated minimum resources."Source
"Directus has multi-tenancy in that you can create different projects that each have their own database. Within each project you have the ability to create different roles to manage specific access."Source
"Multitenancy is an architecture that allows multiple tenants (e.g., customers) to be managed by the platform. There are two main ways to achieve multitenancy: project scoping and role scoping."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 Directus and Payload CMS about their experiences.
Directus's DX Highlights
What developers love about building with Directus.
Payload CMS's DX Highlights
What developers love about building with Payload CMS.
Directus's DX Issues
What developers dislike about building with Directus.
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.
Directus provides robust content modelling capabilities, including custom collections, fields, and relationships.
"The Directus data studio enables no-code configuration and management for any SQL database, with no arbitrary restrictions on how you build your data model."Source
"Directus collections help you manage your data. Create custom collections, define fields, configure relationships, and leverage features like content versioning."Source
"Directus supports creating collections, defining fields, and configuring relationships, forming a comprehensive content model."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.
Directus allows for integration with React using its SDK, but fully custom React components are not natively supported.
"Integrating Directus with React applications provides a powerful combination for building dynamic and real-time web applications."Source
"Directus provides a set of reusable UI components that can be used when building extensions."Source
"Custom Modules are completely open-ended components that allow you to create new experiences within the Directus platform."Source
"Custom Interfaces allow you to create new ways of viewing or interacting with field data on the Item Detail page."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.
Directus supports full text search across multiple fields with built-in indexing for enhanced performance.
"Full text search is a powerful feature in Directus that allows users to perform comprehensive searches across their data collections."Source
"Directus offers robust search capabilities that allow users to quickly find the data they need within their collections."Source
"Directus Features: Full Text Search, Role-Based Permissions, Content Management."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.
Directus offers community-maintained templates and premium starter kits for projects.
(Expand section to see a list of Directus 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 Directus and Payload CMS.