Payload CMS vs ButterCMS

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

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.
ButterCMS
ButterCMS
Leading Content Management System (CMS) for Websites of All Sizes. Build SEO pages and mobile apps faster & easier with ButterCMS.

What Users Say

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

Payload CMS's Key Strengths

Read what users love about Payload CMS.

ButterCMS's Key Strengths

Read what users love about ButterCMS.

Payload CMS's Key Issues

Read what issues users have with Payload CMS.

ButterCMS's Key Issues

Read what issues users have with ButterCMS.

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

What Marketers & Content Creators Say

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

Payload CMS's Editorial Experience Highlights

What marketers love about Payload CMS's editor.

ButterCMS's Editorial Experience Highlights

What marketers love about ButterCMS's editor.

Payload CMS's Editorial Experience Issues

What marketers dislike about Payload CMS's editor.

ButterCMS's Editorial Experience Issues

What marketers dislike about ButterCMS's editor.

Mobile Editing

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

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
ButterCMS:
Mobile-First Experience

ButterCMS supports a mobile-first experience optimizing content creation on mobile devices.

"A Mobile Content Management System (CMS) is a centralized data store that allows managing content for multiple platforms."
Source
"Butter makes CMS jobs faster with our intuitive content modeling and easy to integrate content API."
Source
"The Customizable WYSIWYG editor provides you with a content editing experience where the content resembles the appearance that will be displayed on your live site."
Source
"This centralized approach simplifies integration for developers, as they always deal with the same APIs and content models, regardless of the channel."
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.

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
ButterCMS:
No Automatic Content Linking

ButterCMS does not support automatic related blog linking for SEO; internal linking must be done manually.

"ButterCMS does not currently offer automated features for related content linking."
Source
"Blog posts are predefined pages with a pre-defined field that allows you to get a blog quickly connected with your site via built-in optimized SEO."
Source
"ButterCMS lacks an automatic process to link related blog posts; such linking must be handled manually."
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.

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
ButterCMS:
No Automatic CTA Linking

ButterCMS does not support automatic CTA linking; marketers must manually assign CTAs in their content.

"ButterCMS lacks features for automatic linking of call-to-action blocks; users must manage placements manually."
Source
"The platform does not mention support for automatically linking call-to-action elements."
Source
"Marketers are responsible for manually selecting and placing CTAs in the ButterCMS blog engine."
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.

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
ButterCMS:
No Comments Supported

ButterCMS does not natively support commenting; users must integrate third-party tools like Disqus.

"Adding this comments feature and setting it up is really easy to do. We recommend using existing third-party tools for this as they're great for managing your blog comments."
Source
"Easily kickoff approval workflows, leave comments, assign owners and add due dates."
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.

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
ButterCMS:
Multi-tenancy Supported

ButterCMS supports multi-tenancy, enabling users to manage multiple client accounts from a single dashboard.

"Manage multiple brands and languages easily"
Source
"A multisite CMS is designed to handle a growing network of sites... ButterCMS allows you to create and manage multiple sites."
Source
"Built-in multi-tenant capabilities."
Source

What Developers Say

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

Ease of Integrating Payload CMS:
Medium
Users find Payload CMS has a moderate integration complexity, with some issues noted in documentation and support.
Ease of Integrating ButterCMS:
Easy
Integration with ButterCMS is straightforward, especially for developers familiar with APIs.

Payload CMS's DX Highlights

What developers love about building with Payload CMS.

ButterCMS's DX Highlights

What developers love about building with ButterCMS.

Payload CMS's DX Issues

What developers dislike about building with Payload CMS.

ButterCMS's DX Issues

What developers dislike about building with ButterCMS.

Content Modelling

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

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
ButterCMS:
Customisable Content Types

ButterCMS supports content modeling with features like custom fields, page types, and collections.

"Easily manage all of your content types from one centralized dashboard. Butter makes CMS jobs faster with our intuitive content modeling."
Source
"ButterCMS is an easy to use tool for content management, allowing for seamless content modeling."
Source
"Butter allows you to create flexible page layouts and easily reorder them, supporting advanced content modeling."
Source

Custom React Components

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

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
ButterCMS:
Custom React Components Supported

ButterCMS allows marketers to integrate custom React components into their content editor.

"Reusable React components are those components that are pure and predictable... Integrating React components with ButterCMS."
Source
"Now that we have launched our Components and Component Picker feature, we have a more efficient way to enable your marketers to insert custom HTML snippets..."
Source

Full Text Search

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

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
ButterCMS:
Limited Search

ButterCMS supports full-text search but currently only via API without direct audio input capabilities.

"ButterCMS allows searching through created blogs and pages using keywords."
Source
"It is important to note that ButterCMS does not currently support the use of audio input when searching for data."
Source
"Full Text Search. Search for specific words or phrases within a document or across multiple types."
Source

Starter Kits

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

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.)

ButterCMS:
Available

ButterCMS provides various starter kits for Angular, Django, Next.js, etc.

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

Pricing & Plans

Compare the prices of Payload CMS and ButterCMS.

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
ButterCMS's Pricing
Micro
$119 / month
- 3 Users
- 5 Pages
- 50 Blog Posts
- 50 Collection Items
- WordPress Migration
- 3 Roles
Startup
$239 / month
- Unlimited Users
- 50 Pages
- 300 Blog Posts
- 500 Collection Items
- Components
- 3 Roles
Small Business
$449 / month
- Unlimited Users
- 100 Pages
- 600 Blog Posts
- 1000 Collection Items
- 5 Locales
- Image Editor
- Priority Support
- 3 Roles
Enterprise + Agency
$0 / custom
- Enterprise-class SLA
- Workflows
- Multiple Environments
- Sites+
- Write API
- Locale Permissions
- Video Support
- Solution Engineers and Agency Partners
- Custom roles
Free Developer Plan
$0 / month
- For personal non-commercial usage and trying us out. Just add an attribution link back to us.

Compare with other technologies

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