Payload CMS vs Keystone
Compare Payload CMS and Keystone 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 Payload CMS and Keystone have to say about their overall experience with the product.
Payload CMS's Key Strengths
Read what users love about Payload CMS.
Keystone's Key Strengths
Read what users love about Keystone.
Payload CMS's Key Issues
Read what issues users have with Payload CMS.
Keystone's Key Issues
Read what issues users have with Keystone.
What Marketers & Content Creators Say
Hear from the users who uses Payload CMS and Keystone daily about their experience with the editors.
Payload CMS's Editorial Experience Highlights
What marketers love about Payload CMS's editor.
Keystone's Editorial Experience Highlights
What marketers love about Keystone's editor.
Payload CMS's Editorial Experience Issues
What marketers dislike about Payload CMS's editor.
Keystone's Editorial Experience Issues
What marketers dislike about Keystone'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 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
KeystoneJS does not specifically support a mobile first editing experience; the editing capabilities are primarily designed for desktop use.
"Keystone helps you build faster and scale further than any other CMS or App Framework. Describe your schema, and get a powerful GraphQL API & beautiful Management UI for your content and data."Source
"KeystoneJS is a powerful Node.js content management system and web app framework built on express and mongoose. It features an intuitive Admin UI."Source
"... Strapi is more oriented towards providing a mobile-friendly and customizable interface compared to KeystoneJS which has a more traditional desktop-focused UI."Source
"Keystone has a beautiful auto-generated Admin UI that is primarily designed for desktop use without a mobile-first editing option."Source
"Keystone's Admin UI will save you time and make managing your data easy, but there is no mention of mobile editing capabilities."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 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
Keystone JS does not support automatic related blog linking, relying instead on manual relationships.
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.
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
KeystoneJS does not support automatic linking of CTAs to content through AI.
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 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
Keystone.js does not support built-in external commenting features out of the box. Custom fields can be created, but not natively.
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 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 Payload CMS and Keystone about their experiences.
Payload CMS's DX Highlights
What developers love about building with Payload CMS.
Keystone's DX Highlights
What developers love about building with Keystone.
Payload CMS's DX Issues
What developers dislike about building with Payload CMS.
Keystone's DX Issues
What developers dislike about building with Keystone.
Content Modelling
Find out how developers model and manage their content with the platform with key highlights and limitations.
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
KeystoneJS offers extensive content modeling capabilities with various field types and GraphQL API.
"Keystone helps you build faster and scale further with the programmable open source GraphQL API back-end for structured content projects."Source
"KeystoneJs is an open source Node.js CMS with a wide range of features including a user-friendly admin UI, content modelling, and a powerful GraphQL API."Source
"KeystoneJs is an open-source Node.js CMS with a wide range of features including a user-friendly admin UI, content modelling, and a powerful GraphQL API."Source
Custom React Components
Find out if the platform supports custom React components to go beyond the basic HTML components for content.
Payload CMS supports custom React components through its admin panel, allowing rich interactive content.
Keystone supports adding custom React components via Document fields in the rich text editor.
"The really cool stuff is behind the **`+`** button on the right of the toolbar – these are the **Custom Components**."Source
"They store structured data, and can be inserted (and edited!) anywhere in the document."Source
"If you need a field type which isn't provided, or you need a specialised version of an existing field type, you can define your own custom field type."Source
Full Text Search
Find out if the platform supports full text search across multiple fields to help users find content quickly.
Payload CMS supports full text search through the @payloadcms/plugin-search, enabling advanced search across various fields.
Keystone.js supports native full-text search across entire datasets, allowing robust search functionality.
"Native full-text search. A way for you and editors to easily search for strings across your entire dataset."Source
"Keystone manages three models fundamental for the whole system. The role of Keystone is to manage the content of basic pages for the main frontend app."Source
"Thanks for posting. It looks like you are calling the findOne query using the non-plural name on GraphQL; you can see a list of example GraphQL queries Keystone generates."Source
Starter Kits
Discover starter kits and templates to help you get started with the platform.
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.)
KeystoneJS offers a starter kit to quickly create a new project.
(Expand section to see a list of Keystone templates and starter kits.)
Pricing & Plans
Compare the prices of Payload CMS and Keystone.