Payload CMS vs Medium

Compare Payload CMS and Medium 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.
Medium
Medium
Medium is a popular online platform for reading and writing, offering an engaging space for creators. It allows writers to share their ideas with a broad audience while providing tools for monetization and community engagement.

What Users Say

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

Payload CMS's Key Strengths

Read what users love about Payload CMS.

Medium's Key Strengths

Read what users love about Medium.

Payload CMS's Key Issues

Read what issues users have with Payload CMS.

Medium's Key Issues

Read what issues users have with Medium.

Looking for a better alternative to Payload CMS & Medium? 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 Medium daily about their experience with the editors.

Payload CMS's Editorial Experience Highlights

What marketers love about Payload CMS's editor.

Medium's Editorial Experience Highlights

What marketers love about Medium's editor.

Payload CMS's Editorial Experience Issues

What marketers dislike about Payload CMS's editor.

Medium's Editorial Experience Issues

What marketers dislike about Medium'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
Medium:
Not Suitable for Mobile

Medium does not support mobile editing; editing features were removed to enhance reading experience on mobile.

"Writing is not supported on mobile browsers. To write on the go, you'll need to download the Medium app for iOS or Android."
Source
"With our focus on an exceptional reading experience, we’ve made the difficult decision to remove story editing features from our native apps."
Source
"Editing had been disabled on the mobile app."
Source
"On the publishing tools front, we added mobile editing, but this feature is not currently active."
Source
"We’re bringing back the mobile editor, indicating the intention but no active support at the moment."
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
Medium:
No Automatic Content Linking

Medium does not support automatic internal linking for related blog posts, focusing instead on manual links.

"Medium lacks features for automatic internal linking between similar content, relying instead on manual linking."
Source
"Medium does not have an AI feature to automate the linking of related blog content."
Source
"Medium emphasizes simplicity and content creation without the complexity of automating internal links."
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
Medium:
Manual CTA Linking

Some CMSs have limited capabilities for automatic CTA linking, mainly through advanced custom settings.

"Use the calls-to-action (CTA) tool to create button CTAs, banners, or pop-ups to add to your HubSpot pages. You can also add CTAs to external pages."
Source
"The automation enrollment criteria is "has click [campaign] CTA" and "has completed [campaign] CTA Pop-up form.""
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
Medium:
No Comments Supported

Medium does not provide an external commenting feature for site visitors. It limits user interaction via internal feedback.

"Medium does not support commenting from site visitors."
Source
"The rules on Medium do not mention comments or discussions from visitors."
Source
"Medium lacks built-in commenting features for external users."
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
Medium:
No Multi-tenancy

Medium does not support multi-tenancy; each user operates independently.

"Multi-tenancy is just the same, only worse. Instead of threads competing for shared memory, you've got tenants competing for shared infrastructure."
Source
"Multi-tenancy is an architecture where a single instance of a software application serves multiple customers, with each customer being referred to as a tenant."
Source

What Developers Say

Hear from developers who've integrated and built on Payload CMS and Medium 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 Medium:
Medium
Integration into existing setups can be challenging due to the need for custom configurations.

Payload CMS's DX Highlights

What developers love about building with Payload CMS.

Medium's DX Highlights

What developers love about building with Medium.

Payload CMS's DX Issues

What developers dislike about building with Payload CMS.

Medium's DX Issues

What developers dislike about building with Medium.

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
Medium:
Customisable Content Types

Medium supports content modeling with custom content types and fields including text, media, and references.

"A content model is a collection of content types and their interrelationships."
Source
"A solid content model is the foundation of every great digital project. Your model is the bones of your project."
Source
"Kontent.ai is a content management tool (CMS) that allows managing core content types with flexible models."
Source
"Contentful has a lot of features and flexibility in 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
Medium:
No Custom React Components Supported

Medium does not explicitly support custom React components or a component API for dynamic content.

"Web Components can help you decouple the implementation of your component from the framework/library."
Source
"Design systems are doing much better in sharing an API across design and dev, due in part to rapid advances in design tools."
Source
"Medium frowns on stories containing marketing tactics like affiliate links or aggressive call to actions."
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
Medium:
Full Text Search Supported

Full Text Search is supported across multiple fields including content and metadata.

"Full-Text Search is a powerful feature in MySQL that allows you to search for text within large sets of unstructured data efficiently."
Source
"Full-Text Search employs a series of steps to effectively search through complex text-based data."
Source
"Using a database with built-in search such as MySQL or MongoDB for full text search."
Source
"We now launched a full-text search feature that lets you search across your Firestore collections."
Source
"WordPress's core search gets used when you say https://example.com/?s=searchterm."
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.)

Medium:
Available

Medium has various templates that help writers format their articles effectively.

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

Pricing & Plans

Compare the prices of Payload CMS and Medium.

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
Medium's Pricing
Medium Member
$5 / month
- Read member-only stories
- Support writers you read most
- Earn money for your writing
- Listen to audio narrations
- Read offline with the Medium app
- Access our Mastodon community
- Connect your custom domain
- Create your own publications
Friend of Medium
$15 / month
- All Medium member benefits
- Give 4x more to the writers you read
- Share member-only stories with anyone and drive more earnings for writers
- Customize app icon
Medium Member
$60 / year
- Read member-only stories
- Support writers you read most
- Earn money for your writing
- Listen to audio narrations
- Read offline with the Medium app
- Access our Mastodon community
- Connect your custom domain
- Create your own publications
Friend of Medium
$150 / year
- All Medium member benefits
- Give 4x more to the writers you read
- Share member-only stories with anyone and drive more earnings for writers
- Customize app icon

Compare with other technologies

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