Payload CMS vs XM Cloud

Compare Payload CMS and XM Cloud 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.
XM Cloud
XM Cloud
Meet the CMS that takes your website further, faster. Grow traffic, boost engagement, and drive conversions with AI-assisted authoring, workflows, personalization, and A/B testing - all built in.

What Users Say

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

Payload CMS's Key Strengths

Read what users love about Payload CMS.

XM Cloud's Key Strengths

Read what users love about XM Cloud.

Payload CMS's Key Issues

Read what issues users have with Payload CMS.

XM Cloud's Key Issues

Read what issues users have with XM Cloud.

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What Marketers & Content Creators Say

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

Payload CMS's Editorial Experience Highlights

What marketers love about Payload CMS's editor.

XM Cloud's Editorial Experience Highlights

What marketers love about XM Cloud's editor.

Payload CMS's Editorial Experience Issues

What marketers dislike about Payload CMS's editor.

XM Cloud's Editorial Experience Issues

What marketers dislike about XM Cloud'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
XM Cloud:
Limited Mobile Experience

Sitecore XM Cloud allows mobile-first editing with low-code tools, but some features may require desktop for full functionality.

"...easy-to-use visual tools for authoring, A/B testing, and personalization - powered by brand-aware AI copilots."
Source
"...mobile-first approach, allowing us to have a solid base for our build."
Source
"...difficult to create layouts for different breakpoints..."
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
XM Cloud:
No Automatic Content Linking

XM Cloud does not support automatic linking of related blog posts; linking must be done manually.

"XM Cloud relies on traditional content linking methods without AI-driven automation."
Source
"Linking of related content in XM Cloud needs to be managed manually, not automatically."
Source
"Current capabilities do not include automatic related blog linking, requiring manual setup."
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
XM Cloud:
No Automatic CTA Linking

Sitecore XM Cloud does not support automatic CTA linking directly for AI-driven context matching.

"XM Cloud does not have any references to automatic CTA linking capabilities."
Source
"Dynamic placeholders allow unique key generation, but don't automatically link CTAs."
Source
"The official Sitecore documentation and resources do not mention automatic CTA linking."
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
XM Cloud:
No Comments Supported

Sitecore XM Cloud does not have built-in commenting features for users to leave comments on content.

"You can add comments to projects, stages, or tasks when collaborating with other users."
Source
"Sitecore XM Cloud focuses on site management, personalization, and performance, lacking user-facing commenting."
Source
"In the ‘migrations’ I usually think about I’m often looking at an existing Sitecore customer trying to move to XM Cloud, but the fact is that there are a lot of options out there and Optimizely is pushing hard to pull those customers over to their SaaS CMS."
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
XM Cloud:
Limited Multi-tenancy

XM Cloud operates as a single-tenant instance; however, the underlying delivery environment supports multi-tenancy.

"XM Cloud runs the Experience Manager environment as a single-tenant instance. The delivery environment..."
Source

What Developers Say

Hear from developers who've integrated and built on Payload CMS and XM Cloud 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 XM Cloud:
Hard
Integration with Sitecore XM Cloud is notably complex, often requiring additional time and investment, as well as partner assistance.

Payload CMS's DX Highlights

What developers love about building with Payload CMS.

XM Cloud's DX Highlights

What developers love about building with XM Cloud.

Payload CMS's DX Issues

What developers dislike about building with Payload CMS.

XM Cloud's DX Issues

What developers dislike about building with XM Cloud.

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
XM Cloud:
Customisable Content Types

Sitecore XM Cloud fully supports content modeling with customizable data templates and flexible presentation components.

"Content modeling means creating the schema structure of an element that will be presented on your website. You do this using templates, also known as data templates."
Source
"Sitecore XM Cloud is an entirely new product, focusing on content modeling and APIs."
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
XM Cloud:
Custom React Components Supported

Sitecore XM Cloud supports custom React components through registration, allowing rich interactions ineditors.

"In XM Cloud, developers can bring their own code (BYOC) by referencing an external code base that includes components."
Source
"At the time of writing, XM Cloud Components are new and do not have a full feature set. Because of this, only standard React/Next.js components should be used."
Source
"You can build a component by providing Sitecore managed data to a third party API like Google Maps API."
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
XM Cloud:
Full Text Search Supported

Sitecore XM Cloud supports full-text search allowing users to search content across multiple fields.

"Searches for a full-text phrase within a value. For example, searching for 'apple pie' returns items for which the value is 'We made apple pie'."
Source
"Sitecore Search is a cutting-edge, AI-powered, headless content discovery platform, empowering users to craft tailored and predictive search encounters."
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.)

XM Cloud:
Available

Sitecore XM Cloud has various starter kits including Next.js and Angular templates.

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

Pricing & Plans

Compare the prices of Payload CMS and XM Cloud.

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
XM Cloud's Pricing
XM Cloud
$0 / subscription
- Bundled with Pages and embedded personalization
- Includes Headless Services and Experience Edge in a single subscription

Compare with other technologies

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