Strapi vs Substack

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

Strapi
Strapi
Strapi is the leading open-source Headless CMS. Strapi gives developers the freedom to use their favorite tools and frameworks while allowing editors to easily manage their content.
Substack
Substack
Substack is a user-friendly publishing platform for writers, enabling them to create newsletters and build a subscriber base while retaining full ownership of their content and mailing lists.

At a Glance

Quick overview of key features differences between Strapi and Substack. Click on any feature to read more details.

FeatureStrapiSubstack
Basic Features
Hosting Option
Cloud & Self-hosted
Cloud & Self-hosted
Content Modeling
Blog on Subdomain
Blog on Subdirectory
Marketer Experience
Mobile-first Experience
Limited
Automatic Content Linking
Automatic CTA Linking
Engage with Comments
Limited
Multi-tenancy
Limited
Read all reviews from marketers
Developer Experience
Ease of Integration
Medium
Medium
Custom React Components
Full Text Search
Limited
Starter Kits
(5 kits)
(5 kits)
Read all reviews from developers
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What Users Say

See what users who have used Strapi and Substack have to say about their overall experience with the product.

Strapi's Key Strengths

Read what users love about Strapi.

Substack's Key Strengths

Read what users love about Substack.

Strapi's Key Issues

Read what issues users have with Strapi.

Substack's Key Issues

Read what issues users have with Substack.

What Marketers & Content Creators Say

Hear from the users who uses Strapi and Substack daily about their experience with the editors.

Strapi's Editorial Experience Highlights

What marketers love about Strapi's editor.

Substack's Editorial Experience Highlights

What marketers love about Substack's editor.

Strapi's Editorial Experience Issues

What marketers dislike about Strapi's editor.

Substack's Editorial Experience Issues

What marketers dislike about Substack's editor.

Mobile Editing

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

Strapi:
Limited Mobile Experience

Strapi has plans for mobile features but currently lacks a full mobile-first content editor experience.

"For both marketers and developers, it could be very useful to have the ability to contribute content from their tablet and mobile."
Source
"Strapi now supports Vercel Visual Editing, currently in Beta."
Source
"I started using strapi... but I really hate the responses you get, deeply nested responses."
Source
"the default editor for strapi supports it... it's just a small markdown editor."
Source
Substack:
Mobile-First Experience

Substack has launched a mobile editor for creating posts directly on iOS and Android devices, offering essential functionalities.

"Today we’re launching a new mobile editor, which allows you to write and publish posts directly from the Substack app for iOS."
Source
"Publishing a new post is available on the Substack iOS and Android apps."
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.

Strapi:
No Automatic Content Linking

Strapi does not support automatic related blog linking; internal linking requires manual setup via relations.

"Strapi allows for internal linking but does not automate it; users must manually create links between content."
Source
"Relations in Strapi are set manually between content types; automatic related content linking is not provided."
Source
Substack:
No Automatic Content Linking

Substack does not support automatic related blog linking features; manual linking is required.

"If you'd like to share certain parts of a post or allow readers to jump to a specific section of a long post, try adding anchor links."
Source
"Recommendations are a Substack super ... However, I couldn't find evidence of automatic related content linking."
Source
"I was wondering if it is a good idea to create a substack and post my content on there as well and even link the substack post back to my main blog."
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.

Strapi:
No Automatic CTA Linking

Strapi does not offer automatic CTA linking in its features.

"This feature provides a way for creating CTA but doesn't automate linking based on content."
Source
"Automatic linking of CTAs to the content isn't a recognized feature in Strapi."
Source
Substack:
No Automatic CTA Linking

Substack lacks built-in automatic CTA linking; users rely on external tools for automation features.

"Substack provides no automation tools at all; the author notes this is a primary reason users leave for competitors."
Source
"Substack lacks several critical features needed for effective email marketing, including automated email sequences."
Source
"Users discuss the absence of integrated automation features in Substack, noting their reliance on external tools."
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.

Strapi:
Not Supported Out of the Box

Strapi supports commenting through plugins, providing features like moderation and bad words filtering, but it's not built-in out of the box.

"A plugin for Strapi Headless CMS that provides end to end comments feature with their moderation panel, bad words filtering, abuse reporting and more."
Source
"The plugin includes features like bad word filtering, abuse reporting and a moderation panel."
Source
"Learn in this video how to create a comment system in your Strapi application."
Source
"Strapi based comments moderation tool for managing user comments with features like automated filtering and abuse reporting."
Source
Substack:
Comments Supported

Substack supports commenting on posts from both subscribers and non-subscribers, with moderation options available.

"Navigate to your publication's Settings and click on Community. Slide the toggle to enable comments."
Source
"You can now enable comments on your posts for anyone on your mailing list, even if they’re not a paid subscriber."
Source
"Writers can choose whether to allow comments from everyone or only paid subscribers."
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.

Strapi:
Limited Multi-tenancy

Strapi supports a pseudo multi-tenancy approach, allowing multiple instances with isolated resources but not full out-of-the-box multi-tenancy.

"In Strapi, a multitenant approach refers to the ability of the system to serve multiple tenants or customers, each with its own isolated and independent set of resources."
Source
"I am using single code base and able to run 10+ sites. This makes easier to manage and roll out the new feature easily."
Source
"The multi-tenancy (or multi-projects) changes the architecture of an application to allow multiple projects in a single Strapi application."
Source
Substack:
No Multi-tenancy

Substack does not support multi-tenancy, focusing primarily on individual writers and content monetization.

"Substack is designed for independent writers and does not offer multi-tenancy features."
Source
"Substack emphasizes individual monetization and audience ownership, lacking multi-tenant capabilities."
Source

What Developers Say

Hear from developers who've integrated and built on Strapi and Substack about their experiences.

Ease of Integrating Strapi:
Medium
Integration can be done relatively quickly, but some users faced challenges with scalability and performance.
Ease of Integrating Substack:
Medium
Integration with Substack is feasible but lacks robust features and direct integrations, leading to some workarounds.

Strapi's DX Highlights

What developers love about building with Strapi.

Substack's DX Highlights

What developers love about building with Substack.

Strapi's DX Issues

What developers dislike about building with Strapi.

Substack's DX Issues

What developers dislike about building with Substack.

Content Modelling

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

Strapi:
Customisable Content Types

Strapi supports custom content modeling with various field types and dynamic structures.

"Create your REST or GraphQL API without coding in a couple of minutes using the Content-Type Builder."
Source
"Strapi allows defining custom fields and components usable across multiple content-types."
Source
"With Strapi, you can create flexible content structures that adapt to your needs."
Source
"Implementing best practices ensures your content strategy is scalable and adaptable."
Source
Substack:
No Customisable Content Types

Substack does not offer built-in content modelling features or custom content types.

"Substack offers limited customization, focusing more on content rather than design."
Source
"Directus allows you to create custom schemas, manage data, define roles & permissions for your organization."
Source
"Substack doesn’t allow customization for its newsletter formats, thus limiting content modelling."
Source

Custom React Components

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

Strapi:
No Custom React Components Supported

No clear support for adding custom React components within Strapi's content editor.

"Strapi does not currently support embedding custom React components directly in the content editor."
Source
"Custom fields do not support embedding full React components."
Source
"Custom fields can behave like React components but are limited in terms of direct embedding in the editor."
Source
Substack:
No Custom React Components Supported

Substack does not support custom React components directly in the content editor.

"Over the years, I’ve written and reviewed hundreds of React components for a $1.7B GenAI startup."
Source
"I wanted to display my Substack posts on my website instead of a subscribe link, so I created my own Substack feed component!"
Source
"A customizable React component renders the login page based on the user's UI settings."
Source
"The new components are both fully customizable AND robust."
Source
"I have used substackapi to achieve this Custom Embed Substack Signup Form."
Source
Strapi:
Limited Search

Strapi has limited full text search capabilities that can be enhanced with plugins like Algolia.

"Using Strapi with plugins can enhance search capabilities."
Source
"Strapi's search options are sufficient but might not cover all needs without third-party tools."
Source
Substack:
No Full Text Search

Substack's search functionality is weak, lacking full text search across all content and authors.

"From the Substack web inbox, readers can search keywords to find posts, publications, and people."
Source
"Substack search can’t find posts even when I know the exact title or URL. Search often can’t find people."
Source

Starter Kits

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

Strapi:
Available

Strapi offers multiple starter kits and templates for different use cases.

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

Substack:
Available

Substack offers various starter kits and templates for creators.

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

Pricing & Plans

Compare the prices of Strapi and Substack.

Strapi's Pricing
Community
$0 / lifetime
- Free forever, community support
Developer
$29 / month
- 1 seat included
- 1,000 CMS entries
- 25 MB storage
- 15 GB bandwidth
- 100,000 API requests
Pro
$99 / month
- 5 seats included
- unlimited CMS entries
- 100 MB storage
- 100 GB bandwidth
- 1,000,000 API requests
Team
$499 / month
- 10 seats included
- dedicated support
- scalability features
Enterprise
$0 / quote
- Custom pricing based on requirements
- advanced features for larger organizations
Substack's Pricing
Monthly Subscription
$5 / month
- Includes all posts for paid subscribers only
- Recurring payments processed via Stripe
- 10% platform fee
- 2.9% + $0.30 transaction fees on Stripe
Annual Subscription
$50 / year
- Includes all posts for paid subscribers only
- Recurring payments processed via Stripe
- 10% platform fee
- 2.9% + $0.30 transaction fees on Stripe
Founding Member Plan
$20 / month
- Optional tier for additional support
- All posts for paid subscribers

Compare with other technologies

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