Storyblok is a popular headless CMS with a visual editor and 50 app integrations. However, not all users are ready to give it a 5-star rating. Like any software, Storyblok has a few pain points that may prompt you to look for an alternative.
These include:
Complex to set up: You need developers to configure templates, understand data models, and set up live previews.
Outdated documentation: There's a community on Discord, but it's not active enough to provide reliable peer support.
Challenging to customize: Editing components in bulk takes time. Storyblok also lacks integrations with CRM systems, which your developers need to build.
Limited non-website features: Storyblok has only a few APIs and features for non-website content delivery, such as mobile apps, which limits its versatility.
#Top 5 Storyblok Alternatives
Here are the best Storyblok alternatives we'll be reviewing in this article:
- Hygraph
- Contentful
- Sanity
- Strapi
- Contentstack
Let's begin.
#1. Hygraph
Hygraph is a modern, API-first, headless CMS for creating and delivering structured content at scale. Built on GraphQL, it offers strong querying capabilities and an intuitive, user-friendly interface. Hygraph is ideal for managing complex relationships between content types. This makes it a great choice for building dynamic, data-rich applications.
Pros:
- GraphQL-native platform: Hygraph is built from the ground up with GraphQL which gives developers precise querying capabilities.
- Highly scalable: Designed for enterprise use with fast and reliable content delivery through globally distributed networks.
- Excellent content modeling: Comes with a flexible schema builder that supports complex relationships between content types.
- Localization and multi-tenancy: Built-in localization and custom role management make Hygraph a strong choice for organizations with a global presence.
- Developer-friendly: Provides a rich set of APIs, software development kits, and command line interface (CLI) tools. Integration support for modern frameworks like Next.js and Gatsby.
Cons:
- Limited choice of integrations: Compared to Strapi or Contentful, there are fewer plugins and extensions.
- No native WYSIWYG editing: Hygraph mainly focuses on structured content, which may not suit teams looking for a more traditional visual editing experience.
Hygraph use cases
✅ Data projects: Great for handling deeply nested content structures, siloed content, or rich data environments like knowledge bases, product catalogs, or media libraries.
For example, the Oetker Group, a global leader in the Food and Beverage industry, uses Hygraph to manage brands across 40 different countries and subsidiaries.
Hygraph helped the Oetker Group centralize local technical solutions and create meaningful touchpoints with first-party data so they could gain a better understanding of consumers.
✅ Knowledge management and portals: Hygraph is ideal for building modern web portals with frameworks like Next.js, Gatsby, or Apollo, that benefit from GraphQL's efficiency and precision in fetching data.
In another case, Statistics Finland, the national statistics branch of the Finnish government, chose Hygraph as its new content platform.
Since data governance and security were key requirements, Hygraph offered custom granular permissions that protect the integrity of the data and allow users to have exactly the right amount of power within the CMS.
Hygraph's API-first architecture ensures that the team is flexible as their needs grow and change without requiring a large data migration on the backend.
✅ Composable websites: Hygraph is built to support large projects where different components of a website are independently created, managed, and delivered.
Content is decoupled from presentation, which allows teams to manage it independently and distribute it across multiple platforms.
This is just the kind of solution that Komax Group, a leader in automation systems for wire processing, was looking for to replace their deeply coupled, monolithic, on-premise CMS.
With Hygraph, Komax Group created a headless system that makes it easy to develop new use cases and integrate not-before-known requirements without disrupting many things. With modular page components, their content editors can now create new pages 2-3 times faster.
✅ Multi-channel content delivery: Hygraph is a strong choice for organizations that deliver content across websites, mobile apps, IoT devices, and other platforms.
In the past, BioCentury, a biotechnology publisher, struggled with increasingly complex legacy infrastructure that made it difficult to provide a high-quality user experience and ensure consistency across various systems.
Now, BioCentury relies on Hygraph to federate its siloed content into a single structured hub, which allows it to publish millions of articles programmatically and share data with live users.
Start exploring Storyblok's best alternative by signing up for a free-forever account.
#2. Contentful
Contentful is a headless CMS that is marketed as a composable content platform for digital-first businesses. Developers can use it to structure content with custom content models, while editors can create “experiences” that can be deployed to any channel or device.
With its localization features, user roles, and integrations, this CMS is especially suited to enterprises.
Pros:
- API-first architecture
- Editor-friendly UI
- Side-by-side live preview
- Custom content modeling
- Roles, permissions, and localization options
Cons:
- Limited Rich Text customization
- Expensive for startups or small teams
Contentful use cases
✅ Multi-channel content distribution: Useful for businesses that deliver content to websites, mobile apps, digital displays, and other endpoints through a single back-end via APIs.
✅ Enterprise-size sites and apps: Environments, permissions, and scalability benefit organizations with complex content structures, localizations, and multiple content teams.
✅ Headless architecture projects: Contentful is ideal for building decoupled front-ends using frameworks like Next.js, Nuxt, or Gatsby. Content is pulled through REST or GraphQL APIs.
✅ Reusing modular content across products or sites: You can manage reusable components like CTAs, banners, or product descriptions in different contexts with centralized control.
#3. Sanity
Sanity is a headless CMS known for its real-time collaboration features and highly customizable content studio. It gives you full control over content structures using JavaScript. Editing content is easy thanks to a clean responsive interface that you can tailor to specific workflows.
Pros:
- Highly customizable Sanity Studio for editing environment and workflows
- Real-time collaboration (beta)
- Queryable content lake
- Integrates with modern developer stacks like Next.js, Vercel, and Netlify
- Query directly from the front-end or back-end using GROQ - Sanity's custom query language
Cons:
- JavaScript knowledge is required to set up custom schemas and workflows
- No native visual editor
- GROQ isn't as widespread as Graph QL or SQL
- Too complex for teams that need a lightweight CMS for publishing blogs
Sanity use cases
✅ Custom digital experiences: Great for building highly tailored websites, platforms, or apps where out-of-box CMS features can't deliver. It's especially useful when you need full control over content modeling and editorial workflows.
✅ Real-time content ops: Sanity is a good choice for product content teams or newsrooms where multiple editors work side-by-side with instant updates and live presence indicators.
✅ Multi-platform content delivery: The headless, API-first design makes Sanity well-suited for omnichannel publishing across websites, mobile apps, digital signage, or even augmented/virtual reality environments.
#4. Strapi
Strapi is an open-source headless CMS built with JavaScript. This gives developers full control over their content API. Out of the box, Strapi supports both REST and GraphQL and is self-hosted, which gives you flexibility over infrastructure and data ownership.
On the other hand, customizing Strapi often involves editing server-side code, which requires more backend expertise than fully SaaS-based CMSs.
Pros:
- Open-source and self-hosted
- Customizable REST and GraphQL APIs
- Visual content modeling
- Built with Node.js and supports modern JavaScript frameworks which makes it easy to integrate into JAMstack or full-stack apps
Cons:
- Backend-heavy customization
- No built-in cloud hosting
- Lacks advanced content approval workflows or native localization features
- No enterprise-grade add-ons, so you must handle large-scale performance tuning and multi-region deployment manually
Strapi use cases
✅ Custom web applications: Strapi is ideal for building tailored web apps where you can define custom routes, controllers, and services, at the same time maintaining a structured content back-end.
✅ Self-hosted or on-premise deployments: A good choice for organizations that need to host and manage their own CMS infrastructure due to strict data governance, compliance, or security requirements.
✅ Projects that require open-source flexibility: Strapi makes a strong fit for startups, agencies, or in-house teams looking to avoid vendor lock-in and keep the freedom to modify or expand their CMS.
#5. Contentstack
Contentstack is an enterprise-grade headless CMS that offers a clean separation between content and presentation.
This allows developers to build front-ends with any framework while giving editors a user-friendly interface to manage content.
With features like modular content blocks, built-in workflows, and localization support, it's well-suited for large organizations with complex content operations.
Pros:
- Enterprise-ready architecture with SLAs, CDN, and secure API access
- Omnichannel delivery via REST and GraphQL APIs
- Custom roles, approval workflows, versioning, and scheduling
- Reusable content blocks
Cons:
- Expensive - custom pricing which is often too high for startups and small teams
- Setting up API and custom content modeling requires technical skills
- Less suitable for projects that need a lightweight, agile CMS
- Compared to CMSs like Hygraph or Sanity, there are fewer options to create user workflows and custom editing experiences
Contentstack use cases
✅ Omnichannel content delivery: Enterprises that deliver content across websites, mobile apps, IoT devices, digital signage, and voice interfaces - through REST or GraphQL APIs.
✅ Complex content workflows: Large teams that manage content across departments and regions benefit from advanced roles, approval workflows, versioning, and scheduling options.
✅ Mission-critical applications: Organizations like financial institutions, large e-commerce platforms, or news media companies, where uptime and SLAs are non-negotiable.
#Storyblok vs. Hygraph
Storyblok is known for its intuitive visual editor, which makes it a popular choice for marketing websites and content-driven projects.
It offers marketers and non-technical users a straightforward way to create, manage, and preview content in real time.
Storyblok's component-based approach allows for modular content creation, but it's primarily optimized for simpler, marketing-focused use cases.
Best used for: Marketing websites, landing pages, corporate blogs, and content-heavy sites where visual editing is needed.
Not the best match: Storyblok is less suited for projects that require deeply structured content models or complex data relationships. This isn't a flaw, but rather a mismatch in use case - Storyblok excels where simplicity and ease of use are top priorities.
Hygraph, on the other hand, is built for handling large-scale, structured data environments where complex content modeling is essential.
As a GraphQL-native CMS, it offers developers powerful querying capabilities, making it ideal for building data-rich applications with custom schemas and relationships.
Hygraph shines at use cases where you need tiered content architectures, such as B2B information platforms and expansive product catalogs. Thanks to the GraphQL-first approach, developers can precisely query only the data they need, which improves performance and flexibility.
Instead of a simple drag-and-drop interface, Hygraph provides a sophisticated content model where Hygraph content models and components correspond to website components.
Check out the Hygraph uses Hygraph series of articles to discover how our own teams use content modeling to create the website components they need.
Content editors can select from pre-defined components, customize them through variations, and integrate them seamlessly into their digital experiences.
Best used for: B2B information platforms, complex product catalogs, multi-channel content delivery, and enterprise-scale applications with deeply structured content.
Perks: GraphQL-native across all functionalities, powerful content modeling, excellent for developer-centric projects, and highly scalable for complex architectures.
Not the best match: Hygraph may be overkill for simpler marketing websites where a more visual editor-focused CMS like Storyblok would be a better fit.
Conclusion
Use Storyblok if you need a user-friendly CMS for marketing websites or simpler content-driven projects where visual editing and fast iteration are priorities.
On the other hand, if your project requires complex content structures and rich data relationships, or if you're building scalable, enterprise-grade platforms like B2B portals or product catalog systems, Hygraph's got you covered.
Explore Storyblok's best alternative by signing up for a free-forever account.