Strapi review

Strapi ranks third because it gives you a complete headless CMS for free if you can host it. The Community edition is open source under the MIT license and includes REST and GraphQL APIs, role-based access control, internationalization, webhooks, dynamic zones and unlimited entries and API calls, on Postgres, MySQL or MariaDB. Teams that do not want to run servers can use Strapi Cloud, where Starter costs $35 per project per month with 100k API requests and 50 GB of storage and bandwidth, Pro costs $90 with 1M requests and weekly backups, and Business costs $450 with daily backups and a 99.9% uptime SLA. On self-hosted projects, the Growth plan at $45 per month adds live preview, releases, content history and Strapi AI for 3 users. The trade-offs are the operations work of self-hosting, Cloud Starter projects that sleep when idle, and review workflows and audit logs that are only in the Enterprise edition.

Who it is for

JavaScript teams that want a free, self-hosted CMS with REST and GraphQL APIs and no usage caps.

Price

Free self-hosted Community edition; Strapi Cloud Starter $35 per project per month.

Starter $35 per project / month
Quoted from the vendor pricing page on November 9, 2026.

Key features

• Open-source Community edition under the MIT license
• REST and GraphQL APIs with role-based access control
• Supports Postgres, MySQL and MariaDB
• Strapi Cloud hosting with a global CDN and custom domains
• Self-hosted Growth plan adds live preview, releases and content history

Strengths and weaknesses

• Strength: Community edition is free with unlimited entries and API calls
• Strength: Same codebase runs self-hosted or on Strapi Cloud
• Strength: Unlimited content types, locales and roles on every edition
• Weakness: Self-hosting means you handle servers, backups and upgrades
• Weakness: Cloud Starter projects sleep when idle
• Weakness: Review workflows and audit logs need the Enterprise edition

Key facts

• License: MIT (Community edition)
• Self-hosted Growth: $45 per month, includes 3 users
• Cloud Starter usage: 100k API requests, 50 GB storage and bandwidth

Where it ranks

Strapi is No. 3 in our Best Headless CMS verdict.