Contentful vs. Netlify CMS

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Contentful
Score 7.8 out of 10
N/A
Contentful is a cloud based CMS solution that provides the ability to manage content across multiple platforms.The editing interface allows for managing content interactively and provides developers the ability to deliver the content with the programming language and template framework of their choice.
$489
Netlify CMS
Score 9.4 out of 10
N/A
Netlify CMS is an open source Git-based CMS for static site generators. it runs 100% in a browser.N/A
Pricing
ContentfulNetlify CMS
Editions & Modules
Team
489/month
Community
Free
Enterprise
Custom
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
ContentfulNetlify CMS
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
ContentfulNetlify CMS
Considered Both Products
Contentful

No answer on this topic

Netlify CMS
Chose Netlify CMS
We really can't compare it to full-fledged CMS software, like WordPress, which has a lot of community and support with widgets, plugins, and whatnot. It's not built for that, but you can compare it to Contentful, Ghost, Strapi, etc., which provide similar functionality to a …
Top Pros

No answers on this topic

Top Cons

No answers on this topic

Features
ContentfulNetlify CMS
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Contentful
7.3
8 Ratings
10% below category average
Netlify CMS
-
Ratings
Role-based user permissions7.38 Ratings00 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Contentful
8.0
9 Ratings
5% above category average
Netlify CMS
6.0
1 Ratings
23% below category average
API8.38 Ratings6.01 Ratings
Internationalization / multi-language7.76 Ratings00 Ratings
Web Content Creation
Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Product A and Product B
Contentful
7.7
10 Ratings
1% above category average
Netlify CMS
6.1
1 Ratings
22% below category average
WYSIWYG editor7.34 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Code quality / cleanliness8.56 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Admin section8.08 Ratings7.01 Ratings
Page templates7.64 Ratings3.01 Ratings
Library of website themes7.52 Ratings1.01 Ratings
Mobile optimization / responsive design7.75 Ratings5.01 Ratings
Publishing workflow8.09 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Form generator7.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Web Content Management
Comparison of Web Content Management features of Product A and Product B
Contentful
8.0
9 Ratings
8% above category average
Netlify CMS
4.3
1 Ratings
52% below category average
Content taxonomy8.08 Ratings7.01 Ratings
SEO support7.07 Ratings00 Ratings
Bulk management7.75 Ratings00 Ratings
Availability / breadth of extensions8.56 Ratings2.01 Ratings
Community / comment management9.01 Ratings4.01 Ratings
Best Alternatives
ContentfulNetlify CMS
Small Businesses
Divi
Divi
Score 10.0 out of 10
Divi
Divi
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Image Relay
Image Relay
Score 9.5 out of 10
Image Relay
Image Relay
Score 9.5 out of 10
Enterprises
RWS Tridion Sites
RWS Tridion Sites
Score 9.0 out of 10
RWS Tridion Sites
RWS Tridion Sites
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
ContentfulNetlify CMS
Likelihood to Recommend
8.3
(10 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
ContentfulNetlify CMS
Likelihood to Recommend
Contentful
Contentful is well suited for folks who want a simple, clean, easy-to-use interface for a JAVASCRIPT website. If you do not want a javascript website you should look [elsewhere].
Read full review
Netlify
Netlify CMS is well suited when you have very less frequent updates to your content, maybe once a day and very few people need to access your data. You can connect it to Netlify, GitHub, or any platform and have multiple people access it and do as many updates as you wish, but the process is not well-defined and you need to build your own system for that. It is well suited for projects you need to pull off with very low cost, it is essentially free as the software is open source and free to use, and all you need to do is set up your schema correctly and find a deployment pipeline where you can build your static site/API to redeploy whenever the content changes. I personally used a GitHub Login -> Netlify CMS -> next app consumer of content -> GitHub pipelines to run next SSG -> GitHub Pages to deploy the built static site. It might not be appropriate for large teams where users themselves need no-code tools to modify the schema of the content.
Read full review
Pros
Contentful
  • Clean, modern interface (not clunky and outdated, like WordPress)
  • High degree of flexibility (I can structure data any way my clients need)
  • Enables headless frontend (i.e. I can build any frontend I want without having to change my CMS)
Read full review
Netlify
  • Storing content data in customized schema without a database
  • Full control over your content and infrastructure where it is deployed and stored
  • Very low-cost way for building your own CMS and CDN
Read full review
Cons
Contentful
  • The new Contentful "branches" feature looked promising (it appears to mirror a git-like repository) but it requires the CLI, which isn't necessarily practical for teams that aren't current CLI users. It would be nice if the management of this feature were available via the UI (without that it causes more confusion than anything).
  • The Contentful data modeling method makes for a bit of an awkward SDK developer experience in some strongly typed languages like Java. Most things that you might need can be accomplished, but it feels like the experience could be smoother.
  • It would be nice if there were a way to migrate data between spaces (e.g. from your staging space to production).
Read full review
Netlify
  • Linking between different schema types, i.e. having some relations between content
  • Better ways to define content schema, like how TinaCMS would handle using a JSON
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Contentful
Easy to use and much more organized as a single platform versus multi. The layout is clean and easy to read and we don’t have to worry about certain users safe guarding data or content then losing it when they leave the company. It’s a one stop shop for imagery
Read full review
Netlify
We really can't compare it to full-fledged CMS software, like WordPress, which has a lot of community and support with widgets, plugins, and whatnot. It's not built for that, but you can compare it to Contentful, Ghost, Strapi, etc., which provide similar functionality to a headless CMS with custom schema options, but even among them, it still lacks a lot of functionality, ease of use, and support. But Netlify CMS pros would be of the opinion that compared to other platforms where most schemas need to use their own tools and frameworks, it's very cost-effective. Something new called TinaCMS has come up to compete with Netlify CMS by covering most of its shortcomings, but it's something new being built by the same team that built Forestry CMS and comes with many modern features, yet currently only supports NextJS SSG.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Contentful
  • There was no negative impact as such.
  • Positive impact is increase in sales.
  • More work is delivered due to reusability and other features within a time and less manual effort.
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Netlify
  • Helped us inject dynamic content into existing site very quickly
  • Wasted a lot of time to implement when something complex, such as querying content, was needed
Read full review
ScreenShots

Contentful Screenshots

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