Contentstack is an enterprise SaaS headless CMS sold in Free, Build, Growth and Enterprise plans. Pages here cover replacing it with self-hosted Strapi or Payload.
Comparing Contentstack with self-hosted Strapi: content modeling, workflows and roles, REST and GraphQL delivery, which Strapi features need the Growth or Enterprise self-hosted plan, user-based pricing against flat infrastructure cost, and who runs Strapi in production.
Comparing Contentstack with Payload, an MIT-licensed CMS that lives inside a Next.js application: code-defined content models, live preview, localization and access control, database choice, and when a developer-owned CMS fits better than a SaaS with per-user pricing.
Moving from Contentstack to Strapi: exporting the stack with the CLI in the right module order, mapping content types and global fields to Strapi content types and components, importing entries, assets and locales, recreating workflows and roles, and switching frontends to Strapi's APIs.
Moving Contentstack content into Payload collections and blocks: CLI export, schema translation into TypeScript config, importing entries and assets with scripts, handling modular blocks and references, and planning the frontend switch when Payload runs inside the Next.js app.
Cost of ownership by component: Contentstack plan fees, extra users at $25 each on Growth, add-ons priced separately and Enterprise contracts, against Strapi's free or paid self-hosted plans, hosting, database, CDN, migration and the people who maintain it.
What the Contentstack CLI exports and what it leaves behind before a contract ends: modules and their order, only the latest entry and asset versions, no users or releases, asset name collisions, branch exports, and checks to run before the stack is deleted.
Contentstack lists a choice of data center only on its Enterprise plan. This page covers what that choice controls, and when running Strapi or Payload in a region and provider you choose is the simpler way to meet EU or national residency rules for content and editor data.
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