Which open-source alternative to Sanity fits your team
If your team is weighing a move off Sanity, Payload fits code-first TypeScript teams already building on Next.js, Strapi fits teams that want an admin-led content model with a Community Edition to start from, and Wagtail fits Python and Django estates that want editors and developers working in one stack. The choice usually comes down to who owns the content model day to day. Renewal pressure, a licensing review or a data residency requirement tends to surface the question, but the platform decision depends on the skills in your team and where your content must physically live. The reason teams look for alternatives is narrower than it first appears. Sanity Studio, the editing interface, is MIT licensed, so you can read, modify and host it yourself. Content, however, sits in Content Lake, a real-time data store that Sanity hosts. Open-sourcing the editor does not by itself move your documents, history or assets out of that hosted store. Before you commit to a target, confirm with Sanity exactly which parts of your setup depend on Content Lake, including real-time features, asset storage and any functions tied to the hosted dataset.
For Payload, the working test is whether your developers want the schema, access rules and admin panel defined in TypeScript alongside the front end. Payload is MIT licensed, installs directly into a Next.js /app folder, and supports self-hosted MongoDB and PostgreSQL. Strapi is open core: its Community Edition is MIT, but code in ee/ directories falls under the Strapi Enterprise Edition license unless you hold a signed agreement or a Strapi Cloud subscription. Check which features your editorial workflow needs and confirm whether they sit in the Community Edition before you design around them.
For Wagtail, the license is BSD-3-Clause, the framework is built on Django, and it offers multi-site, multi-language and a headless content API. Commercial support is available from its primary sponsor, Torchbox, which matters if your organization requires a contracted support path. Whichever target you choose, plan a proof of concept against a representative slice of your Sanity schema and a real editorial workflow, and ask your implementation partner for a written scope that covers schema mapping, asset migration and the editor training that a code-defined studio requires.
Payload, Strapi and Wagtail compared for a Sanity replacement
Each of these three platforms can replace the hosted Content Lake with a database you run yourself, while keeping a code-defined editing experience close to Sanity's Studio model. They differ in license terms, underlying framework and how much of the editor you build versus configure, so the choice depends on your team's stack and your tolerance for license conditions. Read each card before shortlisting, then test your own content model against the candidate.
Payload for code-first teams
Payload is an MIT-licensed CMS that installs directly into a Next.js /app folder, so your content schema, access rules and admin panel live in the same TypeScript codebase as your front end. It supports self-hosted MongoDB and PostgreSQL, which lets you choose the database your infrastructure team already operates. This fits teams that treat Sanity's schema-as-code approach as the core value. The trade-off is that you own the hosting, backups and upgrades of both the application and the database. Confirm which database engine and hosting model your platform team will support before committing.
Strapi and its enterprise boundary
Strapi is open core. The Community Edition is MIT licensed, but code in ee/ directories falls under the Strapi Enterprise Edition license unless you hold a signed agreement or a Strapi Cloud subscription. Teams that want Strapi as a fully open base must check which features they rely on, such as SSO, audit logs or review workflows, and whether they sit in ee/ code. Map every feature you need against the license file before treating Strapi as open source for your deployment. Strapi suits teams that want a mature admin panel and a REST or GraphQL API with little custom UI work.
Wagtail for Django and multi-site estates
Wagtail is a BSD-3-Clause CMS built on Django. It offers multi-site and multi-language support and a headless content API, so it can serve a traditional website and a front end built elsewhere from one editorial system. It fits organizations that already run Python and Django, or that manage many sites with different locales. The trade-off is that editors work in a server-rendered admin with a different feel from Sanity Studio, and your developers must be comfortable with Django. Torchbox, the primary sponsor, offers commercial support if you need a contracted SLA from the project's maintainers.
Directus is not OSI open source
Directus is often considered alongside these three, but its license is the Monospace Sustainable Core License (MSCL-1.0-GPL), not an OSI-approved open source license. The license bars competing use, permits internal use, and converts each release to GPL-3.0 four years after release. If your legal team requires OSI-approved licensing for every component, Directus fails that test regardless of its technical fit. Have counsel review the license before adding Directus to a shortlist that carries an open source requirement.
Which open-source option covers each Sanity capability
This table maps the main Sanity capabilities to Payload, Strapi and Wagtail, with coverage notes and gaps for each. Read it as a starting inventory: where a cell says to confirm, check the project's current documentation before you commit, because real-time collaboration and role features change between releases.
| Sanity capability | Payload | Strapi | Wagtail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Studio editing interface | Admin panel is code-defined in TypeScript and installs into a Next.js app folder. Editors get forms and previews, but the Studio is not a drop-in copy of Sanity Studio. | Admin panel is configurable and open source under the Community Edition. Confirm which admin features sit in the ee/ directories before relying on them. | Page-tree editor with a strong editorial interface for page-based sites. Structured, non-page content needs more custom work than in Sanity Studio. |
| Content querying (GROQ-style) | Local and REST API plus GraphQL. No GROQ equivalent, so queries are rewritten against Payload's own query API. | REST and GraphQL APIs generated from content types. No GROQ equivalent; query logic moves to the API layer. | Headless content API with REST-style endpoints. Query expressiveness is narrower than GROQ and typically handled in front-end code. |
| Real-time collaboration | Confirm current support for concurrent editing and presence indicators in the project's docs. Do not assume parity with Sanity. | Confirm collaboration features and whether they are in the Community Edition or the Enterprise Edition. | Concurrent editing is not a core feature. Plan for locking or editorial process rules instead, and confirm the current state. |
| Document history and revisions | Versioning and drafts are supported in the core framework. Confirm retention and restore behavior for your content types. | Draft and publish workflow is available. Confirm history depth and restore options for your release. | Revision history is built in for pages. Confirm how it applies to snippets and other non-page models. |
| Asset management | Upload collections store files in your own object storage. Image transforms and metadata depend on your configuration. | Media library with upload providers. Confirm which providers and transforms are in the Community Edition. | Built-in image and document library with renditions. Large media estates usually need storage and CDN decisions made early. |
| Localization | Field-level and document-level localization is part of the core. Confirm fallback rules for your locales. | Internationalization plugin covers locale variants of content types. Confirm the current plugin status for your version. | Multi-language support is built in with locale trees. Confirm how it fits your site structure. |
| Webhooks and integrations | Hooks run in the application code. Outbound webhooks to other systems need to be built or added as plugins. | Webhooks are available in the admin and API. Confirm event types and retry behavior in the current docs. | Hooks and signals are available in Django code. External webhook delivery is typically built by your team. |
| Roles and access control | Role-based access is defined in code per collection and field. Confirm it meets your approval model before migration. | Roles and permissions are managed in the admin. Confirm advanced role and SSO features against the license tier. | Permissions use Django groups and page-level rules. Editorial role design is largely a configuration task. |
| Hosting of the content store | Runs on your own PostgreSQL or MongoDB. You own backups, upgrades and high availability. | Runs on your own database, with the operational load of hosting it yourself. You own backups and upgrades. | Runs on your own Django and database stack. You own hosting, backups and upgrades. |
What the MIT-licensed Sanity Studio does and does not give you
The MIT license on Sanity Studio covers the editing interface code, and nothing else. Studio is the React application your editors use to create and edit documents, and you can read, fork and modify it under MIT terms. Your content, however, is stored in Content Lake, a real-time data store hosted by Sanity. The license does not grant you a copy of that data store, its query and mutation APIs, its real-time sync layer or the infrastructure behind them. Treat the MIT grant as the right to reuse an interface, not as a path to self-hosting Sanity's backend.
Before you plan any reuse, confirm with Sanity and in your own environment which Studio features call Sanity-hosted services in the version you run. Check the project configuration for the dataset and project identifiers, the client libraries that talk to the API, and any plugins or modules that depend on hosted endpoints such as asset handling, live preview or collaborative editing indicators. Ask Sanity which of these work when the backend is somewhere else, and which require their infrastructure. Record the answers per feature, because a Studio that loads may still lose real-time collaboration or asset workflows once it points at a different database.
If you want to keep the code-defined editing experience, the practical question is whether you will rebuild the schema and editing UI on an open-source CMS that you can host yourself. Payload, Strapi and Wagtail each provide their own admin interface and content store, so you are rebuilding the editing layer rather than moving Studio across. Budget for that work in the scope, and ask any partner to show which Studio customizations map to each target. An illustrative check: if your Studio project depends on a hosted real-time feature for editors, that feature is a rebuild item, not a configuration change.
How to move a Sanity dataset export into a self-hosted database
This sequence takes a Sanity dataset from the hosted Content Lake to a self-hosted database by exporting history and assets, mapping document types to a code-defined schema, and cutting over after a pilot and parallel run. The result is a verified self-hosted content store and a retired Sanity dataset.
Inventory content types, datasets and integrations
List every dataset, document type, field, reference, locale and asset category in the Sanity project, and note which Studio plugins, GROQ queries, webhooks and front-end consumers read from each one. Ask the engineering lead and content owners to confirm which datasets are live and which are stale. The step is done when you have a signed-off inventory that maps each document type to a consumer and an owner.
Export the dataset with history and assets
Run the
sanity dataset exportcommand against the source dataset to produce a local gzipped tarball that includes document history and asset files. The Sanity CLI reference notes that assets returning 401, 403 or 404 are skipped, so check the export log for skipped files and list them with the content owners. The step is done when the tarball opens, document counts are recorded, and every skipped asset has an owner and a decision (restore, re-upload or retire).Map document types to the target schema
Translate each Sanity document type into a Payload collection, a Strapi content type or a Wagtail page model, and decide how references, portable text, image fields and localized values convert. Keep the Studio editing experience in mind: Payload and Strapi both define schemas in code, while Wagtail uses Django models. The step is done when a written mapping document has been reviewed by developers and editors, and each unmapped field has an explicit decision.
Transform history, references and assets
Write a transformation script that reads the exported documents, rewrites references to the new primary keys, converts document revisions into the target's versioning model where it exists, and uploads asset files to your own object storage with the new URLs recorded. Decide whether historical revisions are imported or only the latest published state, since not every target keeps full revision history in the same form. The step is done when a test load produces matching record counts and sampled documents render correctly.
Run a pilot on one content type
Load one document type and its assets into a staging instance of the self-hosted CMS, connect one front-end route to it, and have editors create, edit and publish test content. Compare rendered output with the Sanity source for the same documents. The step is done when editors confirm the workflow in the new Studio or admin, and the developers have logged any mismatches in queries, previews or image transforms.
Run a parallel period and cut over
Keep Sanity as the system of record while the self-hosted CMS receives the same content through a repeatable import, and compare outputs on each release. Once the comparison is clean, freeze writes in Sanity, run a final export and import, repoint the front ends and webhooks, and verify production routes. Agree the freeze window and rollback plan with the business owners in writing before you begin. The step is done when production reads and writes come from the new database and a rollback path is documented.
Decommission Sanity and archive the export
After a defined stability period agreed with the business, revoke API tokens and webhooks, remove the Sanity project from the front-end build, and cancel the subscription once the contract allows it. Keep the original tarball, checksums and the transformation scripts in a restricted archive for records retention. Confirm with your legal and compliance teams how long the archive must be kept. The step is done when access is revoked, the archive is verified, and the decommissioning record is signed by the owner.
Which option fits by situation
Teams already building on Next.js and TypeScript usually get the shortest path from a Sanity Studio setup to a self-hosted system, because Payload installs directly into a Next.js /app folder and keeps schema, access control and frontend code in one repository. Payload is MIT licensed and supports self-hosted MongoDB and PostgreSQL, so the database layer can sit in your own network. Your team keeps its existing deployment pipeline and type generation rather than adopting a second runtime.
- Shared codebase: Content schemas live as TypeScript config next to the frontend, which suits developers who already review schema changes in pull requests.
- Database choice: Confirm whether your platform team supports MongoDB or PostgreSQL, since that choice drives backup and high availability tooling.
- Editor experience: Test the admin panel with your real editors on a sample of Sanity-style content such as portable text or nested objects.
- Preview and draft workflows: Confirm how draft preview and scheduled publishing are wired to your Next.js rendering mode.
- Export mapping: Plan how the Sanity dataset export, with its document history, maps to the new schema, since history is not automatically a native feature of every target.
Before committing, confirm with your developers which database your operations team will back up and restore, and who owns the upgrade path for the CMS and its Next.js dependencies.
Organizations where content editors run the process and developers mainly maintain templates often want a CMS whose administrative interface is the center of daily work. Strapi's Community Edition is MIT licensed and offers a full admin panel with content types defined through its interface, which can feel closer to a managed editing tool than a code-first Studio. The tradeoff is that the open core model means some features live under the Enterprise Edition license.
- Editor-defined content types: Editors and administrators can model content through the admin interface, which reduces developer tickets for simple changes.
- Open core boundary: Code in
ee/directories falls under the Enterprise Edition license unless you hold a signed agreement or a Strapi Cloud subscription, so map every feature you need against that boundary. - Roles and review: Confirm that the workflow, role and approval features you depend on are in the Community Edition or covered by your contract.
- Media handling: Test asset uploads and storage locations, since your existing Sanity assets will need a new home.
- Licensing review: Have legal confirm the Enterprise Edition terms if you expect to use any feature in those directories.
Before selecting this option, ask the vendor or your counsel to state in writing which features your editors rely on are available under MIT terms.
Python and Django organizations usually want the CMS to run inside the same framework, deployment tooling and security review as their other applications. Wagtail is built on Django and is released under the BSD-3-Clause license, with multi-site and multi-language support and a headless content API for delivering content to separate frontends. Commercial support is available from its primary sponsor, Torchbox, which can matter if your organization needs a contracted support path.
- Framework alignment: Editors work in a Django admin-based interface, and developers extend it with familiar Python models and migrations.
- Headless delivery: Confirm that the content API covers the query patterns your Next.js or mobile frontends need, since Sanity's GROQ queries will not carry over.
- Multi-language setup: Test locale structure against your current Sanity document model, especially where translated documents are linked.
- Support path: Ask Torchbox whether its commercial support scope matches your service levels, or whether your internal team will own upgrades.
- Editor training: Plan for the editing experience to differ from Sanity Studio, and budget time for editors to relearn workflows.
Before committing, have your Django team review the Wagtail release and dependency policy against your existing patching process.
When data residency is the driving requirement, the Sanity hosted Content Lake is the main issue to address, because content would otherwise sit in a vendor-operated store outside your control. All the options in this topic can run on infrastructure you choose, including your own cloud accounts, data centers or private networks. The license and database choices then determine where content, history and assets physically live and who can access them.
- Hosting location: Confirm the regions and facilities that will hold the database, object storage for assets, and backups, and document them for your data protection team.
- Database placement: Payload supports self-hosted MongoDB and PostgreSQL, and Wagtail and Strapi run on databases your team selects, so define which engine meets your residency and encryption controls.
- Asset and history migration: Check that the Sanity export tarball, which includes document history and asset files, is transferred and stored under approved procedures. Assets that return 401, 403 or 404 during export are skipped, so reconcile them before cutover.
- Access and logging: Map who can reach the database, the admin panel and backups, and confirm logging meets your audit requirements.
- Vendor dependencies: Confirm that no part of the runtime, analytics or preview service calls an external hosted service you have not approved.
Before deciding, ask your compliance lead to confirm which residency obligations apply and have your security team validate the chosen architecture against them.
What a self-hosted Sanity replacement costs over several years
This table compares the cost components of staying on Sanity with those of running Payload, Strapi or Wagtail yourself, separating one-time work from recurring spend. No prices appear here because none were supplied, so use the drivers in each row to build a written scope and ask each vendor and partner for a quote.
| Cost component | Who is paid | One-time or recurring | What drives it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sanity subscription or usage fees | Sanity, under your current contract | Recurring | Seats, dataset usage, API and asset volume, and plan tier. Request the current plan terms in writing before modeling. |
| Open-source license cost | No license fee for Payload (MIT) or Wagtail (BSD-3-Clause) | Recurring: none | Strapi Community Edition is MIT, but code in ee/ directories falls under Enterprise terms unless you hold a signed agreement. Confirm which features you need. |
| Infrastructure hosting | Your cloud provider or data center | Recurring | Application instances, environments for staging and production, CDN, and media delivery. Asset volume and traffic are the main levers. |
| Database hosting and backups | Your cloud provider or managed database service | Recurring | Dataset size including document history, replica count, backup retention, and restore testing. Payload supports self-hosted MongoDB or PostgreSQL. |
| Asset storage and delivery | Your storage and bandwidth provider | Recurring | Image and file volume, transformation needs, and retention rules. Sanity-hosted assets must be exported and re-hosted, so check the export skip rules first. |
| Migration of dataset export | Internal team or implementation partner | One-time | Document history depth, schema mapping, reference integrity, and how many assets return 401, 403 or 404 during export. |
| Schema and Studio rebuild | Internal developers or implementation partner | One-time | Number of document types, custom input components, portable text, and editorial workflows that must be recreated in code. |
| Implementation, hardening and integration | Implementation partner or internal platform team | One-time | Authentication, preview environments, webhooks to front ends, and security review scope. Fixed-scope work is agreed in writing before start. |
| Support, upgrades and internal skills | Internal staff, support vendor or retainer provider | Recurring | Upgrade cadence of Node.js and framework releases, on-call coverage, and developer familiarity with the chosen framework. |
What you give up when you leave Content Lake
Content Lake is more than a database. Sanity also runs the real-time backend, scaling, upgrades and asset delivery that your team will own after a move. Each card below names one of those services, the workaround most teams use, and what to confirm before you commit.
Hosted real-time collaboration
Sanity's hosted backend handles live document state for editors working at the same time. Self-hosted Payload, Strapi and Wagtail use different editing models, so concurrent edits, locking and draft previews behave differently after migration. Test two editors on the same entry, confirm how each candidate handles conflicts, and decide whether your editorial team needs real-time presence or can work with locking and autosave.
Managed scaling and uptime
On Content Lake, Sanity operates the data store and its capacity. Once you self-host, you own the database cluster, backups, failover and capacity planning, typically on your cloud account or data center. Ask who will be paged at 2 a.m., define recovery objectives in writing, and budget for a managed PostgreSQL or MongoDB service or an in-house database team.
Vendor-run upgrades
Sanity ships Studio and platform changes on its own schedule. With a self-hosted CMS, your team applies framework and CMS upgrades, tests schema migrations and rolls back failed releases. Payload and Strapi both move quickly, so plan a recurring upgrade window, pin versions, and check the changelog for breaking changes before each release. A support contract with Torchbox covers Wagtail, and other vendors offer support for the rest.
Built-in asset CDN delivery
Sanity's asset pipeline serves images and files from a managed content delivery network with on-the-fly transformations. Self-hosting means choosing an object store, a CDN and an image transformation service, then wiring cache rules and access control. Confirm how each candidate generates image variants, how signed URLs work for private assets, and how much of your delivery traffic would pass through your own network.
Export and history handling
The sanity dataset export command produces a gzipped tarball with document history and asset files, but it skips assets that return 401, 403 or 404. Your migration must account for those gaps and for documents that exist only in history. Run a full export early, log skipped assets, and reconcile counts against the source before you cut over.
Questions buyers ask before moving off Sanity
What drives the cost of moving off Sanity to a self-hosted CMS?
The cost is driven mainly by the size and shape of your content model, the number of editorial and front-end integrations, and how much history and asset data you need to keep. Your costs fall into two groups: one-time work (schema mapping, data transformation, rebuilding the editing experience, front-end changes and testing) and recurring work (hosting, database operations, backups, upgrades and security patching). Sanity's hosted Content Lake removes most of the recurring infrastructure work, so the self-hosted total cost of ownership depends on whether your team absorbs that work or pays a partner for it. Ask any provider for a quote built from a written scope that lists content types, locales, integrations, asset volume and environments.
How long does a migration off Sanity usually take?
No duration is fixed by the product, so the timeline depends on the work you define. The main drivers are the number of document types and their relationships, whether GROQ queries in your front ends must be rewritten, how many custom Studio plugins or input components you rely on, and whether you need to carry over document history rather than only the current state. Asset volume also affects the schedule because files must be downloaded, checked and re-linked. Confirm with any provider how they will break the work into phases and which items they treat as blockers before cutover.
Can an internal team move off Sanity without outside help?
Yes, a capable internal team can do it, provided it has engineers who know the chosen platform, someone who owns the content model, and time to test the editorial workflow before cutover. The usual gaps are not the export itself but the surrounding work: rewriting GROQ-based queries, rebuilding Studio customizations, setting up roles and permissions, configuring previews, and running backups and monitoring after launch. Teams often choose a fixed-scope engagement for the migration and keep the operating work in house. Ask yourself whether your engineers can cover these areas while the existing site stays in production.
What does the migration need from our team?
The migration needs decisions and access more than heavy coding. Your team should provide a current content model, a list of editors and their workflows, access to the Sanity project and a dataset export, cloud accounts or data center access where the new system will run, and a named person who can approve schema changes. Engineers must also supply the front-end code that reads content, so the team can map each query to the new API. Plan time for editors to review sample content, because most rework appears in fields, validation rules and preview behavior rather than in raw data.
Does Strapi's license create risk if we move from Sanity?
Yes, if you assume the whole codebase is open source. Strapi is open core: its Community Edition is MIT licensed, but code in the ee/ directories falls under the Strapi Enterprise Edition license unless you hold a signed agreement or a Strapi Cloud subscription. Before you choose Strapi, have legal review which features you plan to use and check whether they sit in ee/ directories. Payload is MIT licensed throughout its published repository, and Wagtail is BSD-3-Clause, so they carry fewer of these questions. Confirm the terms against the current LICENSE file for any version you deploy.
How are assets and document history handled when we export from Sanity?
The sanity dataset export command writes a local gzipped tarball that includes document history and asset files. The export skips any asset that returns a 401, 403 or 404 response, so you should list those assets before export and decide whether they must be restored from source systems. Asset files must then be uploaded to your own object storage and every reference rewritten to the new URLs. History is useful for audit and rollback, but it must be transformed into the target database's model, which is usually a separate step from loading current content. Verify counts for documents, references and files after each load.
Can we keep Sanity Studio after moving the content?
Sanity Studio is MIT licensed, so its code can be reused, but it is built to read and write Content Lake through Sanity's APIs. Keeping Studio therefore means keeping a dependency on the hosted data store or replacing the data layer, which usually requires significant rework. If you want a code-defined editing experience on your own infrastructure, Payload, Strapi and Wagtail each provide their own admin interface, so your editors will learn a new tool. Ask any provider to demonstrate the editing workflow with your real content types before you commit, and to list which Studio customizations would need to be rebuilt.
How DeployOpen works on this
DeployOpen plans, implements, customizes, integrates, hardens, backs up, upgrades, documents and supports self-hosted open-source platforms inside your own cloud accounts, data centers or air-gapped networks. For a Sanity replacement, that means a written scope first, then a build you can inspect, then handover and ongoing support as needed.
How we scope
- Inventory the Sanity schemas, datasets, document history needs, asset volume and editor roles before any work starts
- Agree in writing which Studio, database, hosting and content API pieces are in scope
- Confirm which Sanity features your team uses, such as Content Lake queries, webhooks and GROQ-based integrations, and how each will be replaced
How we build
- Deploy the chosen platform (Payload, Strapi or Wagtail) inside your environment with your chosen database and object storage
- Convert the exported dataset tarball into the new schema and load assets, testing a sample of documents before full import
- Run security testing against the editing interface, content API and hosting setup before go-live
How we hand over
- Document the schema mapping, deployment steps, backup procedure and known gaps versus the hosted Sanity service
- Provide runbooks for restoring the database and asset store, so your team can run the platform after handover
- Deliver the evidence and configuration records that your internal or external auditors may request for the new system
How we support
- Engagements are fixed-scope, with deliverables and timelines agreed in writing before work starts
- Ongoing support, upgrades and continuous security testing are available as a retainer
- Confirm with DeployOpen during scoping what response arrangements, upgrade cadence and backup verification the retainer would include
