Best Craft CMS Alternatives in 2026
Craft CMS is the PHP CMS developers recommend to each other. Their clients increasingly ask for a visual editor, a SOC 2 report and a quieter security feed, and the core has none of the three.
The short answer
Storyblok and Sanity are the strongest Craft CMS alternatives in 2026. Storyblok gives marketers the visual editor Craft never shipped, on a managed service with published plans from $99 a month. Sanity gives developer-led teams content modeling as code, a generous free tier and leading AI agent tooling. Webflow suits design-led agencies, Prismic and Umbraco keep costs low, WordPress and Drupal CMS stay open source, and Payload CMS is the TypeScript path.
Key takeaways
- Agencies rarely leave Craft for a feature list. They leave because clients ask for three things the core does not have: a visual page builder, a SOC 2 or ISO 27001 report, and a quieter security feed after a 2025 flaw rated 10.0 compromised about 300 sites.
- Money is not the problem. Craft publishes every price except Enterprise, licenses are perpetual, the $99 yearly renewal is optional and a 15 percent nonprofit discount is on the site. Several alternatives here cost more, so be sure you are leaving for the right reason.
- Craft 6, the Laravel rewrite, ships in the fourth quarter of 2026, and Craft 5 is supported through the end of 2031. Nobody is being forced off. Treat the rewrite as a moment to decide, not a deadline.
- Marketers want to click on the page. Storyblok, Webflow, Drupal CMS and Prismic give them that today; Sanity and Payload CMS give them whatever the developers build, which is what they have now.
- Procurement decides more deals than developers do. Craft's trust page returns a 404, and HIPAA and payment card data are prohibited by contract. Storyblok and Sanity hold SOC 2 reports and Umbraco holds ISO 27001; the open-source options hold nothing of their own.
Our picks at a glance
StoryblokVisual editing, published prices, nothing to run.
SanityContent as code, generous free tier.
WebflowDesigner canvas, real-time collaboration, testing.
PrismicSlices for editors from $10 a month.
UmbracoFree core, published cloud tiers, ISO 27001.
Payload CMSTyped models, no feature paywalls.
Our analysts’ take
Craft CMS is the PHP CMS agencies choose when the content model matters. Matrix nests real entries, 26 field types ship in the core, multi-site and field-level localization across more than 100 locales are built in, and the GraphQL API comes with a bundled query explorer. Documentation and local development with DDEV are as polished as any in the market, Craft Commerce 5 runs up to five stores per install, and Craft Cloud turns a self-hosted site into a serverless one. Agencies building bespoke, content-rich sites for clients who trust their developer should probably stay.
The agencies that look elsewhere are usually answering a client. The first ask is a visual editor: Craft is form-based with a side-by-side Live Preview, and a marketer cannot create a layout or rearrange a rendered page without a developer and a Twig template. The second is paperwork. Pixel & Tonic holds no SOC 2, ISO 27001, PCI DSS or HIPAA certification, craftcms.com/trust returns a 404, and a December 2025 pledge to pursue certification has produced nothing procurement can act on. The third is the security feed: a 2025 remote code execution flaw rated 10.0 compromised about 300 sites, and critical releases continued through 2026. Add no real-time collaboration, no personalization and per-project licenses that multiply across a portfolio, and the shortlist writes itself.
This guide rates eight realistic destinations. Three are managed headless platforms with visual or structured editing for marketers. One is a visual site builder. Three are open-source CMSs on PHP and .NET, and one is an open-source TypeScript CMS. The ratings lean equally on marketer self-service and on security and compliance, because those are the two client asks that drive the move, then on budget predictability and upkeep, because Craft set a high bar on both.
What to look for
- 1
Marketers edit without a ticket
Craft clients file a ticket for every new layout. In each trial, have a marketer build a landing page from existing components and change one. Storyblok, Webflow and Drupal CMS show the rendered page; Sanity and Payload CMS show whatever the developers built.
- 2
Paperwork procurement will accept
List what the client's security team asks for: SOC 2, ISO 27001, a data processing agreement, data residency. Ask each vendor for the documents. Open-source software cannot hold them, so for WordPress, Drupal CMS, Umbraco and Payload CMS the host's certificates are the answer.
- 3
Pricing as honest as Craft's
Craft publishes overage rates most vendors hide. Hold the alternatives to that: which plan carries single sign-on, roles and workflows, and what the price is at double the traffic. Prismic, Storyblok and Sanity publish all of it below Enterprise.
- 4
Content modeling that survives the move
Matrix, Content Blocks and field-level localization are why you chose Craft. Export an entry with nested blocks and two locales and import it into each trial. Sanity, Storyblok and Payload CMS keep the structure; Webflow and WordPress flatten some of it.
- 5
Who runs it after launch
Craft Cloud or a managed host handles upgrades today. Managed platforms patch themselves. WordPress, Drupal CMS, Umbraco and Payload CMS come with an upgrade and advisory calendar, so decide who owns it before the price comparison decides for you.
The ratings at a glance
Ranked by Fit score for this topic. Dots run from one (Limited) to five (Excellent); each review below spells the ratings out.
| Platform | Fit | Self-service | Compliance | Budget | Upkeep | Speed | AI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1Storyblok | 7.0/10 | Strong | Good | Good | Fair | Strong | Good |
| 2Sanity | 6.9/10 | Good | Good | Good | Fair | Good | Good |
| 3Webflow | 6.7/10 | Strong | Good | Fair | Fair | Good | Good |
| 4Prismic | 6.2/10 | Good | Fair | Good | Good | Strong | Limited |
| 5Umbraco | 6.2/10 | Fair | Fair | Strong | Fair | Good | Limited |
6 WordPress | 6.1/10 | Good | Fair | Strong | Fair | Good | Fair |
7 Drupal CMS | 6.0/10 | Good | Fair | Good | Fair | Fair | Fair |
| 8Payload CMS | 5.8/10 | Fair | Fair | Strong | Fair | Strong | Limited |
- 1Storyblok7.0/10
- Marketer self-service
- Strong
- Security & compliance
- Good
- Budget predictability
- Good
- Low IT upkeep
- Fair
- Speed to launch
- Strong
- AI for marketers
- Good
- 2Sanity6.9/10
- Marketer self-service
- Good
- Security & compliance
- Good
- Budget predictability
- Good
- Low IT upkeep
- Fair
- Speed to launch
- Good
- AI for marketers
- Good
- 3Webflow6.7/10
- Marketer self-service
- Strong
- Security & compliance
- Good
- Budget predictability
- Fair
- Low IT upkeep
- Fair
- Speed to launch
- Good
- AI for marketers
- Good
- 4Prismic6.2/10
- Marketer self-service
- Good
- Security & compliance
- Fair
- Budget predictability
- Good
- Low IT upkeep
- Good
- Speed to launch
- Strong
- AI for marketers
- Limited
- 5Umbraco6.2/10
- Marketer self-service
- Fair
- Security & compliance
- Fair
- Budget predictability
- Strong
- Low IT upkeep
- Fair
- Speed to launch
- Good
- AI for marketers
- Limited
- 6WordPress6.1/10
- Marketer self-service
- Good
- Security & compliance
- Fair
- Budget predictability
- Strong
- Low IT upkeep
- Fair
- Speed to launch
- Good
- AI for marketers
- Fair
- 7Drupal CMS6.0/10
- Marketer self-service
- Good
- Security & compliance
- Fair
- Budget predictability
- Good
- Low IT upkeep
- Fair
- Speed to launch
- Fair
- AI for marketers
- Fair
- 8Payload CMS5.8/10
- Marketer self-service
- Fair
- Security & compliance
- Fair
- Budget predictability
- Strong
- Low IT upkeep
- Fair
- Speed to launch
- Strong
- AI for marketers
- Limited
The shortlist, reviewed
Storyblok
The headless CMS that answers the visual editor request. Marketers click components on the rendered page, drag them into place and insert new ones, nestable structured content holds a Craft-grade model, and FlowMotion adds workflow automation with approval routing. SCIM provisioning and scoped access tokens arrived in May 2026.
- Best for
- Agencies on Next.js, Nuxt or Astro whose clients want to see and edit the page, on a managed service with EU data residency.
- Watch out for
- Feature gating is aggressive: single sign-on, release management and new features land on quote-only Premium and Elite plans first, and the jump from Growth to Growth Plus is steep.
- What it costs
- Starter is free; Growth is $99 a month and Growth Plus $349 a month, with usage add-on packs. Premium and Elite are quote-only.
Sanity
The developer's content platform. Content models are code, Portable Text stores rich text as structured data, GROQ queries it, and the hosted store, image pipeline and Studio need no backend. Two official MCP servers and guides for every major agent framework lead the category.
- Best for
- Developer-led agencies and product teams that liked Craft for its content model and want the same depth with no server and a free tier for small clients.
- Watch out for
- Marketers depend on how developers customize the Studio. Single sign-on, custom roles, Content Releases and the audit trail are Enterprise-only, and a 2026 Portable Text bug lost data.
- What it costs
- Free plan, Growth at $15 per seat per month (viewers free), Enterprise quote-only.
Webflow
The visual builder for design-led agencies. The Designer edits layout, CSS classes, Grid and animations on the canvas, Edit Mode lets clients change content in place, real-time collaboration is on for every plan, and Optimize adds A/B testing. Webflow Cloud and the MCP 2.0 server arrived in 2026.
- Best for
- Agencies producing brand and campaign sites for marketing clients who never want a developer in the loop again.
- Watch out for
- Everything lives in a proprietary format, code export strips CMS content and secondary locales, there is no GraphQL endpoint, and search, asset management and video are thin.
- What it costs
- Published. Site plans from $15 per month, Premium at $25 per month (annual), seats from $15 to $39 per month.
Prismic
The lowest-cost managed option for a marketing site. Developers build slices, editors arrange them in the Page Builder with live preview, images serve through imgix, and Slice Machine regenerates TypeScript types with every model change. A Next.js team reaches a working query in under an hour.
- Best for
- Small agencies delivering repeatable marketing sites across many clients on Next.js, Nuxt or SvelteKit.
- Watch out for
- No content validation at all, two workflow states, US-only data residency on every plan, no SOC 2 of its own, and an eight-locale cap that pushes multilingual sites to Enterprise.
- What it costs
- Free plan; Starter $10, Small $25, Medium $150 and Platinum $675 a month, each with published user, API and bandwidth limits. Enterprise is custom.
Umbraco
The open-source CMS for agencies willing to move from PHP to .NET. The MIT-licensed core carries multi-site, field-level language variants, revision history and scheduled publishing, Umbraco Cloud publishes flat monthly tiers, and Umbraco.AI connects about ten model providers with your own keys.
- Best for
- .NET agencies and in-house teams that want Craft's cost discipline and low lock-in on Microsoft's stack with ISO 27001 behind the vendor.
- Watch out for
- No real-time collaboration and the last save wins on conflicts, marketing and personalization need the paid Engage add-on, and there is no SOC 2 or HIPAA.
- What it costs
- Free software. Umbraco Cloud from €45 per month, Standard €280, Professional €730.
WordPress
The PHP CMS every client has heard of. About 60,000 free plugins, the largest talent pool of any CMS, page builders such as Elementor and Bricks for visual layout, and Yoast or Rank Math for SEO. WordPress 7 adds an AI foundation with an Abilities API and an MCP Adapter.
- Best for
- Agencies whose clients want a CMS any freelancer can maintain, on shared or managed hosting, with WooCommerce for the store.
- Watch out for
- Plugins make it the largest attack surface of any CMS, with 11,334 new ecosystem vulnerabilities in 2025. Structured content and asset management come from plugins, and there are no certifications.
- What it costs
- Free software. Shared hosting runs about $5 to $15 a month, managed WordPress hosting about $25 to $35 a month for a small site, plus plugins and whoever maintains it.
Drupal CMS
The packaged Drupal build with a page builder in the box. Canvas gives editors drag-and-drop composition with reusable page templates and a Brand Kit, the installer ships 22 site templates and a full SEO stack, and the content model offers unlimited custom types with more than 20 field types, free under the GPL.
- Best for
- Agencies serving government, higher education and nonprofit clients who need deep permissions, multilingual content and a visual editor without a license.
- Watch out for
- Composer-driven operations, 13 core security advisories in 2026, specialists at $80 to $250 an hour, and Canvas pages that moderation workflows do not yet cover.
- What it costs
- Free software. Budget for a managed Drupal host and a developer or agency; premium site templates are priced in the installer.
Payload CMS
The open-source CMS for agencies moving from PHP to TypeScript. Content models are typed code, three APIs include a Local API inside the Next.js app, and the MIT license holds back nothing: access control, versioning, localization and every API ship free. Figma has backed it since June 2025.
- Best for
- Engineering-led agencies building custom Next.js products that liked Craft's modeling and want it in TypeScript with no per-project license.
- Watch out for
- No managed hosting since Payload Cloud was discontinued, no certifications, no visual editing for marketers, and self-hosting means you own upgrades and uptime.
- What it costs
- Free open-source software with no paid feature tiers. Budget for your own hosting and a developer.
What a Craft agency is really being asked for
The request to leave Craft usually arrives from a client, not a developer. It comes in three forms, and each one points at a different part of this shortlist.
A visual editor
Craft's Live Preview pane is not on-page editing, and the Craft 6 roadmap does not add it. Storyblok and Webflow let marketers click the rendered page; Drupal CMS does it with Canvas; Prismic gives them slices to arrange. Sanity and Payload CMS keep the form-based model you have.
A compliance file
A client in finance, healthcare or the public sector asks for SOC 2 or ISO 27001 and Craft has neither. Storyblok and Sanity hold SOC 2 reports, Umbraco holds ISO 27001, and for every open-source option the answer is the host's certificates, which is also the answer you give today.
Fewer security releases to explain
Craft patches fast, three days for the 10.0 flaw, but every critical release is a client conversation. Storyblok, Sanity, Prismic and Webflow patch themselves. WordPress, Drupal CMS and Payload CMS move that conversation to a different vendor's advisory feed.
Questions to settle before you move clients
Is it one client or the whole book?
One client asking for a visual editor is a Storyblok or Webflow project. Every client asking for paperwork is a change of default stack. Decide which before you retrain the team.
Who hosts the new platform?
Craft Cloud bills $130 a month and runs everything. Storyblok, Sanity, Prismic and Webflow include hosting. WordPress, Drupal CMS, Umbraco and Payload CMS need a host and an upgrade owner, and Payload no longer offers its own.
Which plan carries the governance features?
Craft puts single sign-on on Enterprise and custom roles on Pro at $399. Sanity puts SSO, custom roles and releases on Enterprise, Storyblok puts SSO on Premium, Prismic has two workflow states on every plan. Get the plan name in writing.
How does content come out of Craft?
Since Craft 5.9.0 every element index exports to CSV, JSON, XML and other formats, content sits in MySQL or Postgres, and Feed Me handles the reverse. The work is rebuilding Matrix structures as the new platform's blocks or slices, not extracting the data.
What happens to Craft Commerce?
Craft Commerce 5 is a real store with multi-location inventory and up to five stores per install. None of the headless options here has a commerce engine; WordPress has WooCommerce, Webflow has Ecommerce plans, and Sanity connects to Shopify. Price the store separately.
Frequently asked questions
Why are agencies leaving Craft CMS?
Client requests, mostly. Craft has no visual page builder, so every layout change needs a developer. It holds no SOC 2, ISO 27001 or HIPAA certification, and its trust page returns a 404. A 2025 remote code execution flaw rated 10.0 compromised about 300 sites, and critical releases continued in 2026. Per-project licenses also add up across a portfolio.
What is the best alternative to Craft CMS?
Storyblok for agencies whose clients want to edit the rendered page, with published plans from $99 a month and SOC 2 behind it. Sanity for developer-led teams that want Craft-grade content modeling as code with a free tier and leading AI agent tooling. Webflow suits design-led shops and Umbraco suits .NET teams.
Is Craft CMS going away with Craft 6?
No. Craft 6 is a rewrite on Laravel shipping in the fourth quarter of 2026, and Craft 5 is a long-term support release maintained through the end of 2031. Nobody is forced to migrate. Pixel & Tonic publishes every price except Enterprise, and a lapsed license keeps running on the last licensed version.
What is the cheapest alternative to Craft CMS?
WordPress, Drupal CMS, Umbraco and Payload CMS are free open-source software on your own hosting, as Craft's Solo edition is. Among managed platforms, Prismic starts at $10 a month, Sanity at $15 per seat and Storyblok at $99, each with a free tier that covers a small client site. Craft Pro at $399 per project with a $99 renewal is not expensive by comparison.
How do you migrate content out of Craft CMS?
Craft 5.9.0 added native export to CSV, JSON, XML and other formats from every element index, and content lives in a standard MySQL or PostgreSQL database. Every platform here has an import API. The effort is in mapping Matrix and Content Block structures to the new platform's components and rebuilding Twig templates as a new front end.
How we rated these platforms
Each rating combines the relevant criteria from our independent scorecards into a five-point scale. The Fit score blends the ratings below, weighted for this topic, into one number out of 10. Ratings are recalculated whenever a scorecard is updated, so the order above always reflects current evidence. The written analysis was last reviewed on October 3, 2026.
Scorecards and platform inclusion are unsponsored: no vendor pays to appear in this guide or to change a rating. Full criteria, weights and evidence are in the methodology and on each platform’s scorecard. Spotted something out of date? Tell us.
Still deciding?
Answer seven questions for a shortlist built around your team, or put the top two side by side.