A true data-driven, real-world breakdown of Directus vs Strapi from the implementation experts who build it.
Reviewed October 2026 · 184 criteria · 10 categories · View methodology →
Both brands use a similar color, so Strapi is shown in a contrasting accent on this page.
Choose Directus if you want an editorial interface and API over a SQL database you already own, with field and row level permissions and stronger built-in AI tools. Choose Strapi if you want an MIT license with no seat caps, a larger community and scheduled releases for editors. Neither offers personalization or testing. The choice mostly depends on whether Directus's new license fits you: free for 3 seats, then $499 a month for SSO and custom permissions.
A high-level view of how the two platforms compare across key areas.
| Area | Directus | Strapi |
|---|---|---|
| Licensing | Source-available MSCL license since June 2026: the free tier caps seats, and SSO and custom permissions need the $499 per month Team plan. | The Community edition is MIT licensed and free with unlimited users; SSO costs $150 a month plus $50 per user on Growth. |
| Data model | Wraps existing SQL tables with real foreign keys, including polymorphic relations, so your data stays intact if you remove it. | Defines its own schema in code with components and dynamic zones; since October 2026 renaming a field keeps its data. |
| Permissions | Policy-based permissions reach individual fields and rows, using filters and variables such as the current user. | Community roles control access per content type; field level and condition based rules are Enterprise only. |
| Publishing control | No native scheduling or release bundles; a cron-triggered Flow polls a date field and counts against the plan's Flow cap. | Releases on paid plans bundle entries across content types and locales and publish them together, manually or on a schedule. |
| Collaboration | Shows who is viewing an item, locks fields while someone edits them and supports comments with @mentions. | Core has no presence, comments or co-editing, so concurrent saves are last write wins. |
| AI for editors | A built-in AI Assistant drafts and rewrites copy, and Translate with AI fills every locale using a glossary and style guide. | Strapi AI generates schemas, alt text and translations on save, but offers no native text generation or rewriting. |
Both vendors publish their prices. Strapi splits the bill in two. The Community edition is free under MIT, a Growth license is $45 a month with 3 users and $15 per extra user, and Strapi Cloud hosting is $35, $90 or $450 per project a month with published overage rates. Directus publishes a ladder: free self-hosted Core, Core Cloud at $99 a month, Team at $499 a month on annual terms or $599 monthly, and Enterprise quote only. Directus limits are hard caps that pause services rather than bill overages.
Both are cheap to host yourself: roughly $10 to $25 a month for Strapi, and $20 to $100 for a typical self-hosted Directus. Developer rates sit near generalist web levels for both. The real multi-year difference is the step from free to paid. A Directus team that outgrows 3 seats or needs SSO jumps to about $6,000 a year, unless it qualifies for the Open Innovation Grant. Strapi teams pay only for the features they add, though Review Workflows, Audit Logs and support with response times are Enterprise and quote only.
Both are Node.js and TypeScript backends on PostgreSQL or MySQL, self-hosted with Docker or run on the vendor's cloud. Directus Cloud provisions in about 90 seconds and Strapi scaffolds locally with one command. Either gets a developer to a working API in under 30 minutes, and one developer can ship a production project on either. Strapi has slightly more familiar concepts and an official starter monorepo covering Next.js, Astro, Nuxt and TanStack Start. Directus has starters for Next.js, Nuxt, Astro and SvelteKit, plus schema snapshot and diff tools for promoting changes between environments.
Operations differ more. Directus Cloud runs across multiple availability zones with auto-scaling and a global CDN, while self-hosted Strapi leaves scaling, CDN and monitoring to your team. Directus had a heavy run of security advisories in 2026, removed two endpoints in a minor release, and its v12 upgrade forced licensing and SSO changes. Strapi ships weekly and disclosed five vulnerabilities in May 2026, two of them critical, with none since. Neither offers native application monitoring for self-hosted installs.
Neither is a marketing platform. Both lack segments, A/B testing, recommendations and visitor profiles, so personalization and experiments must run in outside tools. Editors build pages from structured blocks: Strapi's dynamic zones, or the page model in Directus's official starter with visual editing. On Strapi, new content types and layouts need a developer, and click-to-edit Live Preview requires a paid plan and does not work with GraphQL frontends.
Day to day editing suits different teams. Strapi gives campaign teams Releases that publish many entries together on a schedule. Directus gives editors live presence, field locking and comments, but scheduling needs a developer-built Flow. Strapi has official Shopify and BigCommerce product pickers; Directus has no commerce connector. For several brands, Directus can serve them from one instance using row level rules, as one gaming group does for 3 brands in 5 markets. Strapi recommends a separate instance per brand, with nothing shared between them.
Directus has the deeper editor tooling. Its AI Assistant in the Data Studio drafts, rewrites and writes SEO descriptions from reusable prompts, and Translate with AI fills every locale at once with a glossary and style guide. Administrators bring their own OpenAI, Anthropic or Gemini keys on every tier, though self-hosted model endpoints are Enterprise only. Strapi AI focuses on schema generation, alt text, captions and translation on save, billed as credits on Growth. Bringing your own key arrived for Strapi Enterprise in October 2026.
Both ship an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server, so agents such as Claude or Cursor can read and write content. Directus adds OAuth 2.1 consent, so an agent acts as a real user under that user's permissions, and every action lands in the activity log. Strapi's server is free and lets plugins register their own permission-checked tools, which suits developers building custom agent tooling. Strapi records agent actions in Audit Logs, but only on Enterprise.
These are separate products from separate vendors, not editions of one another, and both keep content in standard SQL databases, so neither traps your data. Moving is still a backend rebuild. Directus maps to your existing tables, while Strapi wants its schema defined as its own content types, so the model has to be recreated and the data imported. Permissions, automation Flows or plugins, webhooks and any agent setup must be rebuilt, and frontends need new queries because filter syntax differs, even though both offer REST and GraphQL.
Since the June 2026 license change, some Directus self-hosters have forked older versions or moved to Strapi or Payload. That move makes sense for teams hitting the seat cap who do not rely on row level permissions. Teams that depend on Directus's permission depth, single-instance multi-brand setups or AI governance should price the Team plan before migrating. Strapi teams rarely gain enough to switch, unless they need an editorial interface over a database they already run.
Use the detail to test the tradeoffs that matter to your team.
Content Modeling, Authoring, Collaboration & Governance, Content Delivery
“Native collaborative editing (since 11.15) shows who is viewing an item and applies smart field-level locking across collections, files and relations, with changes broadcast live.”
“Core Strapi has no presence indicators, co-editing, comments or mentions; concurrent saves are last-write-wins.”
Personalization & Experimentation, Search & Discovery, Commerce, Analytics & Insights, Multi-site & Global Operations, Digital Asset Management, Page Building & Site Delivery, Marketing & Engagement, Platform Services
API & Integration, Security & Compliance, Infrastructure & Reliability, Developer Experience
Release Cadence, Ecosystem & Community, Market Signals
Licensing, Implementation Cost Signals, Operational Cost Signals
Learning Curve, Implementation Complexity, Team & Talent
Upgrade & Patching, Operational Overhead, Support & Resolution
Marketing Sites, Commerce, Intranet & Internal, Multi-Brand / Multi-Tenant
Data Privacy & Regulatory, Security Certifications, Data Governance, Platform Accessibility
AI Content Creation, AI Workflow Automation, AI Search & Personalization, AI Platform & Extensibility
Every score on this page is backed by written reasoning and cited evidence. Open any criterion to read it. Scores follow public evidence only; vendor membership never affects them.
Not in the MIT sense. Since June 2026 Directus uses the source-available MSCL license with active key enforcement. Self-hosted Core stays free for commercial use but is capped at 3 seats, has no SSO and ignores custom permission rules. Each version later converts to GPLv3. Strapi's Community edition remains MIT licensed with unlimited users.
Directus can. Row level rules on a tenant field let one instance serve several brands with shared and brand-specific content, and one gaming group runs 3 brands in 5 markets this way. Strapi recommends one instance per brand or client, so users, content models and governance stay separate and shared content needs custom syncing.
Neither clears strict procurement on its own. Both clouds hold SOC 2 Type II reports, but neither has its own ISO 27001, a HIPAA business associate agreement or an accessibility conformance report for the admin interface. Strapi publishes a GDPR data processing addendum, while Directus offers one only on Enterprise Cloud. Regulated buyers usually self-host and carry compliance themselves.
Yes. Strapi Community is free under MIT with unlimited users and usage, though the free Strapi Cloud plan closed in 2026. Directus Core is free to self-host for up to 3 seats, and organizations under $5M revenue and 50 employees get the full platform, including SSO, free through the Open Innovation Grant.
Directus is built for it. It reads existing PostgreSQL, MySQL or SQLite tables and exposes them over REST and GraphQL without migration, and removing it leaves the tables intact. Strapi creates and manages its own schema from the content types you define, so existing data is normally imported rather than wrapped.
Directus scores higher on overall suite capability (53 vs 50). Directus wins 3 of the 10 scoring categories and Strapi wins 5, with 2 too close to call. Choose Directus if you want an editorial interface and API over a SQL database you already own, with field and row level permissions and stronger built-in AI tools. Choose Strapi if you want an MIT license with no seat caps, a larger community and scheduled releases for editors. Neither offers personalization or testing. The choice mostly depends on whether Directus's new license fits you: free for 3 seats, then $499 a month for SSO and custom permissions.
Strapi scores higher on total cost of ownership (74 vs 64), which weighs licensing, implementation cost and running cost; a higher score means lower cost for what you get. Confirm current pricing with each vendor.
Strapi scores higher on build simplicity (71 vs 69), which covers the learning curve, implementation complexity and how easy it is to hire for. Strapi scores higher on operational ease (51 vs 46), which covers upgrades, day to day overhead and vendor support.
Directus and Strapi are level on fit for marketing sites (36 vs 37), which looks at how well each platform serves campaign pages, landing pages and editor self-service.
Directus scores higher on AI enablement (48 vs 39), which covers AI content creation, workflow automation, AI search and personalization, and how open the platform is to your own AI tools.
