On a headless build the CMS is where your team spends its time for the next three years. That makes editing experience worth more than any feature comparison.
Sanity
Modelling is code. Schemas live in your repository, version-controlled and reviewed like anything else. Powerful, and it means a content model change is a developer task.
The Studio is customisable. You can build an editing interface that fits the content rather than accepting a generic one. This is the strongest argument for it.
GROQ is its query language. Excellent once learned, and one more thing to learn.
Pricing scales on usage and is generous at the low end.
Contentful
Modelling is a UI. A non-developer can add a field. Faster to change, easier to make a mess of.
Mature and enterprise-shaped. Roles, permissions, environments, localisation workflows. If you have a content team with approval processes, this is built for it.
Pricing rises steeply with seats and spaces, and it is the common complaint.
| Sanity | Contentful | |
|---|---|---|
| Content modelling | In code | In a UI |
| Editor customisation | Extensive | Limited |
| Localisation | Capable | Strong, enterprise-shaped |
| Permissions and workflow | Lighter | Mature |
| Cost at scale | More predictable | Rises steeply |
| Suits | Product-led teams with developers | Content teams with process |
The question that actually decides it: who adds a new page type? If the answer is a developer, Sanity. If it needs to be a marketer without a deploy, Contentful.
What matters more than the choice
Where the boundary sits. Products, prices and inventory come from Shopify. Editorial content comes from the CMS. Deciding which system owns what — and never duplicating — is the design decision that determines whether the build stays maintainable.
The failure mode we see most is product content drifting into the CMS, so a price or a description exists in two places and one of them is wrong.
Talk it through
Tell us who needs to edit what.
That answer picks the CMS more reliably than any feature comparison, and it is the question most headless projects skip.
Talk it throughA real read within one business day — not a sales call.
About the author
Manpreet Singh
Founder of Proscube. Leads the studio's Shopify, headless and CRO engineering, and works directly with founders rather than through account managers.
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