Best CMS for Astro in 2026: 10 options compared

Astro is a web framework built for content sites. It renders pages to HTML on the server or at build time and ships JavaScript only for the interactive parts of a page. That makes it a good fit for marketing sites, blogs, docs, and resource libraries, which is most of what a B2B SaaS company publishes.

The framework changed a lot in 2026. In January, the Astro team joined Cloudflare, and the project stayed MIT-licensed and open to any hosting platform. Astro 6 shipped on 10 March 2026 with a rebuilt dev server on the Vite Environment API, a Fonts API, a Content Security Policy API, and live content collections. Live collections fetch content when a page is requested, so editors can see their changes without waiting for a rebuild.

Astro does not include a CMS. Content lives in Markdown files in your repository or comes from an external source through the content layer and its loaders. Once marketers need to publish without opening a pull request, you need to pick a CMS. The options fall into three groups:

• API-first headless CMS platforms such as Storyblok, Sanity, DatoCMS, and Contentful, which store content in the vendor's cloud and deliver it over an API.
• Git-based CMS tools such as CloudCannon, TinaCMS, Keystatic, and Decap, which give editors a friendly interface while content stays as files in your repository.
• Self-hosted application CMS platforms such as Payload and the new EmDash, which run as code you deploy and control.

We build marketing sites for SaaS companies on Astro, Next.js, and headless CMS platforms at StaticMania. This list ranks the 10 CMS options we would consider for an Astro marketing site in 2026, with notes on how each one works with Astro, current pricing, and where each one falls short. If you are still choosing between frameworks, our guides to static site generators and the best CMS for Next.js cover the wider picture.

Best CMS for Astro at a glance

• Storyblok: best visual headless CMS for marketing teams that build pages from components.
• Sanity: best for structured content and custom editorial workflows.
• CloudCannon: best Git-based visual editor, and Astro's featured CMS partner.
• TinaCMS: best open-source Git-based CMS with visual editing on Astro.
• Payload: best open-source, self-hosted TypeScript CMS for teams that want full control.
• DatoCMS: best API-first CMS for multilingual sites with strong image and video handling.
• Contentful: best for enterprises that need governance across many brands and channels.
• EmDash: best new full-stack CMS that runs inside your Astro project.
• Keystatic: best free option for developer-led teams that want content as files.
• Decap CMS: best free, minimal admin for simple Markdown blogs.

1. Storyblok: best visual headless CMS for marketing teams

Best for: SaaS marketing teams that want to build and rearrange landing pages from components, with a live preview of the real site.

Storyblok is an API-first headless CMS built around a visual editor. Developers define reusable blocks, such as a hero, a pricing table, or a logo wall, and map each block to an Astro component. Marketers then assemble pages from those blocks and see the result in a live preview of the actual site. We covered the platform in our Storyblok CMS review and compared it with other API-first options in Sanity vs Contentful vs Storyblok.

How it works in practice

Storyblok maintains an official Astro integration, @storyblok/astro. You register your block components in the Astro config, and the StoryblokComponent helper renders whatever blocks an editor has placed on a page. The storyblokEditable helper adds the attributes that let editors click an element in the preview and jump to its fields.

You can run the site in two ways. A static build with a webhook that triggers a rebuild on publish keeps hosting simple and cheap. A server-rendered build, or a separate preview deployment in server mode, gives editors instant updates in the visual editor. Many teams use both: a static production site and a server-rendered preview environment for editing.

Storyblok hosts content in the EU by default, with a US region available, which helps European companies with data residency questions.

Main features

• Visual editor with click-to-edit on a live preview of your Astro site
• Component-based content model that maps blocks to Astro components
• Official Astro integration with helpers for rendering and live editing
• Field-level localization and multiple locales on paid plans
• Custom workflows, releases, and A/B testing on Premium and Elite

Pricing

Storyblok has a free Starter plan with 1 seat (up to 2 at $15 per extra seat), 100,000 API requests, 20,000 stories, and 2 locales. Growth costs $99 a month for 5 seats (up to 10 at $15 each), 1 million API requests, and 25,000 stories. Growth Plus costs $349 a month for 15 seats, 4 million API requests, 100,000 stories, and 10 locales. Premium and Elite are custom-priced and add SSO, A/B testing, releases, custom workflows, and the GraphQL API. Each new space starts with a 45-day Growth Plus trial.

Pros and cons

2. Sanity: best for structured content and custom workflows

Best for: Teams with large or complex content models, such as integrations directories, docs, and multi-product sites, and developers who want to customize the editing interface.

Sanity is a content platform that stores content as structured data in its hosted Content Lake. The editing interface, Sanity Studio, is a React application that you configure in code, so developers can shape the fields, previews, and workflows around how the marketing team works. Our Sanity CMS review goes deeper on the editor.

How it works in practice

Sanity maintains @sanity/astro, which you add with npx astro add @sanity/astro @astrojs/react. It exposes a sanity:client module for querying content with GROQ, Sanity's query language. You can embed Sanity Studio on a route inside your Astro site through the studioBasePath option, so editors log in at a path such as /admin on the same domain as the site.

Rich text is stored as Portable Text, a JSON format that you render with the astro-portabletext package. That keeps content portable, but it means developers write a renderer for custom blocks.

Visual editing works through Sanity's Presentation tool and @sanity/astro/visual-editing. It requires server-rendered pages, so plan for a server-rendered preview build if editors want click-to-edit. Sanity also has an experimental loader for Astro content collections, which is worth testing but not yet something we would build a production site around.

Main features

• Structured content stored as data, queried with GROQ or GraphQL
• Sanity Studio, a fully customizable React editing interface
• Official Astro integration with an embeddable Studio route
• Visual editing with Presentation on server-rendered pages
• Real-time collaboration, comments, scheduled drafts, and AI Assist on paid plans

Pricing

Sanity's Free plan includes 20 seats, 2 roles, 2 public datasets, 10,000 documents, 1 million CDN requests, and visual editing. Growth costs $15 per seat per month for up to 50 seats, with 25,000 documents, comments, scheduled drafts, AI Assist, and pay-as-you-go overages. Self-serve plans are billed monthly. Enterprise is custom-priced and adds SSO and higher limits. Sanity runs a startup program that gives eligible companies a year of Growth for free.

Pros and cons

3. CloudCannon: best Git-based visual editor for Astro

Best for: Agencies and marketing teams that want visual page editing while keeping all content as files in Git.

CloudCannon is a Git-based CMS with a visual editor. It is listed as the featured CMS partner in Astro's own CMS guide. Content stays as Markdown, MDX, and data files in your repository, and CloudCannon commits each edit back to Git. We reviewed it in our CloudCannon CMS review.

How it works in practice

CloudCannon connects to your repository and runs your real astro build on its own infrastructure. Your Astro content collections map to CloudCannon collections, and the schema can be generated from your Zod collection definitions, so the CMS and the site agree on the content model.

For visual editing, developers mark editable regions in Astro components with data-editable attributes. Editors then click text or images on the live page and change them in place. Page building works through arrays of components in front matter, and MDX components can be inserted through CloudCannon's Snippets feature. Branch-based workflows let editors work on a copy of the site and publish when it is reviewed.

The main limit is rendering mode. Visual editing needs a static build, so a fully server-rendered Astro site can use CloudCannon only as a headless content editor without the in-page view.

Main features

• Visual, in-page editing on your real Astro build
• Content stored as files in your Git repository
• Schema generation from Astro content collection definitions
• Component-based page building through front matter arrays and Snippets
• Branching, publishing workflows, and custom permissions on the Team plan

Pricing

The Standard plan costs $49 a month billed yearly or $55 monthly, with 3 users, unlimited sites, and visual editing. The Team plan costs $300 a month billed yearly or $350 monthly, with 15 users, branching, and custom permissions. Extra users cost $10 a month each. Enterprise is custom-priced and adds SSO. CloudCannon also has a Partner Lite plan at $10 a month for agencies, a 21-day trial, and migration services starting at $3,000.

Pros and cons

4. TinaCMS: best open-source visual editing for Astro

Best for: Developer teams that want open-source, Git-based content with visual editing for marketers.

TinaCMS is an open-source, Git-based CMS. Content lives as Markdown, MDX, or JSON in your repository, and Tina adds a GraphQL content API and a visual editing layer on top. In 2026, Astro became Tina's default recommended starter. We covered Tina in our article on the power of TinaCMS.

How it works in practice

Tina's Astro package, @tinacms/astro, adds visual editing without putting React in your page tree. It uses Astro islands and the tinaField() helper to connect elements on the page to their fields. You can add Tina to an existing Astro site with tinacms init, and the admin interface runs at /admin/index.html.

For full visual editing, the site needs output: 'server' with an adapter. Static sites can still use it by wrapping editable regions. Live refresh of an entry while editing requires Astro 6 or later, so older projects should upgrade first.

Content is stored in Git, and Tina Cloud handles authentication and the hosted content API. You can also self-host the backend if you want to avoid Tina Cloud.

Main features

• Visual editing on Astro pages through islands, without a React page tree
• Content stored as Markdown, MDX, or JSON in Git
• GraphQL API generated from your schema
• Open-source core with an optional self-hosted backend
• Editorial workflow and roles on paid Tina Cloud plans

Pricing

Tina Cloud has a Free plan with 2 users, unlimited projects, and 100 GB of bandwidth. Team costs $24 per project per month billed annually ($290 a year) or $29 monthly, with 3 users and up to 10. Business costs $249 a month billed annually ($2,990 a year) or $299 monthly, with 20 users. Enterprise is custom-priced and adds SSO. Tina's pricing page lists extra seat prices in two different ways, so confirm the per-seat cost with Tina before you budget for a large team.

Pros and cons

5. Payload: best open-source, self-hosted CMS

Best for: Engineering-led teams that want a TypeScript CMS they host and control, with room to grow into a backend for the product.

Payload is an open-source, MIT-licensed CMS and application framework written in TypeScript. You define collections and fields in code, and Payload generates the admin panel, a REST and GraphQL API, authentication, and access control. Payload joined Figma in June 2025. In October 2026, Figma announced Payload support inside Figma Make, with hosting free during the beta, and Payload reports that its downloads grew six times over.

How it works in practice

Payload runs on Node.js 20.9 or later with MongoDB, Postgres, or SQLite. Payload's admin panel is built on Next.js, so the usual Astro setup is two apps: Payload as the content backend and Astro as the frontend, fetching content through Payload's REST or GraphQL API, or the local API if they share a server. Payload publishes an official Payload and Astro example project, which Astro's docs link to, and there are one-click templates for deploying Payload to Vercel and Cloudflare.

New deployments on Payload Cloud are paused while the team works on what comes next, though existing Cloud projects keep running. For a new project, plan to host Payload yourself on a platform such as Vercel, Cloudflare, or your own server.

Main features

• Content model defined in TypeScript, with generated admin, APIs, and types
• Self-hosted on your own database and infrastructure
• Authentication, roles, and field-level access control
• Drafts, versions, localization, and live preview
• Enterprise add-ons such as SSO and visual editing

Pricing

Payload is free and open source. You pay for your own hosting and database. Payload Enterprise, which adds SSO, visual editing, and support, is priced by quote. Payload Cloud is not accepting new deployments at the time of writing, and Figma has not published pricing for Payload hosting after the Figma Make beta.

Pros and cons

6. DatoCMS: best for multilingual sites and media

Best for: European and global SaaS teams that publish in several languages and use a lot of images and video.

DatoCMS is an API-first headless CMS from Italy with a GraphQL content delivery API. It is known for its image and video pipeline, localization, and Structured Text field. Our DatoCMS review covers the platform in more detail.

How it works in practice

DatoCMS has official Astro documentation and an official Astro starter kit. You query content with the @datocms/cda-client package, and the docs cover draft previews, responsive images, video, Structured Text rendering, SEO metadata, and real-time updates. DatoCMS also supports visual editing and cache tags, which let a server-rendered Astro site purge only the pages affected by a content change.

The content model is built in the DatoCMS interface, with modular blocks for page building and per-field localization.

Main features

• GraphQL content delivery API
• Official Astro docs, client package, and starter kit
• Responsive images and video streaming built in
• Localization at the field level
• Visual editing, real-time updates, and cache tag invalidation

Pricing

DatoCMS has a Free plan with 300 records, 10 GB of traffic, and 100,000 API calls, with no overages allowed. Professional costs €149 a month billed annually or €199 monthly, with 10 collaborators, 100,000 records, and 1 TB of bandwidth. Enterprise is custom-priced. Agencies can join a partner plan starting at €39 a month.

Pros and cons

7. Contentful: best for enterprise governance

Best for: Larger companies running content across many brands, regions, and channels, with formal governance and procurement requirements.

Contentful is one of the oldest and largest API-first headless CMS platforms. It is built for structured content at scale, with environments, roles, workflows, and a large app marketplace. Our Contentful CMS overview covers the platform in detail.

How it works in practice

Astro's docs include a Contentful guide. You fetch entries with Contentful's JavaScript SDK or GraphQL API, render rich text with Contentful's rich text renderer, and trigger rebuilds through webhooks or serve pages on demand in server mode. There is no official Astro integration package from Contentful, so developers write a small data layer themselves.

Contentful is often a company-wide decision. If your organization already uses it for the product, the app, or other sites, an Astro marketing site can draw from the same content.

Main features

• Structured content with environments for testing changes
• REST and GraphQL APIs with a mature JavaScript SDK
• Roles, workflows, scheduled publishing, and live collaboration on paid plans
• Large marketplace of apps and integrations
• Personalization and AI features as separate products

Pricing

Contentful's Free plan includes 10 users, 2 roles, 2 locales, 100,000 API calls a month, and 50 GB of bandwidth, and Contentful's usage terms limit it to non-commercial use. The Lite plan costs $300 a month with 20 users, 3 roles, 3 locales, 1 million API calls, and 100 GB of bandwidth, plus scheduled publishing and comments. Overages on Lite are $5 per extra million API calls and $0.15 per extra GB. A larger Lite Space costs an extra $850 a month. Premium and enterprise plans are custom-priced.

Pros and cons

8. EmDash: best CMS that runs inside your Astro project

Best for: Developer teams on Cloudflare that want a free, full-stack CMS built on Astro itself, and are comfortable with a new project.

Cloudflare announced EmDash on 1 April 2026 as an MIT-licensed, full-stack TypeScript CMS built on Astro, and described it as a spiritual successor to WordPress. Version 1.0 shipped on 28 September 2026, and Cloudflare has moved its own blog to EmDash.

How it works in practice

EmDash runs as an integration inside your Astro project, so the site and the CMS are one application. The admin panel lives at /_emdash/admin. It requires Astro 6 or later, output: "server", and React. Content is stored in SQLite or Cloudflare D1, with media in R2, and pages read content through Astro's live content collections.

Login uses passkeys, rich text is stored as Portable Text, and EmDash includes a built-in API, CLI, and MCP server, so AI agents and scripts can work with content. Plugins run in sandboxed Worker isolates and are distributed through a registry built on the AT Protocol. First-party plugins are still at 0.x versions, so check plugin maturity before you rely on one.

Main features

• CMS and site in one Astro application
• Live content collections, with no rebuild on publish
• Passkey login and Portable Text rich text
• Built-in API, CLI, and MCP server
• Sandboxed plugins with an open registry

Pricing

EmDash is free and open source. You pay for hosting, which on Cloudflare means Workers, D1, and R2 usage.

Pros and cons

9. Keystatic: best free option for developer-led teams

Best for: Small teams and developers who want a clean editing interface over Markdown and data files, with no database and no monthly fee.

Keystatic is an open-source, Git-based CMS from Thinkmill. Content is stored as Markdown, Markdoc, MDX, YAML, or JSON files in your repository, and Keystatic gives editors a typed form interface on top.

How it works in practice

You can start a new project with npm create @keystatic@latest, or add @keystatic/core and @keystatic/astro to an existing site along with Astro's React and Markdoc integrations. The admin interface runs at /keystatic. You define collections and fields in a TypeScript config, and the content files work with Astro content collections, so your pages read content the same way they would without a CMS.

Keystatic can store content locally during development, in GitHub for editors working in production, or through Keystatic Cloud, which handles GitHub authentication for editors who do not have GitHub accounts.

There is no visual in-page editing. Editors work in forms and preview the site separately.

Main features

• Content stored as files in Git, with no database
• Typed schema in TypeScript
• Works with Astro content collections
• Local, GitHub, or Keystatic Cloud storage modes
• Cloud Images and experimental multiplayer editing on Keystatic Cloud Pro

Pricing

Keystatic is free and open source. Keystatic Cloud is free for up to 3 users per team. Pro starts at $10 a month plus $5 per extra user and adds Cloud Images and experimental multiplayer editing.

Pros and cons

10. Decap CMS: best free admin for simple Markdown blogs

Best for: Small sites and blogs where editors need a basic interface over Markdown files and the budget is close to zero.

Decap CMS, formerly Netlify CMS, is an MIT-licensed, Git-based CMS. It is a single-page admin app configured with one config.yml file. Decap is now maintained independently in the EU. Read our Decap CMS review for a closer look.

How it works in practice

Astro's docs include a Decap guide. You add an admin page to your public folder, describe your collections in config.yml, and connect a Git backend such as GitHub or GitLab. Editors log in, write in a Markdown editor with a preview pane, and Decap commits the change to the repository, which triggers a new build.

The editorial workflow mode creates a pull request for each draft, so changes can be reviewed before they go live. Decap is framework-agnostic, so it does not know about your Astro components, and the preview pane uses templates you write separately.

Main features

• Content stored as Markdown and data files in Git
• Configured in a single YAML file
• Editorial workflow with drafts and reviews through pull requests
• Works with GitHub, GitLab, and other Git backends
• Decap Turbo, an optional managed layer for hosting and authentication

Pricing

Decap CMS is free and open source. Decap Turbo, the managed service, is priced in euros and billed monthly. Its Free plan covers 1 site and 1 seat. Pro costs €19 a month for 1 site and 5 seats, with extra sites at €10 and extra seats at €6. Custom roles are a €19 add-on and priority support is €99. Enterprise is custom-priced, and Pro has a 14-day trial.

Pros and cons

How to choose a CMS for your Astro site

Start with who will publish. If marketers will build and rearrange landing pages every week, pick a CMS with visual editing. Storyblok is the strongest choice among API-first platforms, CloudCannon among Git-based tools, and TinaCMS if you want open source. If the content is structured and repeats across hundreds of entries, such as integrations, customer stories, or docs, Sanity or DatoCMS will model it better.

Then decide where content should live. Git-based tools such as CloudCannon, TinaCMS, Keystatic, and Decap keep content in your repository, which makes versioning and moving away easy. API-first platforms keep content in the vendor's cloud and scale better for large teams and many locales. Our guides to Git-based vs API-first CMS and the top Git-based CMS options explain the trade-offs.

Your Astro rendering mode decides which CMS features you can use:

• Sanity visual editing, TinaCMS full visual editing, and EmDash need server-rendered pages.
• CloudCannon visual editing needs a static build.
• Storyblok works with both, with live preview best on a server-rendered preview build.

A few more questions settle most decisions:

1. How many people need edit access, and what does each seat cost on the plan you would actually use?
2. Do you need localization, scheduled publishing, SSO, or approval workflows, and which plan includes them?
3. Will the site stay static, or will you need server rendering for previews, personalization, or gated content?
4. Who will host and update the CMS if you pick a self-hosted option such as Payload or EmDash?
5. If you switch CMS in three years, how easily can you export your content?

If you run a European company, check where content is hosted. Storyblok hosts in the EU by default, and DatoCMS and Decap are EU-based. Prismic, which we use for the StaticMania site, can work with Astro through its JavaScript client, but Prismic does not maintain an official Astro integration, so we left it out of this ranking.

For more options, see our roundup of the best headless CMS for Jamstack. If you are starting a site from scratch, our list of the best Astro templates for 2026 can save setup time. If you are moving off a visual builder, our guide to Webflow alternatives compares hosted options with a custom Astro build.

Getting help with an Astro and headless CMS build

StaticMania is a web studio that builds marketing sites for SaaS companies on Astro, Next.js, and headless CMS platforms. We set up the content model, connect the CMS to your Astro components, configure previews and rebuilds, and migrate content and redirects from your current site, so your marketing team can publish without us. If you are planning an Astro site, you can see our services or get in touch to talk through which CMS fits your team.

Editorial note

This is an independent review by the StaticMania team. Rankings reflect our view of each CMS for Astro marketing sites at B2B SaaS companies, based on product documentation, public pricing pages, and our client work. Prices are listed as each vendor published them in November 2026, in US dollars or euros, and can change. Always check the vendor's pricing page before you buy.